The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel recruited the first missionary to the island, Rev. William F. Taylor, who served from 1851 to 1856. After his departure, the Bishop of St. Helena attempted to establish an Anglican mission on the island from 1866 onward, and this post was finally filled by Lewis Carroll's youngest brother, the Reverend Edwin Heron Dodgson, who arrived on the island 25 February 1881. Shortly after his arrival he recorded 16 families and 107 individuals living on the island. Reverend Dodgson returned to England in February 1885 and attempted to arrange for the evacuation of the Tristan, meeting with Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, citing dangerous isolation, but the evacuation was deemed impracticable. Following a disaster at sea that killed fifteen islanders, a large proportion of the working men, Dodgson returned to Tristan in 1886 and remained until December 1889.
