Settling in at Parramatta – continuing Rowland’s story
While waiting for the house to be built, Rowland began to hold religious services at Barrington’s farm. He began to extend his religious involvement by helping fellow missionaries Rev Cover and William Henry in their itinerant ministry, which included Toongabbie, where, as he wrote: “Most of the unruly prisoners are kept to hard labour. In this place we have a large Government hut for the worship of God. The congregation is unsettled, so that we have always new hearers of one kind or another there being in general about 100”.
Rowland also took services at Kissing Point where members of the Small family had settled. He continued this work single-handedly when Cover returned to England and later shared the ministry of Castle Hill with another fellow missionary, William Pascoe Crook, after 1803.
Of special interest for Rowland – whose own education and literacy was so limited – was the establishment of a school at Kissing Point under Mathew Hughes, a former convict who married Mary Small on 6 October 1808. Mary came from the Hassall house in Parramatta where she had gone to live after leaving the school where she had been taught by her future husband. Rowland wished to build a church there “…partly on account of the prejudice of the people against each other, they not willing to attend at each other’s houses, and partly for the purpose of opening a schoolroom”.
He assisted the school by appealing to William Wilberforce in England for the provision of money and books. Rowland not only contributed £40 to the cost of the school building but visited regularly and even paid the fees of seven poor children so that they could attend. He supported Mathew Hughes who was by all accounts considered to be a fine Christian man who combined religious and secular education by teaching the children to read from the New Testament. Rowland wrote:
“In my visits to the school, weather to catechise the children or supervise other affairs, I find them in good order, and they make pretty good progress in their book, so that some of them can now read the Testament”.
Rowland was also anxious to improve the school at Toongabbie which he described in August 1801 as “very bad, having no floor walls, windows or doors, & at this time of the year the hearers tremble with cold… “. He appealed to the London Missionary Society for Testaments and Bibles and books of all kinds, not forgetting to mention that his son, Thomas, was “now learning lattin”.
As well as the establishment of the school at Kissing Point, Rowland was a pioneer in the Sunday school movement and the first Sunday school at Parramatta was set up in his house by his son Thomas in 1813. This Sunday school was later moved to St John’s Church. So popular did the school become that leading Dissenters and Methodists formed the New South Wales Sunday School Institution in December 1815. Those on the committee were Rowland Hassall, John Eyre (another missionary), Thomas Hassall, John Hosking, E.S. Hall, Thomas Bowden, Francis Oakes. The Treasurer was Rowland’s good friend Edward Eager and Secretary was James Smith.
During the period when Bligh was Governor, Rowland began to minister to the Calvinistic Methodist and Presbyterian settlers at Portland Head on the Hawkesbury and preached once a month, as he stated to the Bigge enquiry, at “Mr James Meins, at other times at Mr Davidson’s and last Lords Day we had services at two new places and both morning and afternoon could hardly hold the people that attended.”
He helped build the Dissenting Chapel (since 1824 exclusively Presbyterian) on land given by Owen Cavanough at Ebenezer and which was completed in 1820. It stands to this day at Wilberforce in western Sydney. He preached there for many years until his death, along with John Youl, who was formally ordained in 1815.
Gradually Rowland withdrew from his itinerant preaching activities and concentrated on services held in a barn at his house in Parramatta on Sunday and Friday evenings. The prominent two-storey house was on a four-acre block at the corner of George and Charles Streets. His grandson, James Hassall, in his book, “In Old Australia”, recalled that the house had been provided by the government for Rowland and “there was a great mulberry tree in the garden and the largest English oaks in the colony were there”.
Rowland supported Marsden’s view of an Evangelical presence in the colony and was not disposed to support dissent for dissent’s sake. He did much to promote ‘Calvinistic Methodism’ in the district, which later embarrassed his son-in-law, Walter Lawry, and other more strictly Wesleyan preachers who became more and more prominent and continued the itinerant mission. Nevertheless, they remained on good terms with him and refrained from undermining his work until after he had died, such was their respect for the man.
Rowland remained loyal to and corresponded with the London Missionary Society and offered support to its members when they visited the colony and helped others of them, particularly William Shelley, who he sheltered when Shelley arrived almost destitute in the colony from Tonga some years after Hassall.
Rowland Hassall maintained close correspondence with the missionaries who remained in Tahiti and later, when he established his store, he began to supply them with goods, including, incredibly, guns and ammunition. Brother Nott, who had remained in Tahiti, complained to Hassall in 1803:
“Had the muskets you sent to Mr Henry been good ones I should have taken them, but they are of no use. Those sold to the natives by Mr Harford were so neat in their eyes that they would not esteem those you sent at all. But if you will be so kind as to send me two neat ones the first opportunity I shall esteem it a favour… “
Rowland and Thomas Hassall were consistent suppliers of weapons and ammunition to the missionaries on the islands, who bartered them for produce, services and favours. In fact Thomas sent two English muskets to Brother Bicknell in 1815 and these were exchanged for two tons of meat. King Pomare continually requested guns to use in the violent struggles which flared up between rival chieftains.
On one occasion, King Pomare wrote to Rowland asking for a still, but Rowland had to decline, stating that only the rigid prohibition of the manufacture and sale of stills imposed by Governor Bligh prevented him from complying with the king’s request. He reassured Pomare that he would be able to supply one in future if ever the rules were relaxed.
Throughout his life Rowland “never lost sight of his original destination as a Missionary, and continued to perform the duties of one, by preaching the Gospel in almost all parts of the colony”. His life was said to have been a “continued example of religion and piety, extensive benevolence and hospitality”.
He held very strong views on proper adherence to the principles which he preached. He was meticulous about keeping the Sabbath and warned whenever possible about conduct which he considered to be inappropriate. For example, he opposed race meetings, which he said were the result of activity by the devil who had “stirred up his Agents to establish Horse Races, Cock fighting, Balls and almost every kind of sinful amusements”. Nevertheless he was sure that his and the influence of other preachers would win “and altho’ a great Evil I take it as a token for good for the enemy of Souls to see his Kingdom tottering”.
