1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Patteson, John Coleridge

PATTESON, JOHN COLERIDGE (1827–1871), English missionary, bishop of Melanesia, was born in London on the 1st of April 1827, the eldest son of Sir John Patteson, justice of the King’s Bench, and Frances Duke Coleridge, a near relative of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was educated at Ottery St Mary and at Eton, where he distinguished himself on the cricket-field. He entered Balliol College, Oxford, in 1845, graduated B.A. in 1848, and in 1852 became a fellow of Merton College. In 1853 he became curate of Alfington, Devon, and in the following year he was ordained priest. He then joined George Augustus Selwyn, bishop of New Zealand, in a mission to the Melanesian islands. There he laboured with great success, visiting the different islands of the group in the mission ship the “Southern Cross,” and by his good sense and devotion winning the esteem and affection of the natives. His linguistic powers were exceptional, and he spoke 23 languages with ease. In 1861 he was consecrated bishop of Melanesia, and fixed his headquarters at Mota. He was killed by natives at Nukapu, in the Santa Cruz group, on the 20th of September 1871, the victim of a tragic error. The traders engaged in the nefarious traffic in Kanaka labour for Fiji and Queensland had taken to personating missionaries in order to facilitate their kidnapping; Patteson was mistaken for one of these and killed. His murderers evidently found out their mistake and repented of it, for the bishop’s body was found at sea floating in a canoe, covered with a palm fibre matting, and a palm-branch in his hand. He is thus represented in the bas-relief erected in Merton College to his memory.

See Life by Charlotte M. Yonge (1873).