FL14369343

[Picture]
St John's Church, Parramatta c1819, as it would have looked after
Thomas Hassall's appointment there.
From a painting by Mrs Macquarie.
From Kass, Terry, et al., Parramatta, A Past Revealed.

On 6 August 1824 Thomas Hassall was called as a character witness for five men who were
charged with an assault on an aboriginal woman which resulted in her death. Groups of Aboriginal
people had been visiting the stations in the vicinity especially at Brisbane Valley, a property owned
by James Hassall, and another tribe had ambushed and wounded an employee of Mrs Hassall
(probably Mrs Samuel Hassall) at O'Connell Plains. In retaliation five employees of the Hassalls
sought out the tribe and caused them to flee, shots were fired and three women were killed. At the
trial Thomas Hassall gave the prisoners excellent characters and stated that he had known two of
them from his childhood. After debate about the Proclaimers of 1816 by Macquarie about action
to be taken by farm owners if tribes of Aboriginals approached them, which revealed significant
attitudes to the treatment of Aboriginals, the five men were declared not guilty.134

Hassall's marriage to Ann, eldest daughter of Reverend Samuel Marsden, was significant...
She was born at sea on 2 March 1794 when her parents were on their way to Australia. She was
educated in England, having been taken there in 1800 by Reverend James Fleet Cover, another of
the South Sea Island missionaries and friends of the Hassalls from Coventry days, and who had
remained there with her Yorkshire relatives until 1810.

Thomas Hassall paid a brief visit to Port Macquarie in 1824 and wrote a report on the
settlement at the request of Governor Brisbane in which he commented on education, hospitals,

134 Sydney Gazette, 12 August 1824.

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