About the Hassall Family

The life-stories of Rowland and Elizabeth Hassall are filled with adventure, chance, faith, despair, and achievement. They had travelled from England in 1796 aboard the Duff as part of the London Missionary Society’s first expedition to the South Pacific.

 

After a tumultuous year in Tahiti, in which the missionaries became entangled in conflict between rival groups on the island, the couple fled on the first available boat, together with three infant sons. This boat was the Nautilus, a leaky vessel bound for the penal settlement of Port Jackson. After enduring perturbation about their inglorious departure from Tahiti, uncertainty about their prospects, and Rowland’s severe bashing at the hands of thugs who stole their remaining valuables, the Hassalls’ circumstances gradually improved.

 

About 1801 they settled in Parramatta, at what became 103-109 George Street. Over the next two decades they operated a trade store and other businesses - and raised eight children. Renowned for his honesty, Rowland was appointed government storekeeper under Governor Philip Gidley King, and managed properties for others, including Samuel Marsden and Mrs King. In 1814, under Governor Macquarie, he became the superintendent of government stock. Rowland certainly also had dealings with the notorious Governor Bligh. We can presume that Rowland regularly travelled along George Street to conduct business at Government House.

 

Although apprenticed as a silk weaver as a youth in Coventry, Rowland acquired agricultural, equestrian, and pastoral skills in New South Wales. He bred sheep, cattle, and horses. His land holdings multiplied in both Paramatta and Camden, and later across the Blue Mountains - some through government grants and some through purchase. His interests extended to preaching the Gospel, trading with Tahitian and missionary connections in the Pacific, and participating in philanthropic and community life in Sydney. He participated in projects that promoted education, protected orphans, and sought to advance Aboriginal welfare. Elizabeth Hassall partnered Rowland in all these endeavours.

 

In 1820 Rowland succumbed to fever at the early age of 52 and lies buried in St. John’s Cemetery; Elizabeth survived him by fourteen years. She passed away in 1834 and is interred together with her late husband. A plaque was unveiled in 1913 to commemorate the establishment of the nation’s first Sunday school in the family home on the corner of George and Charles Streets, and to this day a street in Parramatta bears the family name.

 

Rowland and Elizabeth ensured that all their children – daughters as much as sons – received adequate education and were well-provided for. Each married into a prominent family of the day - although the fortunes of subsequent generations fluctuated with the changes and chances of drought, flood, and the vagaries of economic upturns and downturns.

 

• The firstborn, Thomas, married Ann, a daughter of the Rev Samuel and Elizabeth Marsden.

• Samuel married Lucy, daughter of surgeon James Mileham and Elizabeth Price.

• Jonathan married Mary, daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Rouse.

• Mary married Rev. Walter Lawry.

• James married Catherine, daughter of John Payne Lloyd.

• Eliza Cordelia married Rev. William Walker.

• Susannah married William Shelley Jr.

• Ann married Robert Mackay Campbell.

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Three of these marriages were solemnized on the same day, 22nd November 1819, in what became known as the “triple wedding” at St John’s Parramatta (Samuel married Lucy, Jonathan married Mary Rouse, and Mary married the Rev Walter Lawrie). Rowland and Elizabeth’s eight children produced no less than 62 grandchildren, who in turn produced approximately 300 great-grandchildren. By some estimates Hassall family descendants alive today number between 20,000 and 30,000.