Captain Robert Clark Morgan (1798-1864), Christian mariner, whaler and diarist, entered the Royal Navy at the age of eleven, leaving at sixteen for the merchant marine and beginning a career in whaling, a pursuit he relished. In 1836 he became the master of the Duke of York, a whaling ship that was fitted out to bring the first settlers to South Australia. Leaving London on 24 February, it arrived on Kangaroo Island on 27 July. Morgan sailed away to continue whaling, calling in at Hobart Town and proceeding up the Queensland coast. Having been converted to Christian ways himself in 1828, while undertaking whaling near Tahiti and Samoa he became interested in the work of missionaries in the area. In 1838 he applied for, and was given, command of the London Missionary Society's ship the Camden, which he captained for five years. The missionary John Williams, the 'Apostle of Polynesia', sailed in the Camden to the South Pacific; later, Williams was killed and eaten in Vanuatu. Between 1844 and his retirement in 1855 Morgan was captain of the mission ship the John Williams. In 1863 Morgan and his wife came to Australia to live with their son, Robert Clark Morgan II, in Arthur Street, South Yarra. Morgan died in his son's home the following year; his wife died there two years after that. They are buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery. Morgan's diaries are in the State Library of New South Wales.
