Richard Johnson

Chaplain

Arrived on: Golden Grove
Left colony: October 1800

Reverend Richard Johnson accompanied the First Fleet to provide moral guidance to the inhabitants of the fledgling colony.

As chaplain to the settlement, Reverend Johnson’s broad role included leading church services, conducting marriages, christenings and burials, ministering to the settlers, and teaching schoolchildren. Despite the hardships of the harsh Australian environment and the unruly behaviour of many of the convicts, he was determined to remain in the settlement to continue his work:

The new inhabitants of Sydney Cove were grateful for his work. In 1790, a convict wrote home: ‘I believe few of the sick would recover if it was not for the kindness of the Rev. Mr Johnson, whose assistance out of his own stores makes him the physician both of soul and body’.

Sources:

4 October 1791, Letters from Rev. Richard Johnson to Henry Fricker, 30 May 1787 – 10 August 1797.

Extract from a letter from a young man at Port Jackson published in the Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 29 December 1790.