Fitzherbert Adams Marriott

F.A. Marriott was an Anglican priest and was born on 27 May 1811 @ Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, the 2nd son of G.W. Marriott of St Giles & Middle Temple, London and his wife Selina Anne, the daughter of Archdeacon Adams of Huntingdonshire. He was educated @ Charterhouse, and read classics @ Oriel College, Oxford (B.A., 1833; M.A., 1836).

After ordination in 1836 he was appointed to Cotesbatch, a Leicestershire parish of which his uncle held the patronage. Chosen by Bishop Nixon, a family friend, as his chaplin, he sailed with the epicospal party in the Duke of Roxburgh and arrived @ Hobart Town in July 1843. Within a week he was appointed archdeacon and soon had the added duties of surrogate.

After assisting for some time in busy northern parishes, he was sent to England by Nixon to make good the bishop's disputed authority over the chaplains in the Convict Department, raise money for the colonial church and plead the cause of religious education for the colony. He made many contacts among churchmen and philanthropists in England and collected 5000 pounds for the general expansion.

He resigned his Tasmanian posts in September 1854, when he became curate of St Paul's, Knightsbridge, England. On 28 January 1860 he was appointed vicar of Chaddesley Corbett, Worchestershire, a post he held till his death on 19 October 1890.

Marriott was a scholarly preacher and 3 of his sermons were published by request in Hobart: THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM (1844), IS A PENAL COLONY RECONCIILABLE WITH GOD'S CONSTITUTION OF HUMAN SOCIETY AND THE LAWS OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM? (1847) and THE CHURCH OF THE INCARNATION, OUR GUIDE AND REFUGE (1851).

His Tasmanian career was marked by a succession of quarrels, both with Evangelical clergy and with Lieutenant-Governor Wilmot whom he opposed strongly on the transportation question (Letter Addressed to His Excellency Against Renewal of Transportation, Hobart, 1847), and in the dispute over the bishop's authority. He was reputed to have spread rumours at the Colonial Office about Wilmot's private life which caused his dismissal. His responsible mission to England in the service of the colonial church won him wide esteem, and in 1856 his help to education was remembered in an honorary fellowship of Christ's College.