Fishers of men

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[ABOVE: Dawson Trotman with Sailor at Table—Image courtesy of The Navigators History Department]

JOHN ASHLEY (1801–1886), MINISTER TO SCALLYWAGS

While enjoying a family holiday in Clevedon, an English beach town on the Bristol Channel, John Ashley’s son asked him how the people of Flat Holm went to church. 

Flat Holm, an infamous island off the southern coast of Wales, was known as a place between the mainland and the sea where sailors stored smuggled goods in the island’s ancient caves. Inspired by his son’s innocent question, Ashley, an Anglican priest, began to see the seafarers of Flat Holm as a group in dire need of the church’s ministry rather than as a notorious population to be avoided. 

In 1835 Ashley spent several months ministering to seafarers on the English shore and on Flat Holm Island. He named his ministry the Bristol Channel Mission in 1836, through which he commissioned the vessel Eirene to reach more sailors (see pp. 36–38). The mission’s work tackled the specific needs of its flock, establishing honest lodgings and chapels at ports to combat crimps.

During the following decade, Ashley visited over 14,000 ships and sold thousands of Bibles and prayer books. Conflict with his board led Ashley to retire from the mission in 1850. In 1856 the Bristol Channel Mission joined with the other local ministries, collectively reaching 14 ports. Today the ministry begun by John Ashley is known as the Mission to Seafarers and cares for all who sail its way in 200 ports across 50 countries.

JOHN COLERIDGE PATTESON (1827–1871), MARTYR IN MELANESIA

If ever a man used the sea for ministry, it was John Coleridge Patteson. Recruited in 1854 by the first Anglican bishop of New Zealand, George Selwyn (1809–1878), 27-year-old Patteson joined the mission to Melanesia the following year. 

Selwyn’s vision was to gather young men from the islands, train them at a central location in New Zealand, and return them to their own people to instruct them in Christianity. Patteson, an expert linguist, would prove a central figure in the effort to recruit and educate these men. 

For most of each year, Patteson taught in Auckland, but he also sailed to Melanesia while recruiting potential students. Between 1858 and his untimely death, he lived a few months on one or another of the islands in Western Oceania learning the language and customs of his hosts. Altogether he learned to speak 23 Melanesian languages and printed grammars in 13 of them. Patteson sought to share the gospel with the Melanesians without forcing them to act as “English Christians.”

In 1861 Patteson was consecrated bishop of a newly formed island diocese encompassing today’s New Caledonia, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. However, a portion of the Solomon Islands, known as the Santa Cruz group, had been unreceptive to the gospel. In 1871 Patteson and his assistants visited Nukapa, one island in the Santa Cruz group. Patteson may have had a premonition of what lay in store; the night before landing, he preached to his small company about the martyrdom of Stephen. On September 20, 1871, the band of missionaries was attacked. Nukapa islanders clubbed and speared Patteson, who died instantly. Reverend Joseph Atkin and Stephen Taroaniara were shot with arrows. The attack was widely thought to have been in retaliation for English “blackbirding” (the capture of islanders for forced work).

Nukapa women, who had pleaded against the violence, bathed and arranged Patteson’s body with respect. The next day he was buried at sea from the mission ship Southern Cross, as were Patteson’s two wounded comrades when they died a few days later of tetanus.

ROBERT JERMAIN THOMAS (1840–1866), EAGER EVANGELIST

Born in Rhayader, Wales, Robert Jermain Thomas was the son of a pastor. Thomas received a good education, studying in London and distinguishing himself as an excellent student of theology and linguistics. He entered adulthood just as Wales was experiencing a spiritual revival in 1859. Young Thomas felt a call to ministry. 

Eager to begin he left his prestigious studies and married Caroline Godfrey, was ordained a minister, and applied to be a missionary to China with the London Missionary Society in 1863. He was quickly accepted and embarked on the four-month voyage to Shanghai with his wife.

Robert and Caroline arrived safely in December of that same year. In March Caroline suffered a miscarriage and died. Thomas resigned from his position with the society and took up work in Chefoo, China, the port nearest to Korea. There he met a small group of Catholic Koreans. 

Known as the “Hermit Kingdom,” Korea had long shut out Westerners, but Catholic missionaries had secretly brought the gospel in the eighteenth century. Korean converts faced persecution at home and were fleeing to China. Thomas’s new friends began to teach him Korean and help him gain access to Chinese Bibles, as no Korean translation had been made. Thomas became zealous to spread the good news in Korea.

Thomas embarked on his journey in 1865 and spent a few months on Korean islands distributing Bibles and studying the language. In 1866 the government killed 8,000 Catholics in mainland Korea. Around this time Thomas took a position as an interpreter aboard a US ship, the SS General Sherman, determined to spread the gospel in the center of Korea. 

The crew of the General Sherman hoped to trade with Koreans, despite knowing the hostile government policy. They likely intended to loot if they were not successful. As the heavily armed vessel sailed up the Taedong River toward Pyongyang, the kingdom’s capital city, the Koreans reacted with a preemptive strike. Troops set fire to small boats and pushed them toward the General Sherman. It caught fire and the crew abandoned ship. Thomas gathered all the Bibles he could carry. Reaching the river bank, he cried out “Jesus, Jesus!” and threw Bibles toward the Korean troops. As a soldier pointed a sword at him, Thomas handed the man a Bible and was killed.

Thomas’s martyrdom appeared fruitless at first. But a young boy took home a few of the Bibles left on the river bank. One government worker used the pages of a copy as wallpaper. Over the years a few Koreans read the Bibles and came to faith, including Thomas’s executioner, Park Chun-Kwon. Twenty years after Thomas’s death, the small group of believers founded Pyongyang’s first church, and the city later witnessed a massive revival in 1907. Today South Korea is a beacon of the light of Christ and sends many missionaries out into the world.

PETER ANSON (1889–1975), APOSTLE OF THE SEA

From a young age, Frederick Charles Anson was in love with the sea. Born in Southsea, Portsmouth, on the southern coast of England, Frederick was surrounded by nautical life. His father served as a renowned rear admiral, but it was the common sailors who fascinated young Anson. He became a skilled watercolorist, often depicting fishing boats and fisherfolk. 

From 1908 to 1910, Anson studied architecture at Westminster, but left to become an Anglican Benedictine oblate. In 1913 Anson converted to Catholicism alongside all those in his monastic community.

Anson moved to an abbey in Scotland for his health in 1919. For a couple of years, he served as a spare hand on boats. In 1921 he cofounded the Apostleship of the Sea in Glasgow, a Catholic ministry to meet the needs of seafarers. (The ministry today is known as Stella Maris.) Largely run by laypeople, the Apostleship set up hostels, visited ships, and engaged sailors with religious teaching and entertainment. It encouraged Christian sailors to take spiritual responsibility for fellow seamen.

In 1924 Anson left the Benedictines, preparing to become a Franciscan tertiary in 1925. During this time he took the name “Peter,” by which he is now known, after another fisher of men. He also continued writing and painting subjects of the sea, religious life, and architecture. A few of his best- known works are Fishing Boats and Fisherfolk on the East Coast of Scotland (1930) and How to Draw Ships (1935). 

He traveled extensively, especially to ports, capturing the everyday lives of seafarers in his critically acclaimed watercolors. Anson never ceased ministry to sailors, opening his house in northern Scotland to them for at least 14 years. While staying at a Scottish monastery near the sea, he died at age 86. 

DAWSON TROTMAN (1906–1956), NAVIGATOR FOR CHRIST

Born in Bisbee, Arizona, Dawson Trotman grew up occasionally attending church. After an arrest as a young man, Dawson half-heartedly promised to start attending church again. He came to faith in Christ while memorizing Scripture. Some mentors at church encouraged him to pursue ministry, so Trotman began studies at a seminary in Los Angeles. 

Trotman became known as a powerful evangelist, a real “soul winner.” A sailor, Les Spencer, heard about Trotman and wanted to learn to win souls as well; Trotman gave Spencer a place to stay while he was on leave from the navy and began training him to evangelize. 

When Spencer returned to his ship, he used his training to guide a dozen men to Christ. Spencer brought these sailors to Trotman, who welcomed them to stay at his apartment as he continued to equip them with Scripture. Over time sailors discipled by Trotman spread these “floating seminaries” to numerous ships. Les Spencer’s ship, the USS West Virginia, saw over 100 converts before it was attacked at Pearl Harbor. 

Trotman began to see a dangerous lack, however: these revivals produced many converts who were not being discipled or changed. Consequently he began the Navigators—a parachurch organization that connected the newly saved with one-on-one discipleship. The ministry continued to serve sailors and spread to colleges, churches, and the military. Billy Graham and other preachers employed the Navigators for many years to ensure the seeds they planted were watered. 

Trotman continued to preach and lead the Navigators while raising five children with his wife, Lila Mae. In the summer of 1956, Trotman visited New York state to preach at a Word of Life Christian camp. He, along with staff and campers, was enjoying a boat ride on the lake when the boat hit rough water. Trotman and a camper fell overboard, and Trotman drowned while holding up the young girl, who was saved. At Trotman’s funeral Billy Graham said, “Daws died the same way he lived—holding others up.”  CH 

By Melody Belk

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