Samuel Marsden: A Contested Life

Abstract

His supporters have remembered him as a moral and saintly evangelical pioneer; his enemies have recalled a greedy and hypocritical ‘flogging-parson.’ Between these two conflicting visions the real Samuel Marsden has almost disappeared. But how did Marsden’s violently contested reputation develop over time? By exploring the key controversies and judgements which contributed to it, both during his life and since his death, we discover that Marsden’s reputation has been extensively shaped by anachronism—judging his actions by standards that did not exist when he acted—and that Marsden was a more complex and interesting figure than either of the dominant visions have allowed.