Patteson’s Cross

Patteson’s murder on Nukapu with two of his colleagues was thought to be a revenge attack, after five young men from the island were kidnapped by ‘Blackbirders’, slavers recruiting for the Queensland or Fiji Plantations. His death resulted in such an outcry around the world that the Blackbirders’ trade was stopped. Then within two years after Patteson’s death, this monument was erected in 1873. It was designed by William Butterfield, the famous Victorian church architect, who designed not only Alfington Church, but much of the Victorian reordering of Ottery church. Butterfield also happened to be a personal friend of Patteson.

Though re-sited from its original position, it was erected as a public witness, deliberately next to the then main road to the west.