Benjamin DANKS

DANKS, BENJAMIN (b. Wednesbury, England, 12 Feb 1853; d. Sydney, NSW, 12 April 1921). Methodist missionary in New Britain and missionary administrator.

Benjamin Danks migrated to Vic with his family when a young child. He entered the Wesleyan Methodist ministry in 1878 and was sent with his wife, Emma, daughter of John and Elizabeth Watsford, to join the Rev George Brown in the newly established missionary venture on the Duke of York group in New Britain, where he remained for nine years. An opponent of 'blackbirding', the traffic in indentured island labour for the Australian sugar cane industry, he warned local inhabitants not to go aboard any vessel recruiting labour for distant places, much to the displeasure of the labour traders. In 1880 he participated in the rescue of the survivors of the ill-fated settlement established by the Marquis de Rays. In 1907 he succeeded George Brown as the general secretary of Foreign Missions for the Methodist Church of Australasia and was president of the NSW Conference in 1908. He retired in 1918 and died in 1921 after a long illness attributed to the privations of his missionary career. Danks was highly regarded as a linguist and published the first book in the Tolai language of New Britain. He was a strong supporter of state legislation to control social evils, and to ensure pure food and drugs. He was an ardent temperance advocate.

George Brown, An Autobiography (London, 1908); New South Wales Methodist Conference, Souvenir of the Presidency of the Rev. Benjamin Danks (Sydney, 1909); Wallace Deane (ed), In Wild New Britain (Sydney, 1933); Neville Threlfall, One Hundred Years in the Islands (Rabaul, 1975)

MICHAEL HORSBURGH