Introduction

Summary

In August 1849 the Revd William Browne, Anglican minister of Launceston, Tasmania, wrote to a friend about a fellow clergyman, the Revd Thomas Rogers, who had been summarily dismissed from his position as chaplain of the infamous penal settlement at Norfolk Island:

Is it not astounding that the authorities in Norfolk Island did not shrink from the persecution of so highly gifted and valuable a man as Mr. Rogers? … From all that I have been able to learn, he possesses in a singular degree the power of securing the attention and winning the affection of the convicts. As an instance, I will mention one anecdote. A man addressed me on the road near Evandale some time ago, with a degree of respect unusual in latter days for the lower class who have been convicts. He asked me if I did not recollect him; on replying in the negative, he reminded me that his life had been spared many years before through the exertions of myself … and others, and that he had been sent to Norfolk Island for life. He had, however, received indulgence, and was permitted to return to this country … I asked if he knew anything of Mr. Rogers, lately a clergyman in that island; he replied, ‘Ho, yes, sir’ and after expressing himself in very warm terms, I enquired whether Mr. Rogers was generally liked by the convicts: his answer was, in the most energetic manner possible, ‘Sir, they would have laid down for him to walk over their bodies.’ I then asked him how it happened that Mr. Rogers was accused by some of them of introducing a file into one of the cells. He answers, ‘Oh, sir, don't believe a word of it; the commandant himself did not believe it – not a person on the island believed it – it was the act of two men who thought to get a pardon by the accusation.’ He then entered into a detail.