John Gibson PATON

PATON, JOHN GIBSON (b. Braehead, Kirkmahoe, Scotland, 24 May 1824; d. Canterbury, Vic, 28 Jan 1907). Presbyterian missionary to the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), missionary statesman, and social reformer.

John Paton was the eldest of eleven children of James Paton, weaver, and Janet Jardine Rogerson. His father had wanted to train for the ministry; three sons did so. Their early life was frugal and God-fearing, with a thirst for education, and a high-toned family life; every Sabbath there was a four mile walk to the Reformed Presbyterian church, Dumfries and family worship. Paton's early schooling was broken but earnest faith drove him on. He taught at a Free Kirk school in Glasgow, won the attention of the directors of the Glasgow City Mission and was appointed a city missioner in depressed Calton while attached to Dr Symington's congregation. Amid depravity, threats and corruption he put together a plan of pastoral care, social aid, educational opportunity and evangelistic tenacity which soon saw a congregation formed in Green Street and a school opened. This period shaped his whole life. His modesty, compassion and tenacity undergirded all his subsequent labours.

He never forgot his father's family prayers for the heathen world and entered Glasgow University with this work in view. Four more years were spent in the RP Divinity Hall in Paisley; he also took lectures in medicine at the Andersonian Institute, Glasgow. At thirty-three he had the sacred languages, was skilled with tools, was sensitive to human need and had a heart for the lost. The RP Church sought two ministerial candidates for the New Hebrides. Paton and Joseph Copeland were accepted at a salary of £120 each. Paton was licensed on 1 Dec 1857 and spent four months among the RP churches, learning the strategy of church-based support. On this all his future schemes were based.

He was then ordained 23 March 1858 in Dr Symington's church where Paton was an elder marrying Mary Ann Robson, daughter of Peter Robson of Coldstream, merchant tailor, on 2 April 1858, when she was eighteen. They sailed from Greenock on the Clutha on 16 April 1858 transshipping in Melbourne to reach Aneityum Mission on 30 Aug. Paton was appointed to open a new station at Port Resolution Tanna where Samoans of the LMS and Aneityumese teaches had worked off and on since 1839 with severe set-backs.

The Patons arrived in Tanna on 5 Nov 1858 to a subdued welcome. His house was built on the foundations of the old LMS cottage of Turner and Nisbet (1842) just by the sea. Malaria soon wore them down. Mrs Paton gave birth to Peter Robert Robson Paton on 12 Feb 1859 and died on 3 March. The child died on 20 March. Bp G A Selwyn and his assistant J C Patteson called to pray with Paton beside the graves and offered him a cruise to recover his health which he declined. His labours among the inland tribes bore permanent fruit nevertheless he and his followers were blamed by the Tannese for the deaths and destruction caused by the measles epidemic and hurricanes of 1860 and 1861. After a hurricane in Jan 1862 their lives were in jeopardy and they fled to Aneityum on a trading vessel on 3 Feb.

On 12 Feb 1862 the surviving missionaries resolved to send Paton to visit the colonial churches, seeking their help in the extension of the mission and the purchase of a vessel. Paton used the drama of the three years on Tanna as a basis for his rousing appeals and steady response followed. In Scotland in 1864 the RP Synod made him moderator, and he secured three recruits. The Sabbath schools were drawn to support 'the Great Shipping Company for Jesus'. TheDayspring of 115 tons, built in Nova Scotia, arrived in 1865 and gave mobility to the mission and a means of expansion. On 17 June 1864 Paton married Margaret Whitecross (b. 20 Jan 1840, daughter of John Whitecross of Stirling, teacher). On 31 Jan 1865 the mission conference on Aneityum recorded 'its gratitude to God for the success which has attended Mr Paton's labours'.

When at last Paton returned to the New Hebrides he was the principal agent in the intervention of HMS Curacao (Commodore Wiseman RN) in Aug 1865. Led by Paton, the Presbyterian Mission Conference petitioned Wiseman about property loss, attacks on teachers and missionaries, and a general influence hostile to the Presbyterian mission. Paton, appointed by the Conference to accompany Commodore Wiseman as interpreter, was the main intermediary in the negotiations between Wiseman and the Tannese tribesmen, whom the Commodore threatened with violent retribution. Bombardment and an armed landing followed. Paton hoped the lessons dealt out would make the Tannese 'respect the lives and properties of British subjects' (Adams: 160). But the intervention seemed to be a linkage of church and state the RP church in Scotland in principle opposed. The incident was seized on by the Sydney press as evidence of vicious imperialism and hypocritical missionaries. Paton in particular was the target of much abuse. John Geddie, the senior missionary, complained that 'the way the Reformed Presbyterian Church has disposed of the affair is discreditable and unworthy of any body of Christian men' (Adams: 165). Commodore Wiseman, on the other hand insisted that the missionaries had no responsibility for his conduct of the affair. The incident remains controversial. Despite what he regarded as success in assaulting the evil he believed to be entrenched on Tanna, Paton never lived there again.

In 1866 Paton accepted the invitation of the Presbyterian Church in Vic to become its first missionary. The tide had turned for the mission. Paton was then appointed to the small coral islet of Aniwa, ten miles east of Tanna where LMS and Aneityumese teachers had laboured off and on since 1840. Paton saw Aniwa as the springboard to evangelise Tanna: teachers went to Tanna from Aniwa to open stations to 1901.

Nevertheless something had changed Paton, for on Aniwa he was a new man, preaching Christ and His saving death and resurrection and seeing early response. The first twelve converts were baptised and the church formed on 24 Oct 1869. Orphanages were built for boys and girls, who became teachers and teachers' wives. Aniwa mission copied Aneityum in its indigenous policies and practices. Teachers were raised up from among the converts and later evangelised other islands. The church elected its elders and a pastor Kamasiteia, the first in the history of the mission. By using arrowroot as a cash-crop they paid for their own translations and other books. Paton had a high view of the intellectual gifts of his people, as equal to those 'of any similar number of their own age in the colonies' and he included girls in this estimate. When a hundred war-refugees from Tanna fell back on Aniwa the people supported them for many months. A social conscience was born. Aniwa became a literate society with books in every home, the work of Paton as translator. But two Paton children died on Aniwa, in 1880 Mrs Paton's health was poor. In 1881 Paton resigned and returned to Vic. His greatest work about to begin.

Geddie's mantle as the leader in promoting the Presbyterian mission in the New Hebrides fell on Paton. In 1869 he backed J D Gordon when he opened N W Santo. In 1871 he accompanied Rarotongan teachers when they settled on Pele under P Milne. In 1879 he led the reconnaissance of Santo. His task as secretary (from 1881) to the Heathen Missions Committee of the Vic Presbyterian Church often saw him back in the New Hebrides where he retained a seat on synod and was still the missionary of Aniwa. At the home base he worked as an evangelist and churchman influencing people in all colonies and becoming agent for Foreign Missions of the Federal Assembly. The Presbyterian Church of Vic rapidly became the leading missionary organisation in Australia, whether measured by organisation, prayer, personnel or liberality. 'I strove to combine the evangelist with the missionary', he wrote. (J G Paton II, 357)

In 1884 he was among the churches of Britain, Spurgeon introduced him as 'The King of the Cannibals'. Back in Melbourne on 28 Oct 1885 he handed his committee a cheque for £9000. The Vic Presbyterian church elected him moderator for 1886 and that Assembly urged a national evangelistic campaign to celebrate the centenary of Australia, inviting the cooperation of sister churches. In 1889 he was sent to the USA to represent his church at the World Presbyterian Alliance General Assembly in Washington. He was invited to address both houses of Congress on the issue of US vessels trading in firearms and liquor in the New Hebrides. In 1902 he learned that the US government had banned this trade. He was an international figure. On 31 July 1901 he handed his Melbourne committee a cheque for £13 014 from overseas gifts. His committee directed that his portrait be painted and hung in Assembly Hall, Melbourne. Tom Roberts was the artist. The University of Edinburgh had conferred its DD in 1891.

From 1858 to 1881 Paton lived through many violent incidents in the first phase of trading and labour recruiting in Vanuatu. He called it 'the slave trade' and backed the mission's demand that the British government should abolish labour recruiting in the region. From 1889 to 1905 he continued to write against the trade, denouncing what he believed to be its harmful effects on island communities, but unwilling to recognise that it continued largely because of the willing participation of the Melanesian islanders themselves. He visited Queensland as missions agent for the federated Presbyterian church and set about helping the kanakas on the plantations. He was active in establishing the Presbyterian Kanaka Mission at Mackay in 1887. When he found the low level of support among Queensland Presbyterians he raised £600 from Ormond College students in Melbourne to keep the work going.

He was sparing in meeting his own needs but was a liberal private benefactor. His autobiography brought him an income from royalties. Thus, when the NZ Presbyterian Mission was hesitating about a new hospital on Ambrym, after successive disasters there, his cheque for £500 influenced the church to rebuild again. When the teachers' training institution was built at Tangoa in 1884 he paid for the main auditorium which was called Paton hall and still stands. Aniwans raised £120 to pay for their NT but the Melbourne Bank failed, so Paton paid the bill. The John G Paton Mission Fund was the child of A K Langridge in October 1890 and operated from Britain as a supportive body, sending out personnel, equipment, launches and building several small hospitals. Paton was consulted only after the project was established and he had no control over its funds. 'No missionary of modern times has turned the thoughts of so many young men to the Foreign Mission field as John G Paton.' (Langridge: 255)

The Paton family became a missionary dynasty of four generations in the New Hebrides, now Vanuatu. Paton's second son Fred was on Malekula from 1892-1941 and his third son Frank (q.v.) was on Tanna from 18961902 where he was welcomed as a son of 'old Paton' and had a team of Aniwans to help him. Paton's daughter Minnie married Gillan of Uripiv and was there 1900-1911. In the third generation Wilfred Paton served on Ambrym, John Gillan on Malekula and Santo, and Francis Paton at teachers' training institution. John Gillan's son served into the fourth generation. Others served the Aborigines and in overseas missions. Mrs M W Paton died in Melbourne on 16 May 1905, and the PWMU erected the Margaret Whitecross Paton Memorial Church in Vila and a mission hospital in Korea to commemorate her life and labours. Paton died in Melbourne and was buried in Boroondara cemetery, his prayer granted, 'that I might be permitted of God to work to the very end'. Paton Memorial Hospital was opened in 1910 in Vila as a tribute from the Vic Presbyterian church.

Paton is the best known of all missionaries to Vanuatu. One secret of his impact on the people was that he never forgot a face or a name. His early preaching on Tanna was severe, calling down on his opponents the wrath of 'the great Jehovah'. His plucky dog Clutha and unloaded revolver saved his life in the closing days on Tanna. He looked to the British gunboats to vindicate and protect him and believed this to be the proper policy for the mission. On Aniwa he spoke and acted like a new man, presenting Jesus and His Cross and winning the people by practical help and firmness linked with kindness.

Though elevated from a peasant home to international attention Paton retained his simplicity of life and demeanour to the end. His spiritual impact on Australia was as significant as his missionary contribution. 'As an advocate of native rights his ... transparent honesty gave him weight in the counsels of the nations, and evoked the encomiums of statesmen' (Mem Minute, Presbytery of N Melbourne).

R Adams, In the Land of Strangers. A Century of European Contact with Tanna 1774-1874(Canberra, 1984); H R Gillan, Vanuatu Victory (Melbourne, 1988); A K Langridge and F H L Paton, John G Paton: Later Years and Farewell (London, 1910); J G Miller, Live: A History of Church Planting in New Hebrides Vanuatu, I & II (Sydney, 1978 & 1981), III (Port Vila, Vanuatu, 1985); R Steel, The New Hebrides and Christian Missions (1880); Paton Notebooks and Journals c. 1861-84. Mrs W F Paton, Melbourne; Paton Journal 1850-54, held by J Gavin Paton, Canberra

SELECT WRITINGS: J G Paton, John G Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides, 2 vols (London 1889, 1890) ed. Dr James Paton; Ferguson vi, 986-7 for Paton's pamphlets against the labor traffic; A Bibliography of the New Hebrides and A History of the Mission Press, Part I (Sydney 1917) for Paton's translations into the Aniwa language

J GRAHAM MILLER