Charles Christopher GODDEN

GODDEN, CHARLES CHRISTOPHER (CCG) (b. Violet Town, Vic, 1876; d. Omba, New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), 16 Oct 1906). Murdered Anglican missionary.

Godden grew up on the family selection with his school-teacher brother's family after the death of their parents. Drawn by William Hancock, vicar of Euroa into confirmation classes Charlie became a Christian and promptly offered for ordination. Despite his inadequate schooling, he soon gained the necessary prerequisite languages and was trained by Nathaniel Jones (q.v.) at Perry Hall, Bendigo and then MTC. This rough diamond from the Gippsland selector community emerged as a poet, a man with a remarkable memory and an unquenchable Christian enthusiasm.

Ordained deacon June 1899, priest 1900, he served a curacy at St Michael's Surry Hills. While there he responded to the recruiting call of Cecil Wilson, bp of Melanesia, and departed for the headquarters of the Melanesian Mission on Norfolk Island on 3 Sept 1900. By April 1901 he was working on Omba (Opa to Godden, Aoba to his daughter). There he sought to develop Christian work cautiously but with a vigorous, open manner. He oversaw the erection of schools and a church building.

After his second leave in Sydney when he m. Eva Dearin 12 Dec 1905, the couple returned in April 1906. Godden was murdered by a labourer returned from Qld hearing a grudge against white men for the punishment he had received there for attempted murder.

His daughter Ruth was born the following July, and his wife Eva died in 1964. Godden was the first Australian missionary to die in the Melanesian region, and one of the first evangelicals to he murdered as a missionary anywhere in the world. His death, though much lamented in the Sydney press, did not produce the wave of enthusiasm for the missionary cause which Bp Wilson had hoped for.

Godden, Rush, Lrilowai: The Story of Charles Godden and the Western Pacific (Sydney, 1967)

BRIAN DICKEY