'Not Radically a Dissenter': Samuel Leigh in the Colony of New South Wales (original) (raw)

2015 will see the bicentenary of the arrival to the colony of New South Wales, at the age of twenty-nine, of the first Wesleyan Methodist minister, the Rev. Samuel Leigh. Of course, Leigh was not the first Methodist to arrive, lay preachers and class leaders such as Edward Eagar and Thomas Bowden already being active in their own ministries. Nonetheless, in spite of its opportunities for lay ministry, early nineteenth century Wesleyan Methodism was a movement dominated by clerical authority, so it is appropriate that Leigh’s arrival be seen as the beginnings of formal British-Conference-approved Methodism in the colony. Methodist ministers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century were primarily missionaries, both at home and abroad. By almost every measure Leigh was a failure as a missionary. He made few converts, failed to establish thriving circuits, and his relationships with his fellow missionaries were strained all around. This paper will provide an introduction to Leigh and his work through discussing three sets of relationships - with Governor Lachlan Macquarie, with the clergy of the Established Church, and with his fellow workers.