Convict priest was in favour ... and out

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11 May 2003

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Convict priest was in favour ... and out

The Castle Hill insurrection of March 1804 led to the withdrawal of permission for Fr James Dixon to conduct religious services. The colony was once more without a priest and would remain so until Fr Jeremiah O’Flynn arrived in late 1817.

By Dr J A Morley

Fr James Dixon’s open ministry and its anticipated effect upon the Irish Catholics in the penal colony of New South Wales so pleased Governor Philip Gidley King, that on May 9, 1803, six days before the first official Mass, he wrote to Lord Hobart:

“Your Lordship’s ideas as well as the Lord Lieutenant’s respecting the Irish convicts, I shall pay every attention to. By directions from Lord Hardwicke, received by the 2d Atlas [which arrived on October 30, 1802], Mr O’Neal [sic] has been permitted to return to Ireland; and I am glad to say that the conduct of Dixon, another Catholic priest, has been exemplary since he has been here, whilst Harold’s (who is at Norfolk Island) has been the reverse.

“To employ them as schoolmasters would be giving them the means, were they so disposed, of instilling improper ideas into the minds of their pupils. However, I do not think that would be the case with Dixon.

“Your Lordship’s suggestion respecting their exercise of their clerical functions I have most maturely considered, and weighed the certain advantages with the possible disadvantages.

“I believe it will be admitted that no description of people are so bigoted to their religion and priests as the lower order of the Irish, and such is their credulous ignorance that an artful priest may lead them to every action that is either good or bad. ... Possessed as I am of your Lordship’s liberal sentiments on this head, and not doubting Mr Dixon’s profession, as contained in the enclosed regulation and proclamation, [reference to King’s assertion, that Dixon had taken the oaths] I have allowed him to exercise his clerical functions once a month [actually it was weekly], under stipulated restrictions.

“As there is no other Catholic priest [in the Sydney area] I am hopeful much good, or at least no harm, will result from it.’

In a dispatch also dated May 9, 1803, is this annotation to the Return of Births and Deaths in His Majesty’s Colony of New South Wales Between the 31st Day of December 1801 and the 1st Day of January 1803 - Extracted From the Surgeons’ and Clergymen’s Reports: “Remarks - The Births are uncertain and not easily Collected from the Scattered state of the Settlers’ Allotments, and Children born of Catholic Parents and not Baptised will be remedied now, as the Priest will keep a Register of the Baptisms.”

No register kept by Dixon has been found.

A report in The Sydney Gazette on October 9 that year of the execution at Hawkesbury of a robber named Thomas McLaughlin also gave evidence of Fr Dixon’s activity.

It said the prisoner had been “lodged in a place of security near the New Store and there attended to by the Rev Mr Dixon, Minister of the Church of Rome”.

Pleased with the apparent results of Dixon’s ministry, King wrote to Hobart on March 1, 1804 - three days before the Irish convicts staged an insurrection at Castle Hill (outside Parramatta): “The indulgence proposed by your Lordship respecting the Rev’d Mr Dixon performing the functions of his clerical office as a Roman Catholic, and its being carried into execution, as stated in my former letters, has had the most salutary effects on the number of Irish Catholics we have, and since its toleration there has not been the most distant cause for complaint among that description, who regularly attend Divine Service.”

Did that mean that the Catholics, attended the Anglican Divine Service as well as Fr Dixon’s services?

King’s satisfaction was short-lived. When, on March 4, 1804, Irish convicts staged an abortive insurrection at Castle Hill and marched on Parramatta, Fr Dixon accompanied Major Johnston - either voluntarily or by King’s command - to quash the rebellion.

King must have thought Dixon would be able to persuade the Irish to surrender. The rebels ignored Fr Dixon’s pleas. Immediately the uprising was put down, King revoked Dixon’s permission to officiate and cancelled the salary he had given him.

On August 14, 1804, King again wrote to Lord Hobart, saying: “I have been necessitated to withhold the salary from the Romish priest Dixon [note the changedterminology], for very improper conduct, and to prevent the seditious meetings that took place in consequence of the indulgence and protection he received.”

But he did not revoke Dixon’s conditional pardon, nor elaborate on the charge of “very improper conduct”. Revocation of Dixon’s ministry was obviously directed against the Irish who King alleged had used Dixon’s services to conspire and plot rebellion.

There is anecdotal evidence that Fr Dixon continued to minister, either clandestinely or possibly with the connivance of some officials. Still conditionally pardoned, he would have been free to move about the settlement.

There are unofficial reports of baptisms and marriages at which he officiated.

It may be that King had indicated or hinted to Dixon well in advance that he was going to issue his proclamation of April 19, 1803, because Fr Dixon - realising that he would be officiating without the necessary faculties from Rome - approached Fr James McCormick OFM, the Friar Guardian at the Franciscan College of St Isadore in Rome, either immediately following the Proclamation, or sometime before (allowing for the time it would have taken for his letter to reach Rome).

The Franciscan then petitioned Propaganda Fide, the Vatican body responsible for Catholic missionary activities, on Dixon’s behalf.

On January 29, 1804, the Secretary of Propaganda Fide, Archbishop Dominic Coppola, placed this petition for faculties before the cardinals in charge.

“James Dixon, a secular priest and for many years curate in Ireland in the Diocese of Ferns, the most humble Petitioner of Your Most Reverend Eminences, dutifully explains how, having been transported by order of his Government to NSW in the Pacific Ocean, there met a number of Roman Catholic colonists born in the three kingdoms of Great Britain and in other European nations, who, without any spiritual Director, were greatly longing for the administration of the Most Holy sacraments, other ecclesiastical functions and spiritual helps.

“Finding himself, therefore, in such circumstances, and not being able to have recourse to any of the Vicars Apostolic in the East Indies, on account of the lack of communication by sea, moved by zeal and the desire to comfort the said poor Catholics, the Petitioner has exercised there for about two years and is still exercising a presumed jurisdiction with great difficulties and trials with the intention of having recourse at the opportune time to the Holy See.

“Therefore it is that he humbly supplicates your Most Reverend Eminences to deign to enable him to qualify for the above mentioned functions by granting him all the necessary faculties usually given to Missionaries in Partibus infidelium …”

Here is evidence that, prior to King’s Proclamation of emancipation in April 1803, Fr Dixon had been conducting a clandestine ministry in NSW.

Archbishop Coppola, Arch bishop of Myra, noted that Pope Pius VII had granted Fr Dixon “all the faculties which seem to be necessary with a sanation absolute of all those actions which are capable of receiving a sanation”.

The Letter Patent, dated February 25, 1804, notifying Fr Dixon of his appointment as Prefect of the Missions in New Holland, said in part: “For a long time, this sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith has been anxious about the faithful in New Holland and was greatly disturbed by such great difficulty of time and place that labourers could not be sent into that immense vineyard of the Lord.

“Whilst we were being troubled by worries of this kind, we understood with great pleasure that your Lordship of whose devotion and outstanding learning assurances had been given us, had been by chance forced to go there and that the Catholics living there who had long been deprived of all spiritual support, had received you as one sent by God and had almost forced you to administer the Sacraments to them.

“Knowing that you did not have the valid faculty, you were in doubt and hesitated for a long time. But at last, overcome by the pleas of the faithful, you thought it possible in such a necessity to make use of presumptive faculties and did not hesitate to administer the Sacraments to them.”

The Letter Patent adds: “Our Holy Father Pope Pius VII, desiring to apply some remedy to this wrong, great as it is, has graciously pronounced an absolute sanation, from the fullness of the power bestowed on him by Christ the Lord, on all the actions carried out through you to which sanation can apply.”

It was signed by the Prefect, Stephen Cardinal Borgia, and secretary, Dominic Coppola.

The Papal Archives were taken to Paris between 1810 and 1811 on the orders of Napoleon, and about a third of them - including many Propaganda Fide documents - were either lost, destroyed or sold to shopkeepers in Paris for wrapping paper.

The Letter Patent informing Fr Dixon of his appointment is in the archives; but the decree of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide establishing the Prefecture of New Holland is missing.

What if any part Dixon played in the Rum Rebellion insurrection against Governor Bligh on January 26, 1808, is not recorded.

However, on June 3,1809, along with many others, he was granted an Absolute Pardon ‘for good conduct,’ by Lieutenant Governor William Paterson, who took command of the colony on January 10, 1809.

Having perhaps heard of the departure from England on May 12, 1808, of the newly appointed governor, Lachlan Macquarie, and of Macquarie’s brief to tighten up the administration of the colony; and reckoning that Macquarie, “a pillar of the established Church”, may clamp down on himself and Fr Harold, Dixon decided to leave the colony.

This notice appeared in The Sydney Gazette of October 1, 1809: “All Persons having Claims or Demands on Mr Dixon are requested to present them forthwith for Payment, as he intends to leave the Colony in the Mary Ann.”

That was followed a week later by the entry: “Notice is hereby given, that the undermentioned Persons have obtained His Honor the Lieutenant Governor’s Permission to go as passengers in the Mary Ann.” Among those listed was Mr James Dixon.

Finally, The Sydney Gazette of Sunday, October 22, 1809, reported: “On Sunday last [October 15] sailed the Mary Ann, Captain R S Walker, for England, via Rio.”

Fr Dixon arrived back in Ireland in 1810.

He was appointed parish priest of Crossabeg in 1819. James Dixon died on January 4, 1840.

After his official ministry in NSW lapsed (Fr Dixon must have notified the congregation of the situation, either while still in NSW or on his return to Ireland), 12 years passed before the next action (related to Fr Jeremiah O’Flynn’s abortive attempt to minister in the colony) was taken by the Holy See*.

There is no evidence that, on returning to Ireland, any of the three convict priests made any representations about the spiritual deprivation of the NSW Catholics.

Fr O’Neil made no apparent move to assist them but was vocal in defence of his innocence of the charges on which he had been transported.

As no document has been found in Propaganda Fide archives revoking Fr Dixon’s appointment as Prefect Apostolic, it surely means that he was obliged to endeavour to have one or more priests go to minister there.

Yet, when in 1816, Fr Richard Hayes made a declaration on behalf of Fr O’Flynn, he wrote that Dixon was “personally and intimately” known to him and that he, had “seen him and spoken constantly and familiarly with him from the year 1811 to the year 1815” and that Dixon had “no intention of ever returning to New Holland”.

The brief presence of the three priests in NSW did not alter the character of the Catholic Church in that territory.

When they arrived it was a lay church.

When all three had gone it was still a lay church and remained so for another decade until the arrival of Frs Phillip Conolly and John Joseph Therry in May 1820.

*Fr O’Flynn arrived as Vicar Apostolic of New Holland but lacked official approval and status within the colony. Six months after his arrival he was arrested, imprisoned and - on May 20, 1818 - sent away aboard the ship David Shaw.