Backhouse & Walker - Quaker Missionaries

Backhouse & Walker - Quaker Missionaries

BACKHOUSE & WALKER - QUAKER MISSIONARIES

James Backhouse and George Washington Walker sailed from St. Katherine's Dock in London, England on 3 September 1831 bound for Australia. Also aboard the 236 ton barque "Science" headed to Hobart, Van Diemen's Land were a group of over forty Chelsea Pensioners who had commuted their pensions for an advance of 4 years' payment. Thus began a six year mission to Australia for these two Friends followed by a two year mission to Mauritius and South Africa. Though they were accredited by the Society of Friends in England their journey was self-funded. In Australia, in addition to their missionary work, they prepared numerous reports for the Government on the conditions of convicts, aborigines, etc.

A chronology of their brief visit to Port Phillip is as follows:-

3 November 1837 - Departed Hobart, V.D.L. on the 208 ton barque "Eudora" en route to King Georges Sound via Port Phillip and South Australia. Near Preservation Island in Bass Strait a visitor came aboard the "Eudora" from another vessel. He was a seafaring man whose profane language greatly pained Backhouse. Not having an opportunity to speak with him privately, Backhouse slipped a note into his hand together with two tracts, "A Christian Memento" and "Thoughts on the Importance of Religion." The note said "Permit a stranger to commend to thy notice, the enclosed tracts, under the feeling that thy soul is precious in the sight of God, and that it ought to be precious in thy own sight, and that the days for securing its salvation are fast hastening away." He later met this man on shore and received his grateful acknowledgement for this action.

10 November 1837 - Arrived at Port Phillip and anchored at Gellibrands Point. Stayed on board while the Captain and a Customs Officer went up to Melbourne.

11 November 1837 - Walked along a sandy bush track to the Yarra River. Crossed to Melbourne by ferry where they met George Langhorne. Joined his party in a boat, travelling 2 miles up the Yarra to the Mission Station. Dined with George and Mary Langhorne. Then went 4 miles further up the Yarra to the dwelling of John and Mary Gardiner where they stayed the night.

12 November 1837 - Met with John Gardiner's staff in the morning. Returned to the Mission Station in the afternoon. Then went back to John Gardiner's property for the night.

13 November 1837 - Returned to Melbourne by boat. Met a number of acquaintances from Van Diemens Land and New South Wales. Took tea with a family of Wesleyans with whom they had been acquainted in Sydney, N.S.W. Attended a meeting of about 40 residents in the School House which was being used by all denominations as a Church. Returned to Langhorne's Mission Station for the night.

14 November 1837 - In the afternoon they made a trip down the Yarra in a boat to the "Eudora" to collect some tracts. Returned to Melbourne where they attended a meeting for the establishment of a Temperance Society as a branch to the one in Sydney, N.S.W.

15 November 1837 - Visited John Batman. James Backhouse later wrote: "We called on John Batman, formerly of Buffalo Plains, in Van Diemens Land, who has been much of an invalid since his removal to Port Phillip. He continues to feel a deep interest respecting the Aborigines of these Colonies, and has now, in his employment, several Blacks from the vicinity of Sydney, and a woman and two boys from Tasmania, whom he finds useful servants. They are not disposed to indulge in wandering habits, now that they are removed from their native haunts. This may probably arise, from the fear they entertain of the tribes by which they are here surrounded. J. Batman showed us the skull of a Native, found near Gellibrands Point, which was perforated with slugs, and had some of the lead lodged in the bone, evidently proving, that the individual to whom it had belonged, had been shot. Though from its appearance, when picked up, the murderous deed did not seem to have been perpetrated above six months, yet, he said, no inquiry had been instituted, as to how the party had come by his death."

Backhouse and Walker then headed off in the direction of Geelong, hoping to catch up with their friend, David Stead. However, after walking about three miles, they returned to Melbourne. That evening they dined with Captain William Lonsdale, the Police Magistrate. Spoke with him about the importance of holding inquests into the deaths of Aborigines who may have died under violent or suspicious circumstances. Returned to the Mission Station where they viewed the Aurora Australis, which appeared in the sky very brilliant, in columns of yellow, on a diffuse, pale crimson background.

16 November 1837 - Leaving the Mission Station, Backhouse walked through the bush to the beach and tried unsuccessfully to establish contact with the "Eudora" which was about 2 miles from the shore. The pre-arranged signal of lighting two fires on the sand was hampered by strong winds and no response was received. He then returned to join Walker in Melbourne where they distributed books and tracts. They then returned to the beach but were still unable to make contact with the "Eudora." At sunset they went back to Melbourne and spent the evening with John Batman who presented them with some oval baskets manufactured by local natives. These were said to be stronger and more robust than ones they had previously seen. They also noted that John Batman had some locally caught Emus.

17 November 1837 - Returned to the "Eudora" but because of the sea breeze were unable to set sail.

18 November 1837 - Set sail early and cleared Gellibrands Point. That evening they dropped anchor in a bay a little to the north of Arthurs Seat. Mention was made at this time of about thirty dogs that had been taken aboard the "Eudora" at Hobart for sale in India.

19 November 1837 - Passed out of Port Phillip Bay through the Heads en route to South Australia. From there they went on to spend time in Western Australia and Mauritius before landing in South Africa.

James Backhouse was born on 8 July 1794 at Darlington, County Durham, England, the son of James Backhouse and his wife Mary, nee Dearman. In 1816 he went into partnership with his elder brother, Thomas Backhouse, in a Nursery business in York, Yorkshire, England. He married on 5 November 1822 at the Friends' Meeting House, Tottenham, Middlesex, England, to Deborah Lowe, daughter of Richard Lowe of Worcester, England. His wife died on 10 December 1827 at York aged 34 years. Leaving his son James and daughter Elizabeth with relatives, he joined up with George Washington Walker to sail for Hobart, Van Diemens Land in the early 1830's. Returned to England from South Africa in 1841. Was also well known as a botanist and an author and he made frequent mention of the flora and fauna he observed in his writings. In later years he made extended missionary journeys to Norway and Lapland. He died on 20 January 1869 at his residence, Holgate House, York, Yorkshire, England.

George Washington Walker was born on 19 March 1800 at London, England, the son of John Walker, saddler, and his second wife Elizabeth, nee Ridley. Served an apprenticeship to a linen draper named Hadwen Bragg. Sailed from England in 1831 with James Backhouse for Van Diemen's Land. Later returned to Van Diemen's Land and married on 15 December 1840 at the Friends' Meeting House, Hobart, V.D.L. to Sarah Benson Mather, daughter of Robert Mather. Opened a linen drapery. Distributed religious literature and was a Temperance worker. A Founder and sometime Manager of the Hobart Town Savings Bank. Died on 1 February 1859 at his residence at the Savings Bank, Macquarie Street, Hobart, Tasmania, and was buried on 4 February 1859 at the Friend's Burial Ground, Providence Valley, West Hobart, Tasmania.

On his return to England in 1841, James Backhouse wrote accounts of his missionary travels. These were published as "A Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies" (London, 1843) and "A Narrative of a Visit to the Mauritius and South Africa" (London, 1844). Following the death of George Washington Walker in 1859, he co-authored with Charles Tylor "The Life and Labours of George Washington Walker of Hobart Town, Tasmania" (London & York, 1862). Individual articles about James Backhouse and George Washington Walker, written by Mary Bartram Trott, appear in the "Australian Dictionary of Biography."

Source of Images: State Library of Victoria (Backhouse); University of Tasmania (Walker)

( Contributed by Alexander Romanov-Hughes - PPPG Member No. 52 )

Biography - James Backhouse - Australian Dictionary of Biography

Biography - James Backhouse - Australian Dictionary of Biography

Backhouse, James (1794–1869)

by Mary Bartram Trott

This article was published:

• in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 1 , 1966
• online in 2010

James Backhouse (1794-1869), naturalist and Quaker missionary, was born on 8 July 1794, the fourth child of James and Mary Backhouse, members of a well-known Quaker business family of Darlington, Durham, England. He was educated in a school kept by a Friend at Leeds, then apprenticed to a chemist in Darlington where he developed tuberculosis. Regaining health with outdoor work, he trained for two years in a Norwich nursery, where the sight of Australian plants and association with Friends interested in prison reform and transportation contributed to his concern to visit the convict colonies. In 1816, with his brother, he bought a nursery in York, and in 1822 married Deborah Lowe who died five years later. Growing activity in schools for the poor, temperance and Bible societies, prison visiting and the Quaker ministry roused his interest in similar service abroad. He left his business and two children with relations and in September 1831, with the financial support of the London Yearly Meeting, sailed for Australia with George Washington Walker.

From their arrival at Hobart Town in February 1832 until their departure from Fremantle in February 1838, they visited from house to house in most of the scattered Australian settlements and found much demand for their services. During their three years in Van Diemen's Land (1832-34) Lieutenant-Governor (Sir) George Arthur found many useful tasks for them. His ready co-operation and disregard of red tape contrasted with that of the naval authorities in London who had refused their proffered services in a Sydney-bound convict transport because they lacked official status. In later voyages in convict ships in Australian waters Backhouse's medical knowledge helped the sick and wounded. Arthur granted the missionaries free access to all penal and Aboriginal establishments, encouraged their investigations and urged them to suggest improvements. They gave Arthur eight valuable reports on the penal settlements of Macquarie Harbour and Port Arthur, the Aboriginal establishment on Flinders Island, the conditions of road-gangs, chain-gangs, assigned servants and their masters, and the Van Diemen's Land Co., with the result that some newspapers labelled them government spies.

In New South Wales and its dependencies Governor Sir Richard Bourke encouraged similar work in 1835-37, and in three reports to him they described the penal settlements of Norfolk Island, Moreton Bay and Port Macquarie, and the Aboriginal station in Wellington Valley. Their reports were sent to London Friends and to the Colonial Office and used by reformers of prisons and Aboriginal settlements. They were the basis of the help the two Quakers gave on their return visit to Van Diemen's Land in 1837 to Alexander Maconochie in formulating his new penal system. Throughout these arduous journeys Backhouse also collected a valuable herbarium which he sent to Kew Gardens. In recognition of his contribution to the knowledge of Australian vegetation, particularly of inland species, the genus of a myrtaceous shrub was named Backhousia.

At large public meetings the Quakers urged the formation of non-sectarian British charities which included the Temperance, Religious Tract, British and Foreign Bible, and British and Foreign School Societies. They distributed many tracts, Bibles and the non-denominational text books of the School Society. Many schools in the colonies followed its curriculum and it became the official system in the early public education of some colonies. They encouraged savings banks, benevolent societies, and ladies' committees for prison visiting on Elizabeth Fry's model. They inspected hospitals and recommended humane treatment for the insane and asylums like the Quakers' York Retreat. In Sydney they gathered a group for Quaker worship. In 1833 in Hobart they established a Monthly Meeting, next year the Van Diemen's Land Yearly Meeting, and in 1837 bought a meeting house property, which was used for 120 years.

Leaving Hobart in November 1837 they visited Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, in each place promoting temperance and Aboriginal protection committees. During a three-month stay at Mauritius they encouraged Protestant philanthropy. Arriving in Cape Town in June 1838, they equipped a covered wagon and penetrated the interior of the colony in a journey of 6000 miles (9656 km). In an ecumenical spirit they visited eighty mission stations and learnt the colonial Dutch language in the hope of reconciling the far-trekked Boers, who were so resentful of being compelled to release their slaves. In Cape Town they established a multi-racial school for the poor, which lasted forty years. They made reports to the governor and to members at Westminster on the treatment of the native Africans.

After Walker left for Hobart Backhouse returned in 1841 to York, where he kept in touch with the colonies, corresponded with the Royal Society of Tasmania, advised the young Quaker meetings, sent agricultural equipment and books to the Africans, and raised money for Moffat's Sechwaña translation of the Bible. With his son James, also a gifted naturalist, he continued his nursery business, travelled extensively in England on botanical excursions, and three times visited Norway under religious concern. He recorded his journeys in A Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies (London, 1843) and A Narrative of a Visit to the Mauritius and South Africa (London, 1844). Later with Charles Tylor he wrote The Life and Labours of George Washington Walker (London, 1862). He also produced numerous religious tracts and lives of Quakers, including those of Deborah Backhouse, Thomas Bulman, Francis Howgill and William and Alice Ellis. He gave Kew two manuscript volumes of botanical recollections in Australia. The most widely read of his works was a paper-back pamphlet of extracts from his letters from Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales, compiled by the London Yearly Meeting. Because of its little-known subject this went into many editions. His larger works with the ponderous style of the period belie the sense of humour and straightforward simplicity for which he was so well known and liked, but they have provided valuable material on Australian Aboriginals and convict conditions, and the South African volume is reputed to have introduced many missionaries to Africa. Backhouse died on 20 January 1869 in York.

His genial good nature, and shrewd common sense, remained agreeable memories to his hosts. A strict Quaker with peculiar plainness of dress, address and profession, he had a broad tolerance and ability to befriend and mix with everyone from domineering governors to confused Aboriginals. With an understanding freed from pretensions and outward signs, he saw with a scientist's precision the inner core of real religion in heathen Hottentot, Australian Aboriginal and colonial convict.

Select Bibliography

• S. Backhouse, Memoir of James Backhouse (Lond, 1870)
• W. Robinson (ed), Friends of a Half Century (Lond, 1891)
• J. D. Hooker, The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of H. M. Discovery Ships Erebus and Terror in the Years 1839-1843, parts 5-6 (London, 1860)
• James Backhouse, journals and letters (Friends House, London)
• James Backhouse records (State Library of New South Wales)
• Walker papers (University of Tasmania, and State Library of New South Wales).

Related Entries in NCB Sites

• Hassall, Thomas (acquaintance)
• Crouch, Thomas James (acquaintance)

150 years of Friends and foreign missions | Quaker Strongrooms

150 years of Friends and foreign missions | Quaker Strongrooms

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150 years of Friends and foreign missions

Posted on 08/06/2018 by Library of the Society of Friends

First minutebook of the Friends Foreign Mission Association with signature of Henry Stanley Newman, its first secretary

 

 

26th May 2018 marked the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the Friends Foreign Mission Association in 1868. This put overseas mission and relief work on a permanent footing for the Society for the first time, and this work has continued in some form ever since.

There was a prior provisional committee set up, also meeting for the first time on 26th May, 1865, and work did commence under its auspices but the Association was officially constituted in 1868.

Quakers were not immune to the evangelical fervour that increased in many denominations in the early 19th century. One Quaker in particular took up this calling with great enthusiasm. George Richardson (1773-1862), was a widely travelled Quaker minister who was devoted to issues such as peace, temperance and anti-slavery. He became a passionate proponent of mission work and wrote extensively to Friends to drum up support for it. Richardson reported in 1860 that “It is now ascertained by an extensive correspondence that a large body of Friends cordially approve of an attempt being made for the promotion of this object…” (George Richardson Papers, TEMP MSS 378)

Richardson described the object as “aiding in the diffusion of Gospel light amongst the Heathen and other unenlightened nations”. This is language that Quakers today, might find uncomfortable. Further descriptions of the mission work Richardson had in mind, and was promoting widely among Friends, confirm how similar in nature it was with that of other denominations, as “labour for the spread of true Religion” by “scriptural education”. Quaker missionaries worked closely with the London Missionary Society at home, and with missionaries of other denominations in the field.

However judging this activity by modern standards would be somewhat unfair. In some ways, this enthusiasm for missionary work, in the context of the Society of Friends at that time, represented a radical challenge to quietism of preceding Quaker generations. It is interesting to see how Friends have viewed this work over the years. In a pamphlet marking the jubilee anniversary of FFMA in 1916, the tone was still evangelical. The writer asked of the Society: “How shall we take our right place in spreading the news that God is the Father, and loves us, that Christ His Son is the Saviour of the whole world?” (FFMA jubilee, 1866-1916, 1913)

However fifty years later, in an address on the centenary of FFMA, William Sewell, a relative of Joseph Sewell, one of the first Quaker missionaries, was looking at missionary activity with a more critical eye. He mentions the relatively poor understanding of non-western cultures and comments on the dangers, as well as virtues, of introducing “western values” into these cultures. He does say: “Friends fortunately did less harm than they might so easily have done” 

(Continuing witness: addresses given at the Friends Foreign Mission Association centenary meeting, Friends Service Council, 1968).

We feel he really wants to say than other missionaries have done here, and attributes Friends’ comparably less harmful activity to their core belief in of that of God in everyone; he implies that although Quakers may have referred to people as heathens, they did not treat them as such.

Into the 1970s, Friends Service Council (successor to FFMA) was still referring to one of the strands of its work as “missionary activities”, and was a member of the Conference of British Missionary Societies, although stating that this body was “rethinking the concept of ‘mission’” (International Work of the Religious Society of Friends, 2nd ed., FWCC, 1975).

FFMA was run as an independent organisation funded by subscription with annual general meetings, and some non-Quakers were involved in both the funding and work. Its first projects were in areas Quakers already had some knowledge of and were led by strong individual characters who felt a calling to a particular area of work. And it was a calling – missionaries generally served for the rest of their life. This, in a time before air travel and health insurance, was at considerable personal cost, in terms of distance from family and home comforts, and potential for danger.

The first mission work the provisional committee approved was to send Rachel Metcalfe (1828-1889) to India to pursue “female education”. Rachel Metcalfe had worked as a domestic servant in younger life, and then as a seamstress. She had felt a calling to do mission work, and saw an advertisement looking for a sewing mistress at a school in India. Not having the means to fund her journey herself, she applied to Friends for help, and became the first missionary sent by the fledgling provisional committee for this work.

She set up several schools and an orphanage with the help of more Friends who joined her. She developed rheumatism in Benares which led to her use of a wheelchair by 1874, but this did not halt her work. Friends moved into Hoshangabad district as there were no other missionaries here, and started work which continued well into the 20th century there.

The potential danger these early missionaries faced was exemplified by a horrifying fate suffered by a Quaker missionary family in the other early field of work for FFMA: Madagascar.

Louis and Sarah Street, and Joseph Sewell were the first Quaker missionaries to go to Madagascar, in the second official mission of FFMA. They soon required assistance. William Johnson answered this call by going to Madagascar in 1871, Lucy Sewell joined him and they were married there in 1872. William became involved in educational work and became superintendent of a large boys’ school in Ambohijatovo. Johnson also oversaw the building of a hospital, designing it himself.

The Johnsons were asked to move to Arivonimamo to cover another missionary’s leave in 1895. At this time the French were at war with the Malagasy people, eventually “annexing” the island as a colony by 1896. Some Malagasy rebel forces blamed the defeat of the army, and deposition of the monarchy, on the recent conversion to Christianity, and harsh punishment was meted out to Malagasy Christians and missionaries. In November 1895, rebels overtook the Johnsons’ home and killed the couple and their child.

By 1889, the FFMA had 38 missionaries in the field, by 1902 that number had risen to 93. The activities of the association were capturing the attention of more than just a few enthusiastic believers in mission work, becoming a more general concern for the Society. This was reflected in the decision at Yearly Meeting, 1917, to have a “closer union” between FFMA, London Yearly Meeting and Ireland Yearly Meeting, essentially bringing FFMA under official management by both these yearly meetings.

World War I brought a challenge of a greater magnitude for Friends in overseas work. Here the focus was emergency relief in response to crisis rather than the ongoing education and medical activities done as part of mission work. Emergency committees were set up to organise this crisis relief. The lessons learned from this war would undoubtedly shape future views of overseas service.

In 1919 the Council for International Service was established. This was very much a product of WWI, and most of its activities were almost akin to secular mission work. Rather than spreading Christianity, CIS established a network of International Centres that promoted “international understanding” and nonviolent solutions to conflict. This was referred to as the ministry of reconciliation.

All this work was brought together under one banner in 1927. FFMA was wound up and the work of CIS incorporated into Friends Service Council. At this point FSC took on or started up projects in: China, India, Syria, South Africa, Pemba, Madagascar, Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Poland, Russia, and Greece.

The nature of the work varied from place. Some work continued in a fairly traditional mission manner with building and managing of schools and hospitals. Other work included helping to support and sustain small communities of Quakers outside of Britain and building up networks of people sympathetic to Quaker values; it was this work which would lead to Quaker centres becoming refuges when Nazi oppression started threatening various groups in European society in the 1930s.

Quaker Peace and Social Witness, the successor body to Friends Service Council, today mainly focuses on promotion of nonviolence in areas of the world with conflict. This includes working with other churches to provide ecumenical accompaniers in Israel-Palestine; and helping facilitate a conflict resolution programme in East Africa.  Friends World Committee for Consultation supports and encourages the Quaker faith around the world.

Henry Stanley Newman’s account of visiting missionaries in India.

 

While nineteenth to early twentieth century missionary activities, outlooks and language may to a certain extent be shaped by paternalistic, colonialist and racist attitudes, there is much to admire in the work of overseas missions. The stories of these ordinary men and women who gave their life’s work to the service of communities they joined overseas, often at great personal cost, can still prove inspirational and moving, over a century later.

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