Churches
Church of England (Anglican) services began on Norfolk Island with Lieutenant King’s first “Public Order”:
“No person is to absent himself from public worship which will begin every Sunday morning at eleven o’clock, the Commandant’s house, when everyone will come clean and orderly and behave themselves devoutly”.
Thomas Jamison, the Surgeon, was authorised to marry suitable couples. Lieut. Ralph Clark, in his journal of 6 November 1791, noted that the Revd. Mr Johnston performed Divine Service in both the forenoon and afternoon – “all the troops in the Garrison present”, and later baptised 31 children.
During the second settlement, many Irish political exiles were sent to Norfolk Island where they were treated as harshly as the convicted criminals. These devout Roman Catholics had a crying need for a clergyman of their faith, Captain Alexander Maconochie, an exceptionally liberal Commandant, allowed the “unwarranted expense” of building both a Protestant and a Roman Catholic Church within the walls of the Prisoners’ Barracks.
In 1835, two English Quaker missionaries, James Backhouse and George Walker, who spent two months on the island, were able to watch prisoners at work, talk to them and, at appropriate times, preach the Gospel. They reported to the N.S.W. Governor that the barracks were clean and white-washed, the bedding free of bugs and the men healthy on a good, if monotonous, diet.
In 1856 the Pitcairn Islanders brought with them to Norfolk strong traditions of strict religious observance based on the Bible and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.
Credit : Bounty Museum