They Shall See His Face: The Story of Amy Oxley Wilkinson and Her Visionary Blind School in China

night.¹

CHAPTER 1

Pioneers in the DNA (1868–1886)

In 1974, an English teenage girl rose to her feet to deliver a short talk. It was for her Girl Guides’ Commonwealth Knowledge badge. Following conversations with her grandmother, Isabel, Ruth had been investigating her family’s links with early Australia. She decided to start with Rev. Samuel Marsden (1765–1838) and Lieutenant John Oxley (1784–1828), whom she had been told were ‘two very important people’ in the early years of the Australian colony. She began:

My great, great, great grandfather Samuel was born in Yorkshire, the son of a blacksmith. As a young man he decided to go into the ministry and, with the help of the reformer William Wilberforce, was given a scholarship to study theology at Magdalene College, Cambridge University. Enrolling there in 1790, like a number of other students at that time, he was influenced by a visionary clergyman, Rev. Charles Simeon. As a result of this connection, in 1794 Samuel was appointed Assistant Chaplain to the colony of New South Wales, just six years after it was founded. His wife, Elizabeth, travelled with him, and the first of their eight children, Anne, was born on ship.

As well as holding church services for officers and convicts, Samuel was appointed a magistrate. Though convicts described him as ‘the flogging parson’, he saw himself as upholding the law and moral tone of the society. After becoming senior Chaplain in 1798, and later Rector of the newly built St John’s Parramatta, he was given a land grant 20 miles west of Sydney. Since clergy had to earn some of their own income, within a decade his success in breeding sheep led Governor King to commend him as the most practical farmer in the colony.

When he went back to England from 1807 to1809, my ancestor wrote an important report on the needs of New South Wales. This talked about the poor treatment of female convicts, the necessity of educating colonists, and the commercial benefits of developing a wool industry. Both Government and the King were interested in this proposal.

For some time Samuel had wanted to begin missionary work in nearby New Zealand. In preparing for this, he made friends with a Maori chief and learned the language. In 1814, supported by the Church Missionary Society, he bought a large boat and on Christmas Day held the first Christian service on a beach in the Bay of Islands. Over seven visits during the next 25 years, Samuel helped bring peace between warring tribes, spoke out against infanticide and started a training school for Maori ministers. He even recruited and paid for tradesmen to teach the Maoris how to earn their own living.

Back in Australia Samuel was appointed to important positions in the public service, including work amongst orphans and employment for women. He helped set up the first local branches of the Church Missionary Society and British and Foreign Bible Society. My ‘very great’ granny, Elizabeth, helped manage his many enterprises, particularly when he was travelling.¹

1.1 Samuel Marsden and John Oxley.

Next, my great, great grandfather John Oxley was born at Kirkham Abbey, also in Yorkshire, in 1784. He was just 15 when he joined the Royal Navy. Three years later he embarked on a huge adventure when his ship the ‘Buffalo’ sailed to Australia to carry out coastal surveying in unknown waters. From 1806 to 1809, acting as the Governor’s agent, he arranged the shipping of goods to England to help raise investment in the colony. In return for this, John was granted 600 acres, later increased to 1,000, near Camden, south of Sydney, which he called ‘Kirkham’ after his birthplace.

John was so successful in his work that in 1812 he was appointed Surveyor-General of the whole colony. Over the next decade, he led several physically exhausting, at times life-threatening, expeditions. Travelling for months on end, he and his party explored the plains across the world-famous Blue Mountains west of Sydney and traced the course of four river systems. Commissioned by Governor Macquarie to find more land to settle the increasing number of convicts, he sailed up the coast and, with the help of some aborigines, chose the site that today is Brisbane, capital of Queensland.

Unfortunately ill health prevented John from further exploration. Deeply interested in improving the quality of life in his new homeland, he involved himself in the work of the Male and Female Orphanages, the British and Foreign Bible Society and a number of fledgling educational institutions. As well as these, he was appointed to be a Magistrate and later one of the first five members of the Legislative Council.

In 1822 John married Emma Norton, an educated woman originally from a wealthy family in Sussex. They had two sons, John Norton and Henry Molesworth. Because of the hardships her husband suffered as an explorer, he was only 44 years old when, sadly, he died at Kirkham, surprisingly leaving very little money. Emma was left to raise and provide for her two very young children, aided by a subsequent Government grant of 5000 acres to them in recognition of John’s achievements.²

1.2 The main branches of Amy Oxley’s family tree.

Whenever Ruth visited her paternal grandparents’ home, she was intrigued by an oriental watercolour, depicting a tea ceremony, and an accompanying tea table with mother-of-pearl inlay. Though never allowed to touch it, she was also impressed by an exotic Chinese medal. From her childhood, Ruth had been told that all these objects – as well as her unusual middle name – belonged to her Australian great grandmother, Amy, a descendant of Samuel Marsden and John Oxley.

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The early evening of Monday 13 January 1868 was still, hot and humid in Camden, as the seventh child of John Norton and Harriet Oxley was born at ‘Kirkham’. Amy Isabel Oxley’s first years were spent in this family home, approximately 30 miles southwest of Sydney, described as ‘the most valuable country estate in the County of Cumberland.’³ Built in 1816 by her paternal grandparents, John and Emma Oxley, ‘Kirkham’ was a large stately home with at least ten bedroom apartments for family and guests. Its spacious loft was the place where Rev. Samuel Marsden had held the first church service in the district. ‘Kirkham’ was hedged around by beautifully sculpted gardens, with a variety of European trees and shrubs. The property included several other substantial workers’ cottages, a state-of-the-art steam flour mill, double-storied stables, a productive dairy and a boutique vineyard which produced fine wine for export.

John Norton Oxley sold ‘Kirkham’ in the early 1870s to James White, politician and long-term member of the Australian Jockey Club, who established a stud farm for his racing stable there. A new house, designed by architect John Horbury Hunt, named ‘Camelot’, was built in 1888. Folklore has it that this was financed by White’s horse Chester winning the Melbourne Cup in 1877. Recently ‘Camelot’ featured in Baz Luhrmann’s epic film Australia and is the main location, ‘Ash Park’, in the popular Australian TV series A Place Called Home.

Amy’s father, John Norton Oxley, was born at ‘Kirkham’ in 1824 and baptised by Rev. Samuel Marsden. John was only four when his father died, so with wider family help, John and his brother, Henry, were educated at King’s School, Parramatta. After a three-year visit with their mother to England and Europe to ‘complete’ their education, John threw himself into developing the property while retaining large blocks of land in and around Bowral to the south. Unfortunately, for him, the discovery of gold in the 1850s saw an exponential rise in the cost of labour, making farming increasingly unprofitable. The spread of rust disease also made it impossible to grow wheat in the district, rendering the new expensive mill almost worthless. John also suffered a crippling personal loss at this time. His first wife Ann and newborn child both died within a few days of each other. Through his involvement as churchwarden at St Paul’s Cobbitty, John met and married Harriet Jane Hassall. They were married in February 1854 by the rector (her father), Rev. Thomas Hassall.⁴

1.3 John Norton and Harriet Oxley.

Thomas Hassall (1794–1868) grew up in a missionary family, first in Tahiti and then in Sydney. When trouble broke out in Tahiti, Rev. Samuel Marsden opened up his home to the Hassalls and then helped them settle on a farm nearby. From an early age, Thomas displayed the gifts of an educator and evangelist. He started the first Sunday School in Australia in his parents’ home in 1813. After theological training back in England, he became Marsden’s curate at Parramatta and married his eldest daughter, Anne. In 1827, Thomas became rector of the Cowpastures parish, which extended 130 miles to the south from Camden. He became known as ‘the galloping parson’ because of his regular trips on horseback around the area. He and Anne raised their eight children on their farm ‘Denbigh’, not far from ‘Kirkham’. Thomas supervised the building of first Heber Chapel and later St Paul’s Church at Cobbitty.⁵

1.4 St Paul’s Church, Cobbitty.

In 1856, John Oxley was elected as the representative of Camden West in the first parliament of New South Wales. Although he succeeded in passing some progressive legislation on rail gauges, because this was unpopular with own constituency he never sought re-election. Through his political connections, John was appointed a magistrate, and always interested in new technology, he supported initiatives for the first Sydney to Parramatta railway line.⁶

Life at ‘Kirkham’ very much reflected upper middle-class Victorian values and routines. Harriet organised the domestic duties and children’s education, especially as John was often away on business.⁷ A live-in tutor taught the school-age children the basic subjects connected to ‘reading writing and arithmetic’, history and geography. Activities like swimming, riding and shooting, as well as calisthenics, rounded out the curriculum. Popular games of the time like skipping, jacks and marbles, Oranges and Lemons and What’s the Time, Mr Wolf? were all considered worthwhile educational play. The girls learned the piano and singing. Duets were a favourite pastime for friends and visitors, and occasionally their mother, playing harmonium, accompanied them. By making doll’s clothes, they were also taught to darn, sew and knit. A girl learned ‘a skill with her needle and the art of cutting out, which will be valuable in her future years.’⁸

Daily routines at ‘Kirkham’ sought to naturally integrate the Christian faith into the children’s lives. Morning and evening prayers and Bible reading were part of their everyday experience. Involvement in the life of their local church, St Paul’s Cobbitty, was a highlight of the week. There were also Sunday gatherings at ‘Denbigh’, the nearby Hassall family home, where their grandmother Anne, matriarch of the whole clan, lived. Lunch together was full of engrossing stories about life in Yorkshire, early colonial days and extensive missionary exploits by various branches of the family.

Amy’s family often socialised with important people who had homes in the Camden area. These included the Premier of New South Wales, Sir Charles Cowper, his wife Eliza and the MacArthur family, who were leading graziers in the colony.⁹ The extended family had strong social contacts with other significant figures like the Blaxlands and Wentworths, Bishop and Mrs Barker, and missionaries returning from fascinating places like Foochow. At the other end of the social scale, there were also opportunities to meet with Aborigines who were intermittently employed on the property. On one occasion there was a corroboree involving 400 participants.

1.5 ‘Camelot’, on the Kirkham estate, in the late nineteenth century.

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After years of financial uncertainty, in 1870 John reluctantly decided to put most of his property on the market. As Harriet had written to her sister Marianne some time before, ‘John owes a great deal of money … and really there seems very little chance of him paying it back for some years.’¹⁰ The sale took some time. Meanwhile John searched for a place to live nearer Sydney. Through a business contact, he learned that Samuel Bennett, owner of The Evening News and the Australian Town and Country Journal, had two houses in Glebe, just over two miles from the city, one of which, ‘Willow Lodge’, was available for rent.

Amy enjoyed moving into a house with a basement and a second storey. It was a handsome property, built on stone foundations, with brick walls, a slate roof, an elegant verandah and a small front garden. Inside there were eight apartments that had previously accommodated several adults, domestic servants and occasional guests. For John, its closeness to the city made it easier to pursue some of his ventures, and for the children it was only a short boat ride to Hunters Hill, where their grandmother Emma now lived.

Though John still had a number of assets after selling the Kirkham estate, such as the mill he built, for the most part he continued to be cash poor. As Harriet had to manage the household expenses, she was more conscious of their financial situation. However, the size and location of ‘Willow Lodge’ opened up a new prospect for raising money, offering ‘genteel’ accommodation for short- and longer-term lodgers. It would be up to Harriet to manage this – besides looking after a new baby, Beatrice Marsden, and five other children still at home. In one of her letters to her sister during the family’s first year at Glebe, Harriet wrote that earning a regular income from this venture was difficult. Lodgers often came and went for short stays and occasionally there were none at all. To maximise the number of tenants she could take in the busiest periods, Harriet arranged for her sons, Fred and Arthur, to stay at the Oxley home at Hunters Hill.

An amusing family anecdote about Amy as a five-year-old, in August 1873, described her delight in receiving a shirred dress from her grandmother, then playing dress-ups in the parlour with her younger sister Beattie. Harriet describes this to her sister as ‘the old family failing to dress well and look good.’ On a more serious note, Harriet also writes that lodgers in the house had all left because Amy had contracted scarlet fever and they were afraid of its highly contagious, life-threatening consequences. This