at all. It has been my daily prayer that God would open up some way for us all to leave the island". Thus he advocated the evacuation of Tristan da Cunha, and on this, he seriously disagreed with Peter Green, the principal spokesman for the island. Dodgson served as SPG priest in Tristan from 1880 to 1884, when Bishop Thomas Welby of Saint Helena granted him permission to return to England, having heard from a whaling captain of his "very depressed state of mind". He arrived back in England in February 1885, having paid for his own passage. On arrival in England, he was suffering from a concussion as a result of falling down a hatchway on board the ship. The injuries resulting from the fall were to plague him for many years. In England, he continued to work for the well-being of the people of Tristan and he was ably assisted in this by his brother Charles. Their efforts to arrange for the migration of the inhabitants of Tristan, which included an interview with the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, on December 1885, failed. At the beginning of 1886, Salisbury wrote that he considered the migration of islanders and cattle to be "entirely impracticable". Fifteen working men, a large portion of the adult male population of Tristan, perished in a boat accident in 1885. When Dodgson learned of this he actively sought to aid the surviving inhabitants and the Colonial Office paid for his return to Tristan da Cunha on board HMS Thalia. He arrived on the island on 4 August 1886. "I think it is my plain duty to throw in my lot with them and minister to their souls", he wrote. He remained at Tristan, for a time without any stipend, until December 1889, when again he had to return to England because of poor health. At that time he remarked, "I have not the slightest intention of going back to Tristan da Cunha. The intellect of the Tristanites is now so dwarfed by reason of their utter isolation that I do not think that I or anyone else could be of use to them. The only thing is to get them all away so that no more children may be brought up there". Tristan remained without a priest until 1906. Cape Verde and St Helena From Tristan, Dodgson moved to Cape Verde, where he was the first