Forty-four Years in Papua

Canon S. Tomlinson

A SMALL man in black cleric garb, with a kindly sun-tanned face and trimmed white beard, stepped off the Macdhui in Sydney on August 30 to spend holidays in Australia after 44 years of work in Papua as an Anglican missionary for the Australian Board of Missions. He is the Rev. Canon Samuel Tomlinson, one of the most picturesque personalities in Papua.

Canon Tomlinson has a remarkable missionary record. As a young man he settled in 1891 on the then savage north east coast of Papua with his wife, Rev.

Copeland King and Mr. McLaren. He took part in the first Church of England service at Wedau, Bartle Bay, held in the open air and conducted before a semi hostile crowd of natives. Shortly after wards hillmen from the interior descended in battle array to kill and eat the white strangers, only to be bought off with 40

pigs by the tribesmen whom the little band had won over with their Christian tpa china’s In thef 44 years that have passed, Canon Tomlinson has watched the steady growth of missionary work in the territory and his crowning joy was to see the building this year of Papua’s first cathedral at Dogura Of the original pioneering group, Mr. McLaren died and Mr. Copeland King abandoned his duties through illness, but Mr. and Mrs. Tomlinson were determined to remain.

To-day they live on a green, foliageclad hill overlooking the narrow strip of beach where the first service was held.

Though they are nominally in retirement, they refuse to give up their work and tirelessly persevere with their activities among their brown-skinned congregation.

Canon Tomlinson with a Papuan native Photo by courtesy of Australian Board of Missions.