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Nobbs, George Hunn

"He claimed he was born in Moira, County Down, the illegitimate son of Francis Rawdon-Hastings 1st Marquis of Hastings (1754-1826) and Jemima French, and that the marquis did not acknowledge him, and he was fostered by the elderly Nobbs family who lived near Yarmouth. However, evidence from parish registers suggest it was more likely that he was the son of John Nobbs, schoolmaster, and his partner (later wife), Jemima Hunn (who had two further daughters after marriage). 'George Nobbs Hunn' was baptised in the parish church of Runham, Norfolk on 27 October 1799. Nobbs most likely invented such a story of his youth to impress the Islanders. He spent an adventurous youth serving in various merchant ships, visiting both India and Africa. In 1828 he arrived on Pitcairn Island where he became schoolmaster and unordained parson to a community descended from HMS Bounty mutineers and Tahitian islanders. On 18 October 1829 Nobbs married Sarah Christian, the granddaughter of Fletcher Christian, who had led the mutiny. Nobbs left the island for a time during the despotic rule of Josiah Hill; he returned when Hill was expelled in 1837 and became the leader of the community.

"He greatly impressed Rear Admiral Sir Fairfax Moresby who visited the island in 1852. Moresby supported an application by Nobbs to be sanctioned in his position. Nobbs sailed with Moresby to Valparaíso in Chile from where Nobbs continued his journey to London, arriving in October 1852. During his two-month visit to London he was ordained as a minister in the Colonies, was accredited by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel with an annual stipend of £50, addressed the first meeting of the Pitcairn Fund Committee and was received by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha at Osborne House. He set sail on his return voyage to Pitcairn on 17 December 1852. During his visit to London Nobbs had convinced his supporters that the island could no longer support the Pitcairn community. On his return he found the islanders badly affected by a prolonged drought and an outbreak of influenza. In 1856 the community moved to Norfolk Island, a Crown Colony previously occupied by convict prisoners. Much of the island had been cultivated, and there were roads and houses awaiting occupation. However, it became clear that the islanders could no longer continue in the same seclusion they had experienced on Pitcairn. Nobbs expressed their disappointment in a letter her wrote to Sir Fairfax Moresby in 1866: "We own nothing beyond our 50-acre allotments, not sheep, nor ground on which the sheep feed; all is Government property and may be best disposed of as seems best to Government." Ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the island was now claimed by the Melanesian Mission. After a period of intransigence, he was eventually reconciled and accepted the work of the mission on the island. When Nobbs died most of the island community, numbering around 470, attended his funeral."

-- Wikipedia

"Unacknowledged son of Francis Rawdon, Marquis of Hastings, and Jemima French, daughter of an Irish baronet, who, becoming involved in the Irish revolution, was forced to leave his country. On his mother's deathbed, she extracted from George a solemn promise never to accept any favor at the hands of his father's family. Moreover, she was very anxious that he leave England and take up residence in some other part of the world where 'her wrongs and mine might be buried in oblivion'.

"His mother and grandmother, suffering a serious reduction in circumstances, sent him to Yarmouth into the care of an elderly family named Nobbs, whose name they forced him to assume. She had arranged with Admiral Murray, commanding in North Yarmouth, to put him aboard a Royal Navy ship, and in 1812, he was placed aboard the 'Roebuck', then to other ships.

"After his service to the Royal Navy, which led him to Valparaiso, he appears to have embarked on a career as a soldier of fortune, serving in both the Argentinian and Chilean navies. In 1822, he was serving on a Neapolitan vessel, and the next year found him in Sierra Leone, where he was commanding a ship named the 'Gambia'. By 1826, he was in Calcutta. His adventures were harrowing, according to his own narrative, and he apparently survived shipwreck, capture by the enemy, and the deaths of many of his shipmates. He described his early life as 'filled with enough incidents to enliven three Hentys and four Rider Haggards' (adventure writers of his day).

"On 5 Nov 1828, Nobbs arrived on Pitcairn, at age 28, accompanied by a mysterious American shipmate, "Captain" Noah Bunker. They came from Calloa in an 18 ton cutter after a six-week voyage. Nobbs was never very explicit about the circumstances, but it appears that Nobbs entered into an agreement with Bunker wherein Nobbs would supply the money with which to outfit Bunker's boat, and they agreed to make the 3500 mile trip to Pitcairn together. Later investigation seems to indicate that the title to the cutter was more than a little in question!

"Although not popular with the islanders immediately after his arrival, he seems to have impressed them with an advanced level of devoutness. His religiosity, according to his critics, seems to have had little precedent in his life before his arrival! Further, his increasing religious leadership was undermining the power of Buffett, the schoolteacher. When, upon Adams death in 1829, Nobbs established a separate school, Buffett quit teaching in disgust. The period from 1829-1832 seems to have witnessed a growing division between followers of the impudent and increasingly devout Nobbs and the practical, strongwilled Buffett. The arrival of Joshua Hill in 1832 marked the beginning of a very trying period in the lives of Nobbs, Buffett, and Evans. Realizing that these three would be the most threatening to his plans and beliefs, Hill singled them out for special humiliation and punishment. The "quiet, devout" Pastor Nobbs was not considered by the bombastic preacher, Hill, to be a serious challenge, and he soon replaced him as Pastor.

"The ill-treatment that the three endured reached a climax when they were forced to leave the island in March of 1834, on board the 'Tuscan'. They were carried to Tahiti, where Nobbs appears to have travelled on to Mangareva to serve there as a missionary. He was later reunited with his family, and they later ended up in the Gambier Islands with Evans and his family. They were not able to return to Pitcairn until after Hill's forced departure in 1837. Ironically, it was pressure by his "quiet, devout" rival that forced the English government to remove Hill. Nobbs returned as Pastor, fully consolidating his position vis-a-vis Buffett, who concentrated on his teaching and woodworking until his later call to religious leadership on Norfolk.

"He was the first islander to be formally trained in the ministry. He sailed to England with Moresby in 1852, to attend seminary. Within two months, he had qualified for ordination as deacon and priest, and was commissioned by the Bishop of London as 'Chaplain of Pitcairn Island'.

"After being entertained my many notables, he was received by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Loaded down with portraits of the Royal Family and a per annum of 50 pounds from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, he returned to Pitcairn in triumph in 1853."

-- RootsWeb

There is also an entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography

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