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missionaries, with all trees and bread fruit pertaining thereto. On the extreme right are Mr and Mrs Henry, who remained at their post when the other missionaries left for Sydney, and, it is said, were killed and eaten''.
Others in the painting were William Wilson and Captain Wilson standing one on each side of young Thomas Hassall. In spite of Oakes' assertion, the other missionaries were not killed and eaten. Many of them remained on Tahiti for many years, while others came to New South Wales and some returned to England.
Rowland and Elizabeth Hassall had four sons and five daughters: Thomas Hassall who was born on 29 May 1794 and died on 29 March 1868 and who married Ann Marsden, eldest daughter of Reverend Samuel Marsden; Samuel Otoo Hassall who was born in 1796 and died in 1830 and who married Lucy Mileham; Jonathan Hassall who was born in 1798 and who married Mary Rouse; Mary Cover Hassall who was born in 1799 and died in 1825 and who married Reverend Walter Lawry; James Hassall who was born in 1802 and died in 1862 and who married Catherine Payne Lloyd; Eliza Cordelia Hassall who was born in 1804 and who married Reverend William Walker; Susanna Marsden Hassall who was born on 28 July 1806 and died on 15 August 1890 and who married on 6 February 1827, William Shelley; Ann Hassall who was born on 14 October 1808 and who married Robert Mackay Campbell; and Elizabeth Hassall who was born in 1810 and died in 1812.
Three of Rowland and Elizabeth Hassall's children were married in a triple wedding ceremony at St. John's, Parramatta on 22 November 1819: Samuel Otoo Hassall married Lucy Mileham; Jonathan Hassall married Mary Rouse; and Mary Cover Hassall married Reverend Walter Lawry ''The newlyweds heard four addresses that day - two from the minister, Mr Cross, and two from old Rowland. The patriarch of the Hassall clan composed some verses to the tune, ''Adoration'', which the happy Mary, so much in love with her 'good, pious Lawry', copied and sent to her brother Thomas''.109
All the sons engaged in rural pursuits although Thomas' main activity was that of minister of the Church of England.
Elizabeth Hassall died on 11 February 1834 at her son James' property, Mataval, and she was buried in the same grave as her husband in St John's Cemetary, Parramatta. It is a sandstone altar (2ft x 3ft x 6ft) on a sandstone plinth (31/2ins x 4ft x 6ft 1in). [Picture]
109 Ramsden, Eric, ''Triple Wedding, The Hassall Family in 1819'', Sydney Morning Herald, 7 July 1934.
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The inscription on it reads:
Sacred to the Memory of Mr. ROWLAND HASSALL one of the first missionaries appointed to the South Sea Islands after upwards of 22 years residence in this Colony walking in the Fear of God and the esteem of Good men He died in Peace on the 29th August 1820 in the 52nd year of his Age Also 3 days after was interred in the same vault with its grandfather The first born daughter of the Revd. WALTER & MARY LAURY Aged 13 days Also 5 days after its grandfather was interred in the same vault ROWLAND JAMES the First born son of Mr. SAML. OTOO & LUCY HASSALL Aged 12 days
Insatiate archer could not on suffice Thy shaft flew thrice and thrice our peace was slain And Thrice! Ere since yon moon had fill'd her horn
And the remains of the infant son of JONATHAN and MARY HASSALL who died January 8th 1828 Also ELIZ HASSALL relict of ROWd. HASSALL Who died 10th Feby. 1834 aged 65 110
Elizabeth Hassall's will, made out just four weeks before her death, honoured the wish of her husband by leaving the house at Parramatta to Thomas Hassall and dividing the Parramattaproperties named Burder Park, Hassall Farm, Bolger's Farm and David Farm - which had been combined into a single 365 acre property called Burder Park - between their children. Elizabeth Hassall directedb that his property be sub-divided into six lots, complete with roads and such, to be selected by the children in decending order of age. All her sheep and cattle were to be sold for the benefit of her daughters and granddaughters, but the first year's clip of wool from the flock was to be sold with hald the proceeds going to the London Missionary Society and the other half to her relatives back in England (brothers John and Abraham Hancox and two nieces, both named
110 Dunn, Judith, The Parramatta Cemetaries, St John's, Parramatta and District Historical Society, 1991, p.62.
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Elizabeth). Her stock of horses and money were to be divided equally among her children. A seven acre block of land in Macquarie Street, Parramatta was left to her son James while a plot of land bounded by Macquarie, George and Charles Streets in Parramatta (presumably part of the original house block) was to be held in trust by Thomas Hassall for the benefit of her granddaughters, Elizabeth Henrietta Walker and Susannah Matilda Ann Walker. The will was executed by her son, Thomas Hassall, and son-in-law, William Shelley. 111
111 Elizabeth Hassall's will as cited in Hassall, David J., ed., The Hassall Family, Celebrating two hundred years in Australia, 1798-1998, Hassall Family Bicentenary Association, Newport, 1998, p.56.
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CHILDREN OF ROWLAND AND ELIZABETH HASSALL112
1 THOMAS HASSALL [Picture] The Rev. Thomas Hassall, M.A. (Cantab.), From Watson J.H., ''Heber Chapel, Cobbity'' in Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol.14,1928
Thomas Hassall was baptised in Coventry on 29th May 1794 113 and accompanied his parents to Tahiti on the Duff. He is depicted with his mother and some of the missionaires in the front of Robert Smirke's painting The Cession of Mataval, completed in 1829 as a special gift to Captain Wilson the skipper of the Duff. Then Thomas would have been about three years old. After the family's arrival in Parramatta in 1798, Thomas was educated in Parramatta and received the best education avaliable at the time. When he left school he worked as a clerk in the offices of Robert Campbell and Captain James Birnie.114 In fact he was so well regarded by Birnie that in 1810 when Birnie left for a trip to South Africa, he left his business in the hands of the fifteen year old Thomas
112 Birth, Death and Marriage records of the descendants of Rowland and Elizabeth Hassall have been taken from retrospective publications in each state where possible. Grateful acknowledgement must be given to the huge work of Peter Proctor, The Annotated Hassall Children: Research of References, Canberra, 1998 from whose work many of these vital statistics were taken. 113 IGI. 114 Gunson, Niel, ''Hassall, Thomas (1794-1868)'' in Australian Dictionary of Biography 1788-1850, Vol.1, p.522.
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Hassall and Richard Jones.115 He was still working there in 1815 and his father had an account there. When Thomas notified his father of his intention to visit his family in May 1815 his father asked him to send up one dozen port and one dozen other wine beforehand so ''that we may be merry with our friends''.116 He had bought a house in Sydney which, by 1821 was causing him much concern because the rent it attracted was not enoughh to cover expenses.117
Thomas Hassall grew up in a devout and religious household and was clearly influenced by the missionary zeal of his father. He opened a Sunday School in his parents' house in May 1813, the first such school in Australia. A story is told about his first classes: ''...Thomas Hassall attended St. John's Church, Parramatta for divine service. At the conclusion of the service he went home and had lunch. After lunch he was reading an English church paper giving details of the starting of Sunday School work in England, at Sooty Alley, Gloucester, by Robert Raikes. He looked out the window of his home and noticed a number of boys playing in the paddock opposite. He thought it would be a good idea to gather them together and speak to them about the love of God. He invited them i and spoke to them, and after a while dismissed them. He thought that was the end of it, but on the following Sunday there was a knock at the door. When he opened it there stood before him the boys whom he had invited in the previous Sunday together with other boys. They asked Mr Hassall to tell them some more of his stories. He did so, and held a class each Sunday until it grew so large that it was transferred to St. John's Church of England, Parramatta''.118
The school grew rapidly and Hassall had to employ more teachers so wrote a manual, Requirements and rules for persons engaging themselves as teachers in the Parramatta Sunday school in 1816. This was printed by the Mission Press, which was set up in Rowland Hassall's George Street home. The Sunday School lasted for many years and grew to as many as 150 students and as time went by his younger sisters including Susannah and her friend, Elizabeth Oakes, were recruited as teachers. When Thomas Hassall returned from England later he examined the children of the Sunday School and then took them to his house and presented them with prizes ''Medals, book, tracts and other appropriate rewards, many of which were brought by Mr Hassall from England for the express purpose''.119 When the New South Wales Sunday School Institution was founded by his father and others in 1815, Thomas Hassall became its superintendent and secretary. The role of the dissenters in the movement was resented by Reverend Samuel Marsden who persuaded Hassall to move the Sunday school to St. John's Church and tried to pull Hassall away from the movement. A plaque commemorating the first Sunday School in Australia now stand on the site of Rowland Hassall's house, on the corner of George and Charles Streets.
115 Horwood, ?, ''James Birnie'', Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol.59, Pt.2, June 1973, p.100. 116 Hassal Correspondence, A1677-4, pp.45-6. 117 Ibid., A1677-4, p.695. 118 Gledhill, P.W., as cited in Blair, Eline and Pratten, Isabel, Rev. Thomas and Mrs Hassall, Queensland Women's Historical Association, p.14. 119 Sydney Gazette, 12 April 1822.
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