Marsden, Samuel (1765–1838)

by A. T. Yarwood
This article was published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 2,
(MUP), 1967

 No aspects of Marsden's activities did more harm to his pastoral work or to his historical
character in Australia than his reputation for extreme severity as a magistrate. This was firmly set
by September 1800 when, in the course of an inquiry into a suspected Irish uprising, Judge
Advocate Richard Atkins and Marsden had a suspect flogged mercilessly in the hope of securing
information about hidden weapons. This particular action was scarcely defensible, but Marsden
was not the only magistrate who ordered the infliction of illegal punishments. His general
severity can be attributed to his high-mindedness, his passionate detestation of sin and his
conviction that Parramatta was such a sink of iniquity that morality could be preserved only by
the most rigorous disciplinary measures. For all that, the flogging parson, like the hanging judge,
is commonly regarded as an unattractive character.

Equally disturbing to Marsden's peace were the attacks he suffered from the Sydney Gazette,
which showed how much less saintly a figure he was in colonial than in English eyes. In March
1814 in a series of sarcastic letters he was taken to task for his failure to carry out what was said to
be a promise he had made to donors in England that he was collecting books to establish a
circulating library for adult education in the colony. Again, on 4 January 1817, an attacker,
sheltering behind the nom de plume Philo Free, suggested inter alia that the chaplain's interest
in the Pacific missions was aroused by hopes of material profits. In this case Marsden instituted
libel actions which resulted in the conviction of the governor's secretary and official censor of
the Gazette, John Thomas Campbell, who could only attempt to excuse his conduct as a natural
reaction to the chaplain's snub to Macquarie's efforts to civilize the Aboriginals.
Public dispute and official disapproval continued to be Marsden's lot under Macquarie's
successor.
 In August 1826 Bathurst told Governor Darling that in the Douglass affair Marsden's behaviour
was 'little becoming the character which he ought to maintain in the colony', and that in future
Marsden was to 'repress that vehemence of temper which has too frequently marked his conduct
of late, and which is as little suited to his Age, as it is to the profession to which he belongs'.
Nothing daunted, Marsden published a Statement, Including a Correspondence Between the
Commissioners of the Court of Enquiry, and the Rev. Samuel Marsden … (Sydney, 1828). This,
wrote Forbes, was 'a very incorrect account of the proceedings … Mr. Marsden seems to think
that all who may happen to differ in opinion with him, must be influenced by impure motives'.

http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/marsden-samuel-2433