John Coleridge Patteson (1 April 1827 – 20 September 1871) was an English Anglican bishop, missionary to the South Sea Islands, and an accomplished linguist, learning 23 of the islands' more than 1,000 languages. In 1861, Patteson was selected as the first Bishop of the Anglican Church of Melanesia. He was killed on Nukapu, one of the easternmost islands of the Solomon Islands, on 20 September 1871. Consequently, he is commemorated in the Church of England calendar on 20 September. Early life He was the elder son of Sir John Patteson the judge, by his second wife, Frances Duke Coleridge who was a niece of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Patteson was brought up in Devon at Feniton Court, where his family resided, so as to be near the home of his mother's relatives at Ottery St Mary. After three years at The King's School, Ottery St Mary, Patteson was placed in 1838 at Eton College, under his uncle, the Reverend Edward Coleridge, son-in-law of John Keate, once headmaster there. Patteson studied there until 1845. From 1845 to 1848, he was a commoner of Balliol College, Oxford, under Richard Jenkyns. He was not interested in academic studies, and obtained a second-class degree. However, at Oxford he began lifelong friendships with prominent figures such as Benjamin Jowett, Max Müller, John Campbell Shairp, Edwin Palmer, James Riddell, James John Hornby, and Charles Savile Roundell. Having earlier played for the Eton school XI, Patteson continued his involvement with cricket at Oxford, playing for the Oxford University Cricket Club. In 1849, he appeared in the annual University Match against Cambridge University, which had first-class status. In that match, he scored 25 runs in the first innings but only two in the second, with Oxford going on to lose by three wickets after being bowled out for 69 in its second innings. After taking his degree in October 1849, Patteson travelled in Switzerland and Italy, learned German at Dresden, and devoted himself to the study of Hebrew and Arabic. Languages were to be a lifelong interest. Returning to Oxford in 1852, he became Fellow of Merton College, and spent the years 1852 and 1853 at the college, where there had been recent reform. Ordination On 25 September 1853, he was ordained as deacon and curate of Alphington, Devon, and on 24 September 1854 was ordained priest at Exeter Cathedral. On a visit in the summer