A Season of Pain and Trial

Marsh Brown (1831-1845)
The Elms Collection, 1935.0128

The exact circumstances of Marsh Brown’s accident will never be known. In April 1844 Bishop Selwyn, founder of the College of St John, wrote to his father, Reverend Alfred Brown, that he had “received a blow” which in a few days “brought on swelling.”

Having been at St John’s, Te Waimate, for only a few weeks, Marsh was confined to bed unable to move his arms and legs. Despite consulting nine doctors over seventeen months, the cause of his confinement remained a mystery. Suggestions included erysipelas (a bacterial skin infection), remittent fever, rheumatic fever, disease of the spine and anasarca (a painful swelling of the skin caused by excess fluid).

To alleviate Marsh’s pain Bishop Selwyn constructed a waterbed from a large tin case and a stretched McIntosh cloth. While the bed was credited with extending his life, the true extend of his affliction was made known after his death: “All the processes of the spine were bare, and wounds, which had been hidden by the calico of the frame, were now for the first time brought to light. Severe as we knew his sufferings had been, we felt that their intensity could only have been fully known to himself and to that God who had promised (and who had fulfilled that promise) never to leave or forsake him.”

Bishop Selwyn
From Auckland Weekly News Supplement, 29 April 1909
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19090429-6-1

Marsh needed constant care, and this was shared amongst family, friends and Hemi Warana, one of his most attentive nurses. “Marsh was never left night or day, it being necessary to change very frequently the position of some of the many pads which were placed under different parts of his body.” 

Due to unrest in the North, Marsh and his waterbed were transported by foot to Paihia and later, accompanied by his father, he travelled by ship to Auckland. It was there that Marsh "renewed a wish to return home – as he called Tauranga – forgetting, perhaps, that in his debilitated state, it could no longer be to him the happy home that he once so much enjoyed."

Returning to Te Papa on 21 August 1845, Marsh was placed in the sitting room of the raupo whare looking out to the garden. In the days before his death he was visited by many Maori, who according to Brown: “Entered the room, a few at a time – gazed affectionately for a minute or two on the wasted form of your brother, received his friendly smile – and then walked quietly out; the silent tear on many a cheek giving utterance to the feeling of the heart.”

The Burial Ground, Te Papa, Tauranga, (December) 1962
Copy print of photograph taken by John Kinder, The Elms Collection

Marsh died on 14 September 1845 was buried at the Mission Cemetery three days later surrounded by family and friends, including 200 Maori whose presence gave a great deal of comfort.

After his death Reverend Brown wrote a letter to Marsh’s ‘surviving sister’ Celia that later became a small publication titled "Brief Memorials of an Only Son." It outlined, in painful detail, Marsh’s illness and death. Brown hoped that the record would give Celia guidance: “May an occasional reference to these pages in your future pilgrimage bring back to its original freshness the remembrance of your brother … follow him as he followed Christ.”

An original manuscript of ‘Brief Memorials of an only son’
The Elms Collection, 2008.0063