2 March 1844; Missionary John Watsford left Sydney with his wife in the Triton

The son of a convict, and borne in Australian in 1822, Missionary John Watsford rose to president of the General Conference of the Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1878. He had  the unusual position as of an Australian-born Wesleyan; most others were English-born. His father was pardoned convict. Appointed to the Wesleyan Mission in Fiji, age 24, Watsford left Sydney with his wife in the Triton on 2 March 1844. Taking two years to learn the language, he was stationed at Viwa, Lakemba and Nadi, where he established and taught in schools, held revival meetings, and dispensed medical aid.
Born on 5 December 1820 in Australia: John Watsford, Wesleyan minister, was born on 5 December 1820 at Parramatta, New South Wales, son of James Watsford and his wife Jane, née Johns. James had arrived in the colony in the Guildford in 1812, transported for life for horse-stealing.
Conversion: converted to Wesleyanism by Rev. S. Leigh, he was pardoned in 1826 and became coachman to H. H. Macarthur, but set up on his own as one of the first royal mail coachmen in New South Wales. John was educated at The King’s School, Parramatta, and later taught there. He was converted in 1838 at a prayer meeting conducted by Rev. D. Draper, and in 1841 was accepted by the British Wesleyan Conference as a probationer for the ministry. Because of lack of facilities he received no formal theological education, but at his ordination he was the first Australian-born minister of the conference.
14 children: On 8 February 1844 he married Elizabeth Jones at Windsor; they had seven sons and seven daughters, of whom James and Frederick became Wesleyan ministers and Emma married Rev. Benjamin Danks, pioneer missionary in New Britain.
Leaves on Triton on 2 March 1844: Appointed to the Wesleyan Mission in Fiji, Watsford left Sydney with his wife in the Triton on 2 March 1844. Taking two years to learn the language, he was stationed at Viwa, Lakemba and Nadi, where he established and taught in schools, held revival meetings, and dispensed medical aid. ” Because of illness among his family he returned to Australia to circuit work in the Moreton Bay District in 1850, but at the request of the Missionary Committee went back to Fiji in 1851 and with Rev. J. Calvert spent three years translating the New Testament into Fijian.
Returning to Sydney in December 1853, Watsford was appointed to circuits. An able administrator, in 1875 he was appointed general secretary of the newly formed Wesleyan Home Mission, of which he had been a chief founder, and he traversed Victoria raising funds to set up churches in the remote south-east and north-west. His election as president of the General Conference of the Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1878 reflected the wide respect he commanded.
http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A060387b.htm

Missionary David Cargill: biographical timeline

Wesleyan missionary David Cargill died in Tonga, age 34.  His first wife , Margaret, died age 30, in Fiji, after  the birth of her 6th child, over  7 years of marriage.

20 June 1809: David Cargill was born in Brechin, Forfarshire, Scotland on 20 June 1809, the second son of James Cargill, a banker, and Grace Mary Cameron Cargill.

1830: graduated MA. He graduated MA from King’s College, Aberdeen in 1830. Whilst studying in Aberdeen he joined the Aberdeen Methodist Circuit

1831:  admitted to the church as a preacher.

1832:   first missionary appointment for the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, to Tonga, in the South Pacific.

1832: He married Margaret Smith (1809-1840), of Aberdeen on 6 September 1832 in Old Machar parish, Aberdeen, and left the country with his wife in October that year. They worked together on Vava’u, Tonga with another missionary for three years, during an important period of Christian development and revival.

( date?) The Cargills then moved with their young family and other missionaries to the Fiji Islands, where Christian influence was minimal. Margaret died there on 2 June 1840, and David Cargill, griefstricken, returned to Britain for a short while with their four daughters.

27 November 1841: He remarried on 27 November 1841, to Augusta Bicknell, and shortly afterwards was re-appointed to a training mission on Tonga.

30 April 1842: Cargill, his new wife, four daughters and their governess sailed for Hobart, Tasmania, aboard the Haidee. His children became seriously ill with measles during the voyage, but survived;

11 August 1842:  his son David was born aboard ship on 11 August 1842. During the voyage Cargill preached to his fellow passengers; the ship arrived at Hobart in late August of 1842. Cargill preached at many settlements in Tasmania, including Port Arthur.

15th December 1842: Cargills again set sail, this time on board the Triton, bound for their final destination of Tonga.

21 January 1843 Triton arrived at Vava’u in Tonga : Cargill took over the superintendancy of the Vava’u Wesleyan mission from Peter Turner, and spent the next three months preaching at various mission stations, but was struck by dengue fever, leading to severe exhaustion. This illness, combined with continuing grief for the loss of his first wife, deepened the depression to which he was prone;

25 April 1843: died of an overdose of laudanum on.
http://www.mundus.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search?coll_id=1038&inst_id=52&keyword=Tonga

25 April 1843: did Wesleyan missionary David Cargill, die in Tonga, of a self-administered overdose of opium?

at http://19thcenturyartofmourning.com/19th_century_laudanum_bottle.htm
Two versions exist of the death of David Cargill; in one, he dies of smallpox, and , the other, an over dose of laudanum (liquid opium). Cargill’s diaries – and other reports of him – show he wore a high sense of self-importance. He was perhaps, at first, tempered by the mild manner and community-popularity of his first wife, Margaret. David Cargill married again; but remained obsessed with his first wife; a woman who appeared to require, and retain, a saintly patience. The possibility of suicide appears implied in reportage.
The smallpox death-theory: ‘Cargill set foot once again in Vavou on 21st February 1843. On 29th March he preached twice in Tonguese and once in English. Within a month he was dead, succumbing to smallpox on 25th April’. wrote J. Malcolm Bulloch, in June, 1921.

The Dengue fever theory : http://www.mundus.ac.uk reported  ‘Cargill took over the superintendancy of the Vava’u Wesleyan mission from Peter Turner, and spent the next three months preaching at various mission stations, but was struck by dengue fever, leading to severe exhaustion. This illness, combined with continuing grief for the loss of his first wife, deepened the depression to which he was prone; he died of an overdose of laudanum on 25 April 1843’.
http://www.mundus.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search?coll_id=1038&inst_id=52&keyword=Tonga
“Laudanum”: The common name for Tincture of Opium, and the form in which that drug is most frequently administered. . . It is narcotic, sedative, and being made with spirit, is also, to a certain extent, stimulant and anti-spasmodic. For relieving pain, wherever situated, to diminish irritation, and to procure sleep, it is the best of the medicines we possess.” (From: The Family Doctor, a Dictionary of Domestic Medicine and Surgery, by a Dispensary Surgeon. London, c.1860) More, Small pox reference: (J. Malcolm Bulloch, June, 1921.)An Aberdeen graduate as pioneer in Fiji by J Malcolm Bulloch from the Aberdeen University Review, June 1921 http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wordscape/Cargill/Aberdeen.html

1853: [Ma’afu] “has introduced order, proprietery and rule” wrote Lyth after the arrival of Ma’afu amd Sefanaia Laulua

‘Wesleyan missionary, Lyth wrote repeatedly to King George Tuopu of Tonga asking for his intervention to control the behavour of Tongans in Fiji. …Ma’afu played no particularly prominent role in in Fiji until 1853, when Tupou ,at the request of the missionaries, appointed him and Lualala (the former Vava’u rebel) jointly to govern the unruly Tongans in Fiji’. (p72)

Ma’afu feared by Cakobau: ‘From that time onwards Ma’afu became more important in Fijian affairs. He became involved in other chiefs’ quarrels and wars and sometime the presence of Tongan mission teachers gave him an opportunity to bring his warriors and impose his authority. By 1858, Ma’afu was possibly the most powerful man in Fifi, feared even by the great chief of Bau, Cakobau, who Europeans called Tui Viti, of King of Fiji’.

I.C . CAMPBELL, Island Kingdom: Tonga Ancient and Modern. Canterbury University Press. 1992. ISBN 0-098812-14-0

From July 1840 to July 1853 Thomas Williams served successively at Lakemba, Somosomo and Bua

‘Disillusioned by wars, cannibalism, widow-strangling and general opposition Williams broke down and left the mission, reaching Sydney with Rev. Walter Lawry in December 1853 after several months in New Zealand.

Ex-printer, Calvert aids publication: While in Fiji Williams developed an interest in ethnography, illustrating his material with detailed sketches. His manuscript ‘The Islands and their Inhabitants’ was taken to London in 1856 by his colleague James Calvert and edited by G. S. Rowe as Fiji and the Fijians, 1 (London, 1858), which is accepted as a classic account of Fijian society before the conversion of Cakobau, chief of Bau, in 1854. He also published Memoir of the Late Rev. John Hunt, Feejee.
http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A060438b.htm
Image;  Australasian Art Collection LINDSAY, Lionel Creswick, Victoria, Australia 1874 – Hornsby, New South Wales, Australia 1961 Reverend Thomas Williams Print, intaglio Technique: drypoint, printed in black ink, from one plate Support: paper Bequest of Alan Queale, 1982. Accn No: NGA 83.906 NGA IRN: 93032 Courtesy of the National Library of Australia
Provenance : Alan Queale, Brisbane. Bequeathed to the National Gallery of Australia by Alan Queale, Brisbane, 1982. Alan Queale Bequest accepted by the National Gallery of Australia, 1983.

24 May 1738: John Wesley’s conversion, while reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans was a foretaste of religious revivals at Vewa, Ono, Lakemba and Mbua Bay 100 years later

24 May 1738 was day and hour of John Wesley’s conversion, while reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans.  “It came, somewhat unexpectedly it would appear, at 8.45 on the evening of 24 May 1738 at a meeting in London of which he has left a definite record in his Journal: In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a Society in Aldersgate where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans.
I felt my heart strangely warmed: About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change that God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more especial manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all what I now first felt in my heart.
This was the day and hour of John Wesley’s conversion: Those who have made a study of his life and watched the development of his religious thought and feeling up to this time will not, perhaps, be able to see so much of the cataclysmic in this supernatural illumination as he and his followers did. The light which shone so brightly and warmly in his soul at that meeting had been smouldering for years, and was ready to burst into a blaze as soon as. the truth which he had been half blindly seeking was revealed to him through the words of Luther. He saw because, by that time, he was ready to see.
Sudden conversion a pattern of the culture: His experience at that little meeting was as much the final stage in a process of progressive illumination as it was a sudden revelation. But on the other hand it would, be a mistake to underrate the importance , of the crisis. It made a profound impression on his followers. They, like him, were accustomed to look back to a definite day on which their souls  found rest in the consciousness of a, change of heart. About the period of spiritual preparation when their souls were in labour for the coming of the great event they say comparatively little. It was the day and hour of.conversion or new birth on which they placed nearly all the emphasis.
Religious revivals in England under the preaching of Wesley: The accounts of the religious revivals in England under the preaching of Wesley and Whitefield must be read in the light that is thrown upon them by a study of the Romantic Revival. There were some strange happenings at these meetings, especially among the poor and uneducated violent emotions and brain storms j and it is clear from what he wrote at various places in his Journal that Wesley expected and welcomed these outward manifestations of inward conflict. Just as the missionaries looked for them in the religious revivals at Vewa, Ono, Lakemba and Mbua Bay. The more wicked the conscience-stricken one, the more violent did they expect the disturbance to be before a genuine conversion could be effected. Did he turn red or black in the face, bellow and roll upon the floor in agony, so much the better: sore travail of the soul was the prelude to spiritual newbirth. The result was a sharp cleavage in the ranks of the Church of England. Wesley saw this, but held on his course, passing from one innovation to another without any serious thought of severing his connexion with the Established Church”.
The Journal Of Thomas Williams, Missionary In Fiji, 1840-1853 By G. C. Henderson, M.a. (Oxon.) Emeritus Professor Of History, Adelaide University Author Of Sir George Grey : Founder Of Empire In Southern Lands, Fiji And The Fijians 18s5-1856 In Two Volumes Vol. I Australia Angus & Robertson Ltd,1931.  The manuscript is in the Mitchell Library, Sydney, in two folios, containing 874 pages and about 250,000 words.

1703: John Wesley was born at Epworth, not far from Gainsborough, Lincolnshire

“Before Thomas Williams left England Methodism had gripped Lincolnshire, and at the time of his departure the grip was tightening.  John Wesley was born at Epworth, not far from Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, in the year 1703. He was educated at Oxford, and paid a visit to America  but although profoundly interested in religion up to the time of his return to England, he had not yet attained to the illuminating experience that gave him a definite assurance of his own salvation”.
The Journal Of Thomas Williams, Missionary In Fiji, 1840-1853 By G. C. Henderson, M.a. (Oxon.) Emeritus Professor Of History, Adelaide University Author Of Sir George Grey : Founder Of Empire In Southern Lands, Fiji And The Fijians 18s5-1856 In Two Volumes Vol. I Australia Angus & Robertson Ltd,1931.  The manuscript is in the Mitchell Library, Sydney, in two folios, containing 874 pages and about 250,000 words.

1858: Mr. John Binner, Wesleyan teacher, and Mr. John Binner, oil trader are the same person

On the 10th September, 1858, the new British Consul arrived in Levuka. William Pritchard rented two rooms from  John Binner.  Binner was the Wesleyan mission Training Master at Levuka, and under another hat a considerable trader.

Binner’s fleet of trading boats: William Pritchard reported “Another of the complaints thus early brought before me was against the natives of Waca, a small island on the western limits of the group. Mr. Binner, Wesleyan Mission Training Master at Levuka, had several boats, manned by mixed crews of whites and natives, trading amongst the islands for cocoa- nut oil, beche-de-mer, and turtle-shell.
Waea peoples ate Binners crew: A few weeks before my arrival, one of his boats had gone to Waea, in charge of two white men and some natives; one of the former was an Englishman, and the other an American.The natives of Waea had captured the boat, killed and eaten the crew, and appropriated the merchandise. Mr. Binner, as a British subject and owner of the boat and cargo, now pressed his ” claim for redress and indemnity.”

Binner calls in US fire power: ... the U.S. corvette ‘ Vandalia ‘ arrived at Levuka, and at the request of the American Consul, her commander,

Mission politics: Captain Sinclair, took up the matter on behalf of the murdered American, and who it now appeared was in some manner interested with Mr. Binner in the ownership of the boat or cargo,  a fact which had not been made apparent in the first statement of the case to me. Mr. Binner was now convinced that it would be less injurious to the Wesleyan mission for Captain Sinclair to inflict retributive punishment for the murder of the American and his companion, rather than for me to press the savages ” for redress and indemnity ” for Mr. Binnes’s calicoes and hatchets. And so, much to my satisfaction, the case passed out of my hands into those of Captain Sinclair. A party of fifty men was quickly dispatched to Waea, to demand the murderers and to obtain indemnity.

500 men at Waea prepare to fight; The Waea people, mustering nearly five hundred fighting-men, defied the party and declined all communications. The Americans attacked them in their fort on the summit of a hill some 800 feet high. Some twenty of the natives were killed, as many wounded, and their town and fort burnt ; of the Americans five were wounded.