Joseph Rennard ORTON

ORTON, JOSEPH RENNARD (b. Hull, England, 1 Oct 1795; d. at sea, 30 April 1842). Wesleyan missionary.

Joseph Orton was one of the nine children of John Orton, a customs officer in Hull, and Eleanor, a woman of piety who was a member of the Fish Street Independent congregation. Moving to London, Orton was apprenticed to a ships' chandler and later made a comfortable living as a general transactor of maritime business in the City. In 1813 he was converted to Wesleyan Methodism and served as a lay preacher in the East End. The WMMS was founded at this time amid scenes of great enthusiasm, and Orton offered his services for the overseas missions. From 1826 to 1829 he was in charge of mission stations in Jamaica at Falmouth, Montego Bay and Bath. In 1828 he was imprisoned in the St Ann's Bay Gaol by planter magistrates who feared the effects of evangelical teaching on the slaves. Vindicated by the courts but broken in health, Orton returned to England where he participated in the anti-slavery campaign that preceded the 1833 Emancipation Act.

In 1831 he was sent out as chairman of the WMMS NSW and VDL District. Australian Wesleyanism had been badly administered; according to the Rev Richard Watson of the WMMS Committee, 'it was the only one of our Missions that had been a disgrace to us' (Orton Journal, 12 Feb 1839). Appointed because of his business experience, Orton was stationed in Sydney from 1832 to 1836. One of his heaviest duties was to provision the WMMS missionaries in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. His chapel community was as disputatious as he had been warned it would be, and his papers contain many references to the 'depraved' state of the colony, but he enjoyed considerable success in restoring order within the ranks of the Wesleyans, reorganising their finances and increasing the membership.

From 1836 to 1839 he was in Hobart Town as chairman of the newly separated VDL district. Immigrants arrived from England fresh from disputes over what they saw as the excessive powers exercised there by the preachers under the leadership of the Rev Jabez Bunting. Defying Orton, they seceded to join the Association Methodists, a sect with branches in Canada and Jamaica as well as England. Other members were attracted to Port Phillip District and SA.

Orton travelled extensively in Australia and visited New Zealand twice. He laid the organisational basis for a Bathurst circuit. He is best remembered for his work in the Port Phillip District which he visited in 1836 to investigate the possibilities of setting up a mission to the Aborigines. The WMMS Committee accepted his suggestions and sent out the Revs Benjamin Hurst (q.v.) and Francis Tuckfield (q.v.). In 1839 he travelled with Tuckfield to choose a site for a station: 'Buntingdale' was situated on the Barwon River about forty miles from Geelong. It lasted until 1848, experiencing many difficulties because of the effects of European settlement.

Between 1840 and 1842 Orton lived in Melbourne as its first resident Wesleyan preacher. Deeply disturbed by the worsening race relations in the Port Phillip District, he concluded that the Aborigines could be saved only by the British Christian public acting through the government in London. Hoping to bring this about, he sailed for England on 8 March 1842, but died off Cape Horn. Orton's manuscripts are divided between the Mitchell Library, Sydney and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London.

ADB 2; A Tyrell, 'Making Provision for the Native Peoples of the Empire: Joseph Orton, Missionary in Jamaica and Australasia', La Trobe Library Journal 11 (1989)

ALEX TYRELL