Three letters from missionary James Lisk to the Church Missionary Society, 1827-28 and official copy of instructions given to Lisk and Richard Hill by the CMS, 1827.

MLMSS 11655/1X

fonds

1827-1828

9668465

0.38 metres of textual material (1 outsize box)

The Church Missionary Society (CMS), society was founded in London in 1799 as the Society for Missions in Africa and the East by a small group of Anglican evangelicals with a passion for worldwide gospel outreach. In 1812 it was renamed the Church Missionary Society. A CMS outpost was set up in Sydney in 1825 with work amongst Aboriginal people
its primary focus. The first missionaries arrived from England shortly afterwards to serve in western NSW.
James Lisk, a schoolteacher, and Rev. James Norman were experienced missionaries. After working in the Sierra Leone station of the Church Missionary Society they were transferred, with their wives, to New South Wales, arriving in Sydney on the convict ship Midas in February 1827. Norman was sent to Van Diemen’s Land while Lisk was appointed to Bon Bon (i.e. Bong Bong, near Sutton Forest in the Southern Highlands) where he was to minister to the “hitherto-neglected” European settlers in the region as well as commence work among the Gundungurra people “so as to prepare the way for removing to more
distant Stations among them, as soon as that can be done with safety and a prospect of usefulness.” Lisk had been at Bong Bong for only a month before the extreme ill health of
his wife, who was pregnant and had remained in Sydney where she could get medical assistance, compelled him to return to be by her side. They sailed for England in 1830.
Rev. Norman’s wife died in Hobart but he stayed on and after temporary employment in Launceston and at New Town, was appointed to the chaplaincy of Sorell in 1832. He died in
1868. As for the mission at Bon Bon, Lisk had left schoolmaster and former soldier Richard Hill (not to be confused with the Rev. Richard Hill) in charge but he failed to engage with the Gundungurra, resigned from the CMS and left the district permanently in 1829.
References:
The Missionary Register, 1827, pp. 126-127
The Proceedings of the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East, 1828, vol. 28, pp.111-112.

Official copy of a letter from James Lisk and Rev. James Norman to Rev. Richard
Hill, 27 March 1827 in the hand of a CMS clerk. In this letter Lisk and Norman level a series of complaints against the master of the Midas, James Baigrie together with his steward and the superintendent of convicts.

Official copy of the instructions given to James Lisk and Richard Hill in the hand of a CMS clerk; undated but probably written in April or May 1827, prior to the missionaries’ departure from Sydney for Bon Bon on 17 May 1827; annotated ‘Instructions of the Aux. Committee to Messrs. Lisk & Hill'. Relates to James Lisk’s proposed mission at Bon[g] Bon[g] and a proposed mission a little further south at Limestone Plains (Canberra) to be undertaken by Richard Hill.

Letter from James Lisk to the Church Missionary Society in London, 3 October 1827, annotated ‘Rec’d Ap. 10/28’ and ‘Sydney Oct. 3/27 Mr. James Lisk’. In this letter Lisk reports on his activities since arriving in NSW.

Letter from James Lisk to the CMS in London, Parramatta, 3 March 1828. Lisk reports that he and his wife moved to the Society’s House in Parramatta. For ten months Mrs Lisk, had been under the medical attention of James Mitchell (father of David Scott Mitchell).

Out of copyright:
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales