William Henry (missionary)
Following a rebellion in late 1808 and the destruction of their homes, seven missionaries and their families again went back to Sydney, where they arrived in the Hibernia in February 1810.
After a year Henry returned to Tahiti, this time bearing Lachlan Macquarie's appointment as "magistrate for the Pacific Islands".
Henry had helped baptise King Pōmare II, resulting in great influence for the missionaries within Tahitian society.
In October 1842 Henry, his wife and his younger children sailed to Sydney on the Sarah Ann, arriving in December 1842.
[1] In January 1843 Henry wrote to the London Missionary Society about his plans to retire and settle at Kissing Point.
The Society's letter concluded: We rejoice to perceive that in the retreat you have selected for your declining years, you will not be without opportunities for making known the preciousness of a Saviour's love.
The deed of gift specified "in consideration of the premises and of ten shillings" and transferred the land and "the message thereon erected".
Stone from James Shepherd Sr.'s nearby[2] quarry had been used to build St Anne's Church in 1826, Addington in the 1830s and Hellenie in 1840.
[1] In April 1847 James Shepherd died at Kissing Point, leaving property for his daughter, Ann, and her children.
Ann and her two youngest daughters, Sophia and Henrietta, had inherited from James Shepherd a block of land in George Street, Sydney.
[1] William Henry continued to preach at St. Anne's and acted as school master[2] until his death at Ryde aged 89 in April 1859, his body erect, his voice strong and his conversation animated to the last.
His obituary in The Sydney Morning Herald declared him "a pioneer of civilisation and commerce as a teacher of the Christian faith, he maintained an unblemished reputation through all the trials of his long public life.
The fourth child, William Ebenezer, was born in Australia, in December 1810 in "the house appointed for a school and chapel in the district called Eastern Farms or Kissing Point".
Isaac Shepherd came to Tahiti in 1818 with John Gyles, a missionary who had been sent to establish sugar cultivation and a mill on the island.
The Henry children were sent to Sydney for brief periods, the boys to serve apprenticeships and the girls to improve their "education, needlework and house keeping".
[1] In the eyes of his colleagues in Tahiti and in Sydney, Henry's missionary achievements were overshadowed by the behaviour of the children of both his marriages.
The Henry children were regarded as social outcasts, the despair of missionary families in the islands and in Sydney where they were sent to learn European ways, accusations of drunkenness, idolatry and promiscuity filled reports to London.
