HASSALL, THOMAS (1794-1868), Anglican clergyman, was born on 29 May 1794, at Coventry, England, the eldest child of Rowland Hassall and his wife Elizabeth, née Hancox. He accompanied his parents to Tahiti in the Duff in 1796. He and his mother have a prominent place in the foreground of Smirke's oil painting of the cession of Matavai. He grew up in Parramatta, and received the best education which could be provided. As a young man he was employed as clerk in the offices of Robert Campbell and James Birnie.

In May 1813 he opened in his father's house the first Sunday school in Australia. So popular was the venture that Hassall senior, Rev. John Eyre and other leading Dissenters and Methodists formed the New South Wales Sunday School Institution in December 1815. Thomas Hassall acted as both superintendent and secretary. Rev. Samuel Marsden who had already associated Hassall ...

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Australian Dictionary of Biography