FL14369507

7 SUSANNAH MARSDEN HASSALL (1806-1890)

Susannah Marsden Hassall, born on 28 July 1806, also grew up in Parramatta in a busy
household. Some of Susannah's letters to her brother, Thomas Hassall, written to him while he was
in England, survive. Before her marriage she wrote about family news and gossip - Mr and Mrs
Lawry (her sister, Mary) had a baby called Mary Australia, her mother had a cold and felt poorly,
and Elizabeth Oakes was to be married ''on Tuesday next if nothing unforseen prevents''.432 She
also, with her sister, Anne, took lesson in geography from her brother-in-law, Reverend Walter
Lawry.433 She apologised for having no interesting news for him and wrote that she would confine
herself ''to little trifling objects more within the compass of my weak understanding''. She
commented on her garden and hoped that her brother would send her flower seeds as well as
knitting needles and netting pins. She was still attending the Sunday School conducted by the
Reverend Samuel Leigh in Parramatta and learning the Psalms well enough to be rewarded by a
book on ''exercises of the heart''. She mentioned that she was spending quite a lot of time with the
Marsden sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, while their mother was away and told Thomas stories of
pupils in Elizabeth Marsden's Sunday School class. She also commented in 1818 that a new
hospital and barracks were being built in Parramatta.434 She became a teacher in the Parramatta
Sunday School in 1821.435

At first Susannah Hassall and her sisters, Ann and Eliza, were taught at the school conducted
by the former convict, James Bradley, in premises he rented from Mrs Shelley (Susannah's future
mother-in-law). Bradley wrote to Thomas Hassall in 1810 that ''our school room is the back parlour
and my own private room is your old study where I spend many happy hours in the improvement
of my mind ... Your sisters improve tolerably in their learning...'' The association was to cause
embarrassment when Bradley set up a Sunday School in opposition to that already conducted by the
Anglicans. As a result, the Hassall sisters were withdrawn from Bradley's school and were tutored
at home by their brother-in-law, Reverend Walter Lawry.

On 7 February 1827 Susannah Hassall married William Shelley Junior. He was born in
Tahiti in 1804 and came with his parents to Parramatta and probably was educated at the school run
by the missionary John Eyre. He began his pastoral career quite early and in February 1822 was
living at South Creek when on William Bell was convicted by the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction
for stealing from him.436 He grew up in the tight comminity of Parramatta and his friendships were
with the sons and daughters of the other missionaries who had accompanied his father to the south
seas. In January 1827 he wrote to James Hassall, son of the missionary Rowland Hassall,
announcing ''a union to take place between your sister Susan and myself'' and inviting James and
Mrs Hassall to be present on 7 February 1827 when ''I shall be made happy by receiving the hand

432 Hassall Correspondence, Reel CY925, p.1692.
433 Reeson, Margaret, Currency Lass, p.106.
434 Hassall Correspondence, p.1423.
435 Ibid., A1677-3, p.1188.
436 Colonial Secretary's Correspondence, Reel 6023.

181