Thomas W Kendall JP (bef. 1778 - 1832)

Born before 13 Dec 1778 in North Thoresby, Lincolnshire, England [uncertain]

Ancestors

Husband of Jane (Quickfall) Kendall — married 21 Nov 1803 in Kirmington, Lincolnshire, England

Descendants

Died 6 Aug 1832 after age 53 in At Sea, Shoalhaven River mouth, Australia

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Campbell Braddock [send private message]

Thomas Kendall JP is Notable.

Biography

Thomas was a member of the Anglican Church

Thomas Walter Kendall was born in 1778 in Lincolnshire, England to Edward Kendall and Susannah Surflit. He was one of New Zealand’s first Christian missionaries and was based at the Church Missionary Society station in the Bay of Islands from 1814 until 1821. He pioneered the transcription of the Māori language, and also investigated how Māori understood the universe. In doing so, however, he attracted hostility from others in the Australasian mission world.

On a trip to London in 1805, the 26-year-old Lincolnshire grocer and draper from Lincolnshire had a profound religious experience. Soon afterwards he sold his business, moved his family south, and became an ardent member of the congregation of Bentinck Chapel, in Marylebone. In 1808 Kendall asked the Church Missionary Society to send him to New Zealand, but it was not until 1813 that he was chosen to be the schoolmaster at the planned mission settlement. He finally set sail, with his family, on 31 May 1813 on board the Earl Spencer arriving at Port Jackson, Australia on 10 October.

The mission was founded at Rangihoua, in the northern Bay of Islands, in December 1814, under the patronage of the chiefs Hongi Hika and Ruatara. It comprised three missionary families. The following year Kendall had the first book in Māori published in Sydney, and in 1816 he opened his missionary school. Education was an important way of introducing Māori children to Biblical scripture and European ways.

Thomas was a teacher.

In a series of letters written between 1822 and 1824, mostly to the CMS, Kendall attempted to describe Māori cosmological thought. One of Kendall’s conduits into understanding the Māori way of life was Tungaroa, the daughter of the tohunga of Rangihoua, with whom he had an affair. On learning of this, Samuel Marsden, his Sydney-based CMS superior, dismissed Kendall from his post. Although Kendall went on to hold another clerical post in Chile, he claimed in 1822 that the ‘apparent sublimity’ of Māori ideas had ‘almost completely turned [him] from a Christian to a Heathen’. He resolved this contradiction in his own mind by maintaining that Māori beliefs must somehow have been derived from scriptural knowledge.

In 1825, Kendall accepted a position as clergyman at the British consulate at Valparaiso, Chile, but the job did not last and he went to New South Wales in Australia^[1], which he had sailed to in 1813, with his wife and 5 children, on the way to New Zealand. This time he obtained a land grant, in 1827, of 1,280 acres (5.2 km2), including large stands of cedar at Narrawallee Creek, Ulladulla, and property at Kiama, both on the South Coast of New South Wales. Two records indicate that he visited the Ulladulla area in 1828 where Millard's Creek enters what is now the harbour and there was a camp of Aboriginals on the north side^[2].

Reverend Thomas Kendall also continued work as a clergyman throughout Illawara, the northern part of the South Coast^[3].

At the time of the 1828 New South Wales, Australia Census, Thomas Kendall age 50, was living in Illawarra with his wife Jane (45), and children; Thomas (22), Basil (21), Joseph (19), John (17), Laurence (11), and Edward (6).^[4]

He died in 1832 by drowning when the cutter "Brisbane", which he had purchased to transport the cedar and other produce from his farm, sank with all hands off the mouth of the Shoalhaven River^[5], while transporting wood and cheese to market in Sydney.

Research Notes

The date of death is uncertain. The boat went missing, but there is no certainty on the exact date.

Sources

1. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kendall
2. ↑ R.H. Cambage: Captain Cook’s Pigeon House and Early South Coast Exploration, 1920; and W.A.Bayley (Shoalhaven,p.34)
3. ↑ http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1733&context=ihsbulletin
4. ↑ 1828 Census: "1828 New South Wales, Australia Census (Australian Copy)"
   State Records Authority of New South Wales; Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia; 1828 Census: Alphabetical Return; Series Number: NRS 1272; Reel: 2554
   Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry Record 1224 #46957 (accessed 16 January 2022)
   Edward Kendall in New South Wales, Australia.
5. ↑ http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kendall-thomas-2296

• Biography: The Legacy of Guilt: a life of Thomas Kendall by Judith Binney.
• NSW Land Grant: A Documentary History of the Illawarra and South Coast Aborigines 1770-1850. Aboriginal Education Unit. The University of Wollongong, 1990. Michael Organ. http://www.ulladulla.info/tag/kendall-family has "late 1828".

DNA descendants

As of 1 Jan 2024, there are 34 DNA descendants related to Campbell Braddock on Ancestry.com via ThruLines. Below are the children and their DNA descendants.

• Susannah (Kendall) Bowden (1804 - 1881) 3 DNA descendant Match
• Elizabeth Jane (Kendall) Florence (1805 - 1870) 26 DNA descendant Matches
• Joseph Kendall (1811 - 1865) 1 DNA descendant Match
• Lawrence Kendall (1819 - 1881) 2 DNA descendant Match
• John Kendall 1 DNA descendant Match

Below are the children who didn't match with other descendants possible due to no living descendants or descendants who haven't taken a DNA Test.

1. Thomas Kendall
2. Edward Kendall
3. Basil Kendall
4. Samuel Kendall [unmarried] [no children]

Genealogy Links

• Thomas Kendall 1778–1832 from the Australian Royalty website at: https://australianroyalty.net.au/individual.php?pid=I45426&ged=purnellmccord.ged

Biography Links

• Thomas Kendall Biography on Teara
• Thomas Kendall Biography on Wkipedia
• Thomas Kendall Biography on NZ History

Photo/Painting Links

• Thomas Kendall with Hongi Hika Panting

References

• a b Rogers, Lawrence M., (1973) Te Wiremu: A Biography of Henry Williams, Pegasus Press, p. 35, f/n 7 & 39
• "New Zealander". Early shipping in New Zealand waters. Retrieved 10 November 2013.
• Raeside, J. D. (1 September 2010). "Thierry, Charles Philippe Hippolyte de – Biography". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Retrieved 27 December 2013.
• Moon, Paul (2012). Savage Country. Penguin Auckland. pp. 165–167.
• http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/DNZB/alt_essayBody.asp?essayID=1T34
• [Preview Kendall Book]
• Missionary Register, 1815.