“Sworn to No Master”: the Intellectual Traditions of Liberty of Conscience in Colonial NSW to 1856

Abstract

Traditionally, historians have played down the role of religion in colonial New South Wales. This article contributes to a bourgeoning scholarly literature that revises this position and deepens our understanding of the intellectual culture of colonial New South Wales. Through an examination of the colonial press and the work of public figures such as John Dunmore Lang, I argue that there was a robust debate about liberty of conscience in the first half of the nineteenth century. These discussions did not primarily stem from liberalism. Rather, advocates of liberty of conscience, across the religious and political spectrums, drew primarily upon the natural rights tradition of Christian thought which identified liberty of conscience as the archetype of a natural right. Advocates of this tradition were in dialogue with not only the British imperial world but also across the Atlantic, Ireland, and the United States.