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IN BRITISH ENGLISH

 

In early British-English use, the phrase flogging parson referred to an extremely severe clerical schoolmaster.

These are, in chronological order, the earliest British-English uses of the phrase flogging parson that I have found:

1-: From The Christmas Barring-out, published in The Gentleman’s Magazine, and Historical Chronicle (London, England) of November 1828 [page 404, column 2]:

It was a few days before the usual period of the Christmas holidays arrived, when the leading scholars of the head form determined on reviving the ancient but almost obsolete custom of barring-out the master of the school. […] The master, in the opinion of the boys, reigned a despot absolute and uncontrolled. The merciless cruelty of his rod, and the heaviness of his tasks, were insupportable. The accustomed holidays had been rescinded; the usual Christmas feast reduced to a non-entity, and the chartered rights of the scholars were continually violated. […]. The master was a clergyman of the old school, who for the last forty years had exercised an authority hitherto uncontrolled, and who had no idea of enforcing scholastic discipline without the exercise of the whip. […]
[…]
[…] We determined on organizing our plans that very night. The boys were accordingly told to assemble after school hours at a well-known tombstone, in the neighbouring Churchyard, as something of importance was under consideration. […] Here we all assembled at the appointed time. Our leader took his stand at one end of the stone, with the head-boys who were in the secret, on each side of him. “My boys, (he laconically observed) to-morrow morning we are to bar out the flogging parson; and to make him promise that he will not flog us hereafter without a cause; nor set us long tasks, or deprive us of our holidays.”

2-: From To Correspondents, published in the Weekly Dispatch (London, England) of Sunday 31^st May 1835 [page 200, column 2]:

The predilection of some schoolmasters—chiefly Clerical—for the disgusting practice of exposing the persons of schoolboys for the purpose of flagellation, is well known and pretty generally understood. Certainly, the father who is not a pauper, and yet allows his child to be thus insulted, unless such father has not strength enough to knock down the beastly pedagogue, deserves to be ducked in a horse-pond; but it does sometimes happen that when a poor man has succeeded in getting his son admitted into a charity school, which may happen to be under the surveillance of a flogging Parson, he dares not resent the filthy outrage.

3-: From Thirty-two thoughts on the Council proceedings, last Wednesday, a letter to the Editor, by ‘a thinking man’, published in The Albion (Liverpool, Lancashire, England) of Monday 12^th September 1836 [page 8, column 5]:

28. I think the list of the Clerks of the Peace, who asked for compensation, terminated very appropriately with the name of Birchall. They all deserve to be birched right well for their impudence. Some of the flogging parsons, who desert their flocks to keep schools, ought to be called in to perform the operation.

 

IN AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH

 

In Australian English, the phrase flogging parson has been used to designate any extremely severe magistrate.—Cf., below, the formulation “the flogging parson of the period” in quotation 1, and the formulation “only one out of many flogging parsons” in quotation 2.

But, originally, this phrase specifically referred to Samuel Marsden (1765-1838), an English-born priest of the Church of England in Australia, who was infamous for his harshness as a magistrate at Parramatta, in New South Wales.

These are, in chronological order, the earliest Australian-English uses of the phrase flogging parson that I have found:

1-: From Persecution of Catholics, published in The Freeman’s Journal ¹ (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Saturday 24^th January 1885 [page 7, column 3]:

For some time past we were labouring under the delusion that Zachary Barry ², LL.D., had been gathered to his fathers; but […] Zachary lives, and let us add, long live Zachary! The world could ill afford to lose such a shining light. Indeed, the loss of such a champion of Protestant ascendancy would be irreparable, especially at times when disputed facts in the early history of the colony have to be settled. It is, however, a very doubtful matter whether Zachary is a reliable authority on matters regarding colonial history, but we give him the benefit of the doubt and pass on.
It appears that his Grace the Archbishop of Sydney has been resuscitating some “curious facts of old colonial days,” for which he has incurred the wrath of the Herald, Echo, and Zachary. That Zachary Barry should have his say on the subject is not at all to be wondered at, when we consider that members of the order to which the great doctor belongs were the executioners in those days! There are many persons still living in the colony who cannot recall without a shudder the cruelties of the flogging parson of the period.

¹ The Freeman’s Journal was a Catholic newspaper.
² Zachary Barry (1827-1898) was an Irish-born priest of the Church of England in Australia.

2 & 3-: From The Bulletin (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Saturday 26^th December 1885:

2-: From Personal Items [page 7, column 1]:

Referring to our paragraph of some weeks back concerning the first missionary from our Australian Church, that man of intense earnestness and devotion to duty, Rev. Samuel Marsden, a Southern correspondent writes:—“Holy Samuel Marsden was only one out of many flogging parsons. Parson Fulton, who was also a magistrate, used to fall asleep on the Bench during the hearing of cases against assigned servants, and upon receiving a nudge from the clerk of the court to intimate that the case had closed, his invariable remark was, ‘Give the rascal 75.’ He is said to have seldom allowed the backs of his own servants to heal, so constant were his little attentions with the cat. ‘Forasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.’” We are much afraid that many of our early missionaries will refuse to enter the jasper gates because they “haven’t got a cat ³ and triangles ⁴ in the whole bloomin’ place.” These essentials of civilisation will have to be added to the furniture of Heaven before it will have any charms for many of the Holy Fathers of the Anglican Church of N.S.W.

³ Here, the noun cat is an abbreviation of the noun cat-o’-nine-tails, designating a whip with nine knotted lashes.
⁴ Here, the plural noun triangles designates a tripod to which a person was bound to be flogged.

3-: From Correspondence [page 17, column 2]:

“Vectis”: Thanks for your letter. But, despite Rusden, you can’t get over the undoubted fact that the “Reverend” Samuel Marsden, whom Sir Alfred Stephen holds up as a model of all the Christian and other virtues, was a brutal man—a flogging parson. Ask  any old Parramatta resident.