Patteson of the Isles by Mary H. Debenham

Mary H. Debenham’s short biography of the great South Sea missionary John Coleridge Patteson [1827-1871] entered the public domain this year. My thanks to Redcliffe College for providing a copy of the book for digitisation.

Mary H. Debenham [1864-1947], Patteson of the Isles. London: Oxford University Press, 1921. Hbk. pp.160. [Click to visit the download page]

Contents

• Foreword

1. Two Devon Boys
2. Out to His Great Adventure
3. Finding His Sea-Legs
4. ‘The Multitude of the Isles’
5. The Boys of the Islands
6. ‘Business in Great Waters’
7. Father of the Island Sons
8. The Cruise of the ‘Sea Breeze’
9. The Road of the Holy Cross
10. The Weaving of the Net
11. The Secret of St. Barnabas
12. The Snatch-Snatch Boats
13. ‘Port, After Stormy Seas’

Chapter 1: Two Devon Boys

Twelve hundred and odd years ago there was a small boy running about among  the green hills and woods of South Devon, the county that bred Drake and Hawkins and Grenville and many another gentleman adventurer who sailed westward to singe His Spanish Majesty’s beard.

This boy lived long before the days when England was one kingdom; he went about bare-legged and bare-armed, with a tunic to his knee, and talked English in a fashion that few of us would understand. But, underneath the little differences of clothes and language, he was a good deal like other boys of all ages. He probably carried a sling, and knew how to bring down a partridge or a heron. He knew when the golden-brown streams were ready for fishing. He liked to be in for as much of the excitement as possible when the older men hunted a wolf, and he liked the fun of the midsummer fair…

To find more material on John Coleridge Patteson, visit this page.