In the beginnings
of Australian poetry the names of two other men stand with his --
Adam Lindsay Gordon, of English parentage and education,
and Charles Harpur, born in Australia a generation earlier than Kendall.
Harpur's work, though lacking vitality, shows fitful gleams of poetic fire
suggestive of greater achievement had the circumstances of his life
been more favourable. Kendall, whose lot was scarcely more fortunate,
is a true singer; his songs remain, and are likely long to remain,
attractive to poetry lovers.
The poet's grandfather, Thomas Kendall, a Lincolnshire schoolmaster,
met the Revd. Samuel Marsden when the latter was in England
seeking assistants for his projected missionary work in New Zealand.
Kendall offered his services to the Church Missionary Society of London
and came out to Sydney in 1809. Five years later he was sent
to the Bay of Islands as a lay missionary, holding also
the first magistrate's commission issued for New Zealand.
He soon made friends with the Maoris and learnt their language well enough
to compile a primer in pidgin-Maori, `A Korao no New Zealand; or,
the New Zealander's First Book', which George Howe printed for Marsden
at Sydney in 1815.
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