Methodism in Australia: A History (Routledge Methodist Studies Series) [1 ed.] 1472429486, 9781472429483

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
List of Tables
Notes on Contributors
Foreword
Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction: Methodism and the Southern World
Part I:
Histories, 1811–1977
1
Methodism in the Australian Colonies, 1811–1855
2
Methodism in New South Wales,
1855–1902
3
Methodism in Victoria and Tasmania,
1855–1902
4
Methodism in South Australia,
1855–1902
5
Queensland Methodism until 1902
6
Methodism in Western Australia,
1829–1977
7
Methodism and Empire
8
Methodist Reunion in Australasia
9
Methodism and the Crises of Nationhood, 1903–1955
10
Methodism and the Challenge of
‘the Sixties’
Part II:
Themes
11
Australian Methodist Religious Experience
12
Worship and Music in Australian Methodism
13
Wesleyan Methodist Missions to
Australia and the Pacific
14
Australian Methodist Women
15
Australian Methodist Scholars
16
Australian Methodist Historiography
17
The Continuing Methodist Legacy,
1977–2014
Conclusion
Select Bibliography
Subject Index
Name Index

Citation preview

Methodism in Australia Methodism has played a major role in all areas of public life in Australia but has been particularly significant for its influence on education, social welfare, missions to Aboriginal people and the Pacific Islands and the role of women. Drawing together a team of historical experts, Methodism in Australia presents a critical introduction to one of the most important religious movements in Australia's settlement history and beyond. Offering ground-breaking regional studies of the development of Methodism, this book considers a broad range of issues including Australian Methodist religious experience, worship and music, Methodist intellectuals, and missions to Australia and the Pacific.

Ashgate Methodist Studies Series Editorial Board Dr Ted Campbell, Associate Professor, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Texas, USA. Professor William Gibson, Director of the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History, Oxford Brookes University, UK. Professor David Hempton, Dean, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University, USA. Dr Jason Vickers, Associate Professor of Theology and Wesleyan Studies; Director of the Center for Evangelical United Brethren Heritage at the United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio, USA Dr Martin Wellings, Superintendent Minister of Oxford Methodist Circuit and Past President of the World Methodist Historical Society. Professor Priscilla Pope-Levison, Professor of Theology and Assistant Director of Women’s Studies, Seattle Pacific University, USA Methodism remains one of the largest denominations in the USA and is growing in South America, Africa and Asia (especially in Korea and China). This series spans Methodist history and theology, exploring its success as a movement historically and in its global expansion. Books in the series will look particularly at features within Methodism which attract wide interest, including: the unique position of the Wesleys; the prominent role of women and minorities in Methodism; the interaction between Methodism and politics; the ‘Methodist conscience’ and its motivation for temperance and pacifist movements; the wide range of Pentecostal, holiness and evangelical movements, and the interaction of Methodism with different cultures.

Methodism in Australia A History

Edited by Glen O’Brien Sydney College of Divinity, Australia Hilary M. Carey University of Bristol, UK

First published 2015 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Glen O’Brien and Hilary M. Carey 2015 Glen O’Brien and Hilary M. Carey have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Methodism in Australia : a history / Edited by Glen O’Brien and Hilary M. Carey. pages cm. – (Ashgate Methodist studies series) Includes bibliographical references and index. IS BN 978-1-4724-2948-3 (hardcover) 1. Methodist Church–Australia–History. 2. Australia–Church history. I. O’Brien, Glen, 1959– editor. II . Carey, Hilary M. (Hilary Mary), 1957– editor. BX8325.M45 2015 287.0994–dc23 2014036140 ISBN 9781472429483 (hbk) ISBN 9781315595085 (ebk)

Contents List of Tables   Notes on Contributors   Foreword by Russell E. Richey   Preface   Abbreviations   Introduction: Methodism and the Southern World   Hilary M. Carey and Glen O’Brien

vii ix xiii xv xix 1

Part I: Histories, 1811–1977 1

Methodism in the Australian Colonies, 1811–1855   Glen O’Brien

15

2

Methodism in New South Wales, 1855–1902   Malcolm Prentis

29

3

Methodism in Victoria and Tasmania, 1855–1902   Renate Howe

45

4

Methodism in South Australia, 1855–1902   David Hilliard

59

5

Queensland Methodism until 1902   John Harrison

75

6

Methodism in Western Australia, 1829–1977   Alison Longworth

91

7

Methodism and Empire   Troy Duncan

107

8

Methodist Reunion in Australasia   Ian Breward

119

Methodism in Australia

vi

9

Methodism and the Crises of Nationhood, 1903–1955   Samantha Frappell

133

10

Methodism and the Challenge of ‘the Sixties’   Jennifer Clark

149

Part II: Themes 11 Australian Methodist Religious Experience   Glen O’Brien

167

12

Worship and Music in Australian Methodism   D’Arcy Wood

181

13

Wesleyan Methodist Missions to Australia and the Pacific   David Andrew Roberts and Margaret Reeson

197

14 Australian Methodist Women   Anne O’Brien

211

15 Australian Methodist Scholars   Garry W. Trompf

225

16 Australian Methodist Historiography   Hilary M. Carey

243

17

257

The Continuing Methodist Legacy, 1977–2014   William Emilsen and Glen O’Brien

Conclusion   Glen O’Brien

273

Select Bibliography   Subject Index   Name Index  

279 293 301

List of Tables 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 4.1 4.2 6.1 6.2

Methodists in the census, New South Wales, 1856–1901   Methodist churches and church membership in New South Wales, 1855–1901   Local Preachers in New South Wales Methodism, 1891 and 1902   Methodist Sunday School enrolments in New South Wales, 1861–1900   Methodists as a percentage of the population of South Australia, selected census years 1855–1901   Methodist churches and membership in South Australia, 1855–1899   Membership of the Western Australia District of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australasia, 1854–1873    General Returns, Western Australia Conference, 1900  

30 31 36 41 60 60 96 98

16.1 A statistical view of the mission churches in the Southern World, to be embraced in the Australasian Connexion, 1854   247

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Notes on Contributors Ian Breward is a Senior Fellow in the Melbourne University School of Historical and Philosophical Studies and in the University of Divinity. He was Professor of Church History at Ormond College, University of Melbourne, between 1982 and 1999. He wrote the History of the Churches in Australasia in the Oxford History of the Christian Church series. In 2013 he retired from the role of Archivist for the Uniting Church Synod of Victoria and Tasmania. Hilary M. Carey is Professor of Imperial and Religious History and adjunct Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Newcastle (NSW). Her books include Empires of Religion (ed.) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), Church and State in Old and New Worlds, edited with John Gascoigne (Brill, 2011) and God’s Empire: Religion and Colonialism in the British World (Cambridge University Press, 2011). Jennifer Clark is Professor in History at the University of New England. She is the author of The American Idea of England, 1776–1840 (Ashgate, 2013), Aborigines and Activism: Race, Aborigines and the Coming of the 60s (University of Western Australia Press, 2008), as well as studies in roadside memorials and road safety. Troy Duncan has been Lecturer in Australian history at the Port Macquarie campus of the University of Newcastle (NSW) since 2007. He is the co-author (with Anne Dunne) of From the Spirit: A History of Newcastle Grammar School (Playright, 2009). William Emilsen is an Associate Professor in the School of Theology at Charles Sturt University. He taught Church History and World Religions at United Theological College in Sydney for 22 years until his retirement in December 2014. He was editor of Uniting Church Studies from 1995 to 2014. He edited An Informed Faith: The Uniting Church at the Beginning of the Twenty-first Century (Barton, 2014), co-edited with Seforosa Carroll, Great Religious Leaders: Leadership in a Pluralist Society (Barton, 2014), and is currently editing a work on Australian Methodist biography.

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Samantha Frappell is a Sydney-based historian, whose PhD thesis at the University of Sydney in 1996 was on post-war reconstruction and the churches in New South Wales. She has written numerous history texts for primary and secondary school students in addition to her academic research and writing. Her research interests include Australian and medieval history. John Harrison is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Queensland where he trained as a historian, completing his honours thesis on the early years of Mapoon mission on the western coast of Cape York. His 1991 doctoral thesis was entitled ‘Faith in the Sunshine State: Joh Bjelke-Peterson and the Religious Culture of Queensland’. David Hilliard is an Adjunct Associate Professor in History at Flinders University. He has published on the history of Christian missions in the Pacific Islands and in many different areas of Australian religious and social history. His publications include Godliness and Good Order: A History of the Anglican Church in South Australia (Wakefield, 1986). Renate Howe is an Associate Professor at the Alfred Deakin Research Institute, Deakin University, and an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Arts at Monash University. Her research and publications are focused on Australian social and religious history placed in a comparative perspective. Her publications include a history of Wesley Central Mission in Melbourne, co-authored with Shurlee Swain, and A Century of Influence: The Australian Student Christian Movement, 1896–1996 (UNSW Press, 2009). Alison Longworth is an independent scholar from Western Australia who retired from full-time ministry in the Uniting Church in Australia in 2014. Her doctoral research through Murdoch University was in the area of Aboriginal Mission History. Alison’s research interests continue to include Western Australian Church History and the shared history of first and second Australian peoples. Anne O’Brien is Associate Professor of History in the School of Humanities and Languages at the University of New South Wales where she is Convenor of Australian Studies. She is the author of two books and numerous articles in scholarly journals and book chapters. Her most recent major project is a comparative study of philanthropy for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Australia, 1788–1970s, to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015.

Notes on Contributors

xi

Glen O’Brien is Head of Humanities and Associate Professor of Church History at Booth College (Sydney College of Divinity), and an Adjunct Lecturer in the University of Divinity. He is a Research Fellow of the Australasian Centre for Wesleyan Research and an Honorary Fellow of the Manchester Wesley Research Centre. He has published widely on Wesleyan and Methodist themes and engaged in post-doctoral research at Duke University, Asbury Theological Seminary, and Oxford Brookes University. Malcolm Prentis is Honorary Professor of History at Australian Catholic University in Sydney. He has published widely on the Scottish diaspora in Australia and New Zealand, and also on Presbyterianism, Aboriginal–white relations and education. He has been on the Executive of the Uniting Church Historical Society (NSW-ACT) since 1978 and has been editor of its journal, Church Heritage, since 1993. Margaret Reeson has a background in Christian education in Papua New Guinea and Australia, with special interest in church history. Her long involvement in several spheres of the Uniting Church in Australia included a term as Moderator of the Synod of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory in 2000–2002. Of her nine published books the most recent is Pacific Missionary: George Brown (ANU EPress 2013). Russell E. Richey is Professor of Church History Emeritus and former Dean of Candler School of Theology at Emory University. His research has focused on American Methodism and American civil religion. He served as vice-president of the Wesley Works Editorial Project. His many books include The Methodist Experience in America: A History (Abingdon Press, 2010). David Andrew Roberts is Associate Professor in History, University of New England, and Editor of the Australian Journal of Colonial History. He has edited (with Martin Crotty) Turning Points in Australian History (UNSW Press, 2009) and The Great Mistakes of Australian History (UNSW Press, 2006), and is the author (with Adrian Parker) of Ancient Ochres: The Aboriginal Rock Paintings of Mount Borradaile ( J.B. Books, 2003). Garry W. Trompf is Emeritus Professor in the History of Ideas at the University of Sydney. His books include The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought, vol. 1 (University of California Press, 1979), Early Christian Historiography (Equinox, 2007) and Payback: The Logic of Retribution in Melanesian Religions (Cambridge University Press, 1994).

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D’Arcy Wood is a graduate of the University of Melbourne, the Melbourne College of Divinity and Princeton Theological Seminary (PhD). He was a parish minister in Melbourne, Ballarat and Canberra and for 15 years taught theology and liturgy in Adelaide. While in Adelaide he was Moderator of the Uniting Church Synod and while in Canberra he was national President of the Uniting Church for three years.

Foreword Across the globe the extended families of Methodist/Wesleyan churches claim some 43 million members. Not included in and more than doubling that count are the numerous ‘saints’ of the several churches no longer bearing the ‘old’ denominational label. Their loyalty to John Wesley’s eighteenth-century vision of Methodism as a leavening spirit within the Church of England (indeed for the Church universal) led them to unite with other bodies in ecumenical reunifications. Among Methodist churches whose commitment to Christian witness and unity took them into such mergers are those from Zambia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, India, Canada and Australia. Serious study of Methodism globally must attend to these Methodist contributions to ecumenism as well as to the diverse arrays of organisational style, membership patterns and social reform that members of the Wesleyan family have exhibited around the globe. Although sharing fervid commitment to Mr Wesley’s theology, inclusiveness and ethic, the Methodist/Wesleyan churches range and have ranged from small sect-like witnesses (think of those of Eastern Europe) to church-like socio-political clout (think American Methodism in the nineteenth century and several African Methodisms in the twentieth century).1 To that latter church-like presence and programme in Australia belong the Methodists, as this study so carefully, fully and convincingly shows. Australian Methodism – given its ongoing leavening spirit within the Uniting Church in Australia and in the several vibrant denominations which have continued their Wesleyan/Methodist identity – represents a critically important chapter in religious history, one about which Christians (and other religious folk) across the globe ought to be instructed and about which Australians might well need reminders. Even those familiar with the current Australian religious landscape will find highly instructive this study’s coverage of the Methodist sagas from 1811 to the present. Especially noteworthy is its careful attention to the Church’s influential ministries in various parts of the country, its examination of the various forms On statistics, see David J. Jeremy, ‘Church Statistics and the Growth of Global Methodism: Some Preliminary Descriptive Statistics’, The Ashgate Research Companion to World Methodism, ed. William Gibson, Peter Forsaith and Martin Wellings (Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 87–107. The World Methodist Council’s website claims that its worldwide association includes 80 Methodist, Wesleyan and related Uniting and United churches representing over 100 million people. 1

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of ecclesial witness and its treatment of Methodist/Wesleyan size and clout; Methodism’s contributions to and equipment for the nation’s progress; its early attraction of Australian settlers into the several relatively egalitarian forms of Methodist lay and clerical leadership; its distinctive itinerant missionary forms of ministry; its universalist, welcoming ‘no-nonsense’ gospel; its outreach to peoples across the continent including those in the remote bush; and its keen social conscience and public witness. Methodism’s good news for the country won it many and fervid members. Indeed, Methodism’s presence, numbers and programme made it in some ways the most Australian of the churches. So this study exhibits, explains and analyses, drawing on the careful scholarship of an extraordinary gathering of experts on Australian history. Russell E. Richey Dean Emeritus of Candler School of Theology and William R. Cannon Distinguished Professor of Church History Emeritus

Preface Why is there no modern history of Methodism in Australia? This question fired a conversation between the two co-editors of this volume when they met for the first time at the Religious History Association conference held at University of Notre Dame in Fremantle, Western Australia, in mid-2010. The response was simple: we must produce one, preferably in time for the bicentenary of the arrival in Sydney on 10 August 1815 of Australia’s first Methodist missionary, the Rev. Samuel Leigh (1785–1852). This gave us a realistic time frame of five years to conceive, commission and publish the first national history of Australian Methodism to be written since James Colwell’s Illustrated History appeared in 1904. While it seemed logical to us that such a history needed to be written, it proved harder to convince institutional sponsors that they should invest in the project. Australian cities and towns are scattered liberally with former Methodist churches, chapels, missions, schools and university colleges. However, few of these proved interested in an academic history of Australian Methodism, particularly if it did not provide a comprehensive account of their own part in it. We thought this was revealing about the way that Methodism has become divorced from the institutions which once reflected its status, numerical importance and denominational gravitas in Australia. Where they continue in their old buildings and sites (generously illustrated by Colwell), former Methodist institutions are these days aligned with the modern Uniting Church in Australia or with post-Christian secular society, and are focused on the future rather than their Methodist antecedents. There is nothing, therefore, ‘official’ about the history you are now reading. This independence proved to be a boon which helped establish scholarly distance and detachment for the project, which soon attracted leading religious and social historians, many of them from outside the tradition, as well as those who had been brought up Methodist and wished to write and reflect on their own memory history. From the beginning we felt strongly that Methodism was too significant a movement to be ignored by mainstream historians. We are pleased that both insider and outsider perspectives are well represented in this volume. Methodism in Australia was carefully planned. The chapters came together in the course of three workshops of mostly invited speakers that were held in different capital cities in eastern Australia from 2010 to 2012. The first was at Wesley College in the University of Sydney on 3 December 2010. It was funded with the support of the Australian Research Council, the University

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of Newcastle NSW and the Religious History Association. Ian Breward, who might with some justification be called Australasia’s most distinguished ecclesiastical historian, was invited to chair a roundtable discussion on how we might write the history of Methodism in Australia. While this was a very useful session the real blueprint for this history was put together after the workshop when some of us reconvened to the Forest Lodge Hotel near the University of Sydney. Mulling over the events of the day, Ian Breward, Hilary Carey, David Hilliard, Glen O’Brien, Troy Duncan and Garry Trompf decided that the new Methodist history should include historical chapters, which might focus on the different trajectories of the colonies which came together at the time of Methodist Union, but should also give a thorough account of Methodism in the twentieth century. We thought it should include themes such as music, liturgy, women, Aboriginal missions and agency, and the legacy of Methodism in the Uniting Church and other Methodist bodies. There should be something about the British origins of the Methodist movement and its post-colonial expansion. On the back of an envelope we decided who might be invited to write chapters on all these topics and Hilary Carey and Glen O’Brien proceeded to draw up editorial guidelines and send out invitations. The second national workshop on the history of Methodism in Australia, convened by Glen O’Brien and Hilary Carey with assistance from Troy Duncan, was held at Queen’s College, University of Melbourne, on 9–10 December 2011. The eminent historian of American Methodism Russell E. Richey provided two stimulating keynote addresses, reflecting on his own experience as author and editor of The Methodist Experience in America (Abingdon, 2010) and vicepresident of the Wesley Works Editorial Project. The Melbourne workshop was divided into chronological and thematic sessions following the Forest Lodge manifesto and the overall plan that we thought had worked effectively in an earlier collaborative history of Anglicanism in Australia.1 After Russell Richey’s keynote, Glen O’Brien spoke on Methodism in the Australian Colonies, 1815 to 1855. Barry Brown, Renate Howe and Daryl Lightfoot gave accounts of aspects of Methodism in New South Wales and Victoria in the period 1855 to 1902. Ian Breward and Troy Duncan considered the era of Methodist Union, David Roberts and Margaret Reeson analysed Methodist missions to the Australian Aborigines and in the Pacific respectively, and Jennifer Clark brought the chronological sessions to a close with an account of Methodism in the long 1960s. The second day turned to thematic issues with Glen O’Brien on Methodist religious experience, Brian Howe and Norman Young on theology and theological education, Hilary Carey on Methodist historiography, D’Arcy Wood on music, Garry Trompf on Methodist intellectuals, thoughts on 1 Bruce Kaye, Tom Frame, Colin Holden and Geoffrey R. Treloar, eds, Anglicanism in Australia: A History (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002).

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ecumenism from Robert Gribben and Norman Young, and Glen O’Brien on the continuing Methodist legacy.2 In Melbourne, financial support was provided by the Religious History Association, the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia, the Victorian and Tasmanian Synod of the Uniting Church, the Australasian Centre for Wesleyan Research and the Australian Research Council. The third and final national workshop was held on 7–8 December 2012, at the Adelaide College of Divinity, and was convened by David Hilliard and Julia Pitman. By this stage draft chapters had been circulated to all authors with valuable comments provided by David Hilliard. We gave particular focus in Adelaide to chapters which had not had the benefit of detailed discussion and reading in Sydney or Melbourne, including newly commissioned chapters on Western Australia by Alison Longworth, Samantha Frappell on Methodism in the first half of the twentieth century and John Harrison on Methodism in Queensland. James Haire provided an ecumenical and theological perspective; Julia Pitman insisted we sang hymns, which was a challenge for the nonMethodists (and non-singers) among us who did not know the tunes. David Hilliard provided a short tour of Adelaide’s former Methodist heartland, where a substantial cross-section of South Australian society had once sent their children to Methodist Sunday School and attended myriad social and religious events which set the tone for much of middle Australia. The final preparation of the manuscript was complicated by the appointment of Hilary Carey to the University of Bristol at the beginning of 2014. One consequence of this was that Glen O’Brien took on the major responsibility for bringing the manuscript together. We are also grateful to the University of Newcastle for funding additional sub-editing by Briony Neilson. Despite all these collective efforts, Methodism in Australia is not a complete history – though we believe it provides pathways to the major ways in which the Methodist tradition has impacted on Australian life and society over the last two hundred years. We regret that we were not able to secure authors to write on Methodism and politics or Methodist welfare institutions, and it proved challenging to cover the North and Tasmania as thoroughly as these regions deserve. There are nevertheless very good and recent scholarly histories of some of these topics and no history can reasonably claim to cover everything. Over the years of this project, we have incurred debts to many people. Special thanks are due to Russell Richey who kindly agreed to come to Melbourne as our keynote speaker and lend his scholarly authority to the venture and to write 2 Two of the papers presented at this workshop saw publication in a special issue of Aldersgate Papers dedicated to Australian Methodist history. Samantha Frappell, ‘Methodists and the Campaign for Six O’Clock Hotel Closing in New South Wales,’ Aldersgate Papers 11 (Sept 2012): 30–49; Norman Young, ‘Ministerial Education in the Victoria and Tasmania Conference, 1874–1977,’ Aldersgate Papers 11 (Sept 2012): 96–111.

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a foreword. We acknowledge the contributions of a number of people who made presentations to one or more workshops but whose work, for various reasons, has not found its way into the final volume. These include Barry Brown, Robert Gribben, Brian Howe, James Haire, Daryl Lightfoot, Robert Linder, Sue Pacey, Stuart Piggin, Julia Pitman, Geoff Treloar, Chris Walker, Norman Young and Janet Wood. Special thanks are also due to the members of the Historical Society of the Uniting Church in South Australia who enthusiastically supported the Adelaide workshop, as well as dedicating a meeting of their own to our project, and gave us the benefit of their lived experience of Methodism in what was once the Australian stronghold of the denomination.3 Finally, we wish to acknowledge the financial support of the Australasian Centre for Wesleyan Research, Kingsley Australia, the Uniting Church NSW Synod Archives, the Uniting Church South Australian Synod Historical Society, the Uniting Church Victorian and Tasmanian Synod, the Uniting Church Historical Society (NSW-ACT), the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia and the Arnold Hunt Trust. While, unlike the majority of Methodist histories produced by Australian Methodists in previous generations, this volume is not an institutional history, it nevertheless would not have been possible without the interest and enthusiasm of many people who were once, or continue to call themselves, Methodists and remain, like us, fascinated by its history in the southern world. HILARY M. CAREY

Bristol, 30 July 2014

GLEN O’BRIEN

Melbourne, 30 July 2014

3 Two articles were published from this meeting. David Hilliard, ‘Looking Again at the History of South Australian Methodism: Twenty Five Years after Arnold Hunt’s This Side of Heaven, Aldersgate Papers 11 (Sept 2012): 71–84; Donald J. Hopgood, ‘Methodists in South Australian Public Life,’ Aldersgate Papers 11 (Sept 2012): 85–95.

Abbreviations ACC ACT ADB ADEB ALP APDA BD CMCA CMM MGC MLC MIM MOK MOM PSA UCA UMFC WCC WCTU WMMS

Australian Council of Churches Australian Capital Territory Australian Dictionary of Biography Australian Dictionary of Evangelical Biography Australian Labor Party Australian Protestant Defence Association Bachelor of Divinity Chinese Methodist Church in Australia Central Methodist Mission Methodist Girls’ Comradeship Methodist Ladies’ College Methodist Inland Mission Methodist Order of Knights Methodist Overseas Mission Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Uniting Church in Australia United Methodist Free Church World Council of Churches Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society

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Introduction: Methodism and the Southern World Hilary M. Carey and Glen O’Brien

Methodism originated as a religious renewal movement within the Church of England which had its roots in the Evangelical revival and was promulgated through the preaching and teaching of John Wesley (1703–1791) and his brother Charles (1707–1788) in the United Kingdom and George Whitefield (1714–1770) in both the United Kingdom and the Americas. It is now a global force in world Christianity with, as Russel Richey notes in his foreword to this volume, an estimated 100 million followers throughout the world. In Australia, the Methodist inheritance is most significant in the Uniting Church (UCA) which is the third largest denomination in Australia. Methodism in Australia has played a major role in all areas of public life but has been particularly significant for its influence on education, social welfare, missions to Aboriginal people and the Pacific Islands, and the role of women. Significant Methodists in Australia came from all walks of life and include household names, women and men, and people of all classes and stations in life. They range from the convict lay preacher Edward Eager, Aboriginal protector George Augustus Robinson (1791–1866), missionary George Brown (1835–1917), historian James Colwell (1860–1930), writer and educator W.H. Fitchett (1841–1928), theologian Edward H. Sugden (1854–1935), trade unionist William Guthrie Spence (1846–1926), public evangelist Alan Walker (1911–2003), the ‘conscience of the nation’, and politicians and political leaders including Prime Ministers Joseph Cook (1860–1947) and, more recently, John Howard (b. 1939). Women played a particularly prominent part in all stages of the Methodist movement in Australia, initially as partners of Methodist clergy and missionaries but also preachers such as the suffragist Serena Thorne Lake (1842–1902), along with Methodist sisterhoods and deaconesses. These are bald claims for the significance of Methodism which will be fleshed out in subsequent chapters of this book. Methodism flourished in the British World. While not the largest of the founding Christian denominations in the southern colonies including those in Australia, New Zealand and southern Africa, Methodism in its various branches was arguably the most successful in rising from a relatively low population base in the United Kingdom. By the end of the Victorian age, as described in the first

Methodism in Australia

2

nine chapters of this book, Methodists were close rivals to Anglicans numerically and socially. They were particularly prominent in the Pacific Islands within the mission territory of the Australasian Methodist Conference. Overall, this was a remarkable trajectory for a religious movement that began as a reform movement within the established Church of England and which initially spread throughout regional and rural England and Wales as a ‘religion of the people’, promoted by women and, in general, by people of little if any educational attainment. Methodism among the Historians Over the last decade there has been increasing interest by imperial historians in the part played by religious forces in the creation of industrial Britain and the ‘soft’ empire of the British World. Elie Halévy is perhaps most widely known for the hypothesis (albeit often challenged) that England was spared a workingclass revolution as a result of the stabilising influence of evangelical religion, particularly Methodism.1 The Halévy thesis was strengthened by the sociological theories of Max Weber (1864–1920) and others, who identified Methodism as one of the components in the explosive impact of capitalism linked with the ‘opening up’ of the American frontier. While it has been challenged, the Halévy thesis, in one form or another, has continued to influence the historiography of Methodism with both a consequent lack of interrogation of the fundamental data for or against the social pressure valve thesis and also a failure to account for the appeal of Methodism in the age of revolutions, and the age of empires which followed it. More recently, Methodism has seen a surge of new interest in historians from two points of view. First, historians such as Phyllis Mack in the United States and Joanna Cruikshank in Australia have recognised the call to the emotions which was the most striking feature of early Methodism and which set it apart from the rationalist trends current in other Enlightenment philosophical and religious traditions.2 Methodism provided an appeal to the heart in the Age of Reason. The rush of emotional energy of the revival continued to be a marked feature of Methodism as it expanded across new imperial boundaries in the century that followed the death of Wesley. E. Halévy, The Birth of Methodism in England, trans. Bernard Semmel (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1971). 2 J. Cruickshank, ‘“Appear as Crucified for Me”: Sight, Suffering, and Spiritual Transformation in the Hymns of Charles Wesley’, Journal of Religious History 30, no. 2 (2006): 311–30; J. Cruickshank, Pain, Passion and Faith: Revisiting the Place of Charles Wesley in Early Methodism (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009); P. Mack, Heart Religion in the British Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 1

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Second, historians have begun to interrogate the role of Methodism in the colonial enterprise when enthusiasm was converted to denominational empire-building. Surprisingly, there has been much more work on Methodist foreign missions than on the equally significant colonial missions of the various Methodist churches in both Britain and the United States. Both deserve attention. In the United States, the colonial frontier was internal and exploded with the opening up of the west, and Methodism was unrivalled as ‘an agency for expanding Christianity’.3 Epworth Press’s four-volume History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain provides us with a benchmark collection of essays and primary documents on the British story.4 Russell Richey, Kenneth Rowe and Jean Miller Schmidt have set a new standard in denominational history for American Methodism with The Methodist Experience in America.5 With the work of David Hempton, there is a now a major literature on the imperial history of the expansion of Methodism in the Atlantic world.6 In contrast, the Methodist story in the southern, Pacific world has scarcely been investigated as a coherent phenomenon. Treatment of Australia in the T&T Clark Companion to Methodism, Cracknell and White’s Introduction to World Methodism and Ashgate’s Companion to Methodist Studies is scanty at best.7 Methodism has been well synthesised by Ian Breward in his excellent survey history of the Christian churches of Australasia and Oceania.8 However, with the notable exception of Arnold D. Hunt, whose work focused on South Australia, and Don Wright and Eric Clancy for New South Wales (NSW), there have been few scholarly studies of Australian Methodism or the remarkable range of its missionary extension.9 Overall, Methodist historiography has been dominated 3 K.S. Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity, vol. 4 (London: Eyre & Spottiswood, 1941), p. 190. 4 R.E. Davies, A.R. George and E.G. Rupp, eds, A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, 4 vols (London: Epworth Press, 1965–88). 5 R.E. Richey, K.E. Rowe and J.M. Schmidt, The Methodist Experience in America (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2010). 6 D. Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005). 7 L.J. Oconer, ‘Methodism in Asia and the Pacific’, in T&T Clark Companion to Methodism, ed. Charles Yrigoyen, Jr. (London: T&T Clark, 2010), pp. 152–65; K. Cracknell and S.J. White, eds, An Introduction to World Methodism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 83; W. Gibson, P.S. Forsaith and M. Wellings, eds, The Ashgate Research Companion to World Methodism (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013). 8 I. Breward, A History of the Churches in Australasia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 9 A.D. Hunt, This Side of Heaven: A History of Methodism in South Australia (Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1985); D.I. Wright and E.G. Clancy, The Methodists: A History of Methodism in New South Wales (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993).

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by local studies addressed to an insider audience and the last attempt to write the story of Methodism throughout Australia, New Zealand and Polynesia is now over a century old.10 Methodism and the Southern World This book concerns Methodism in Australia specifically, but this can only be understood in the context of the role of Methodism in British cultural penetration of the conjoined Pacific world of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. The accident of discoveries of James Cook in his Pacific voyages created a new region in which religion was one of the primary modes of cultural exchange. Unlike the older established churches, Methodism was not constrained by historical hierarchies or formal relationship to the state and flexibly straddled new colonial boundaries and frontiers. The circuit system and deployment of local preachers meant Methodism could be laid down on the spot as imperial networks expanded. It proved equally successful in both the white settler domains of Australia and New Zealand and the islands which made up a transnational imperial sphere of activity for the major settler colonies of the south. Among Australia’s founding churches, Methodism is striking in the extent to which it centralised control and organisation in the hands of its central Conference. The first British Conference met under the leadership of John Wesley in 1744 and, while not completely autocratic, it served to voice the will of the founder of the movement. After Wesley’s death, Conference continued to reflect his authority to the extent that the perceived authoritarianism of the organisation, especially the controlling hand of the ‘Legal Hundred’, the Ministers who had a vote on all matters of importance, was a major factor in successive schisms. Partly as a result, Methodism fractured into half a dozen, closely related movements of which Wesleyan Methodism remained the most numerous and important. The Wesleyan Methodist Conference retained scrupulous records of all its proceedings, which included a manuscript journal, written up as a definitive record of all matters including confidential business, printed daily records, which omitted the confidential sections of the Conference, and printed minutes which were widely distributed as a summary of decisions.11 Despite their many subsequent divisions, all Methodists both in the UK and Ireland and abroad J. Colwell, The Illustrated History of Methodism. Australia: 1812 to 1855. New South Wales and Polynesia: 1856 to1902 (Sydney: W. Brooks, 1904). 11 Catalogue Methodist Conference Archives, John Rylands Library, Manchester ( JRLM). Minutes of the Methodist conferences from the first, held in London, by the late Rev. John Wesley, A.M., in the year 1744 (London: Conference Office, 1744-1877) (Methodist Minutes). 10

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followed the model of Wesley’s own conferences and this gives a uniformity and regularity to their proceedings which is the hallmark of the Methodist tradition and which proved useful when the Church came to expand overseas. Another important feature of Methodism was its territorial mobility. While Wesley’s house in Chapel Road, London, came in time to provide a spiritual home for the increasingly scattered global Methodist diaspora, there was no Methodist equivalent to the Vatican for Roman Catholics, or even Lambeth Palace for Anglicanism. Russell Richey has described the stages through which Methodism in the United States progressed so that it increasingly took on denominational characteristics of central administration, social and cultural activities, and a universal instead of a personal and immediate message of conversion.12 In its country of origin, the British Conference had no permanent base in any one city, but like the Napoleonic grande armée toured centres of population where the movement had taken root. The first conference was held in London in 1744, the second in Bristol in 1745 and it continued to oscillate between London, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and other major centres thereafter. Emulating the authority of an Anglican or Catholic archbishop, the Conference asserted its authority over all the people who wished to call themselves Methodists in England, Wales and Scotland. Similar authority was vested in the Irish Conference and Conferences in the United States. Far and wide, preachers were gathered in to provide a record of the numerical standing of their own branch of the movement. Every volume of the Conference Minutes follows the same order: first there were questions about preachers: who had been admitted into full connexion, who remained on trial, who had been travelling, who had been admitted on trial, and which preachers had died. For every one who had died, there was a short obituary, stressing their personal qualities, piety and the nature of their death. This was followed by questions as to whether there had been any objections to any preachers, if they had been examined or expelled, desisted from travelling and where the preachers were stationed. By 1808, the whole of Great Britain was divided into 26 districts with another 10 in Ireland, all of which were districts in their own right. Overseas, Methodists who were not under the authority of their own Conference were formed into missionary districts which were placed under the direction of Dr Thomas Coke (1747–1814), who had been appointed to this role by Wesley with the title ‘General Superintendent of the Irish, Welsh, WestIndia, Nova-Scotia, and Newfoundland Missions’. Coke was the general of the imperial Methodists, carrying all the aspirations for the spread of the new English church first to Wales and Ireland, and then overseas to the United States, the West Indies, Gibraltar, Sierra Leone, Canada and Scotland. Coke’s involvement 12 Robert Bruce Mullin and Russell E. Richey, eds, Reimagining Denominationalism: Interpretive Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).

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in America was too sporadic and short term to have had much impact and was eclipsed by his co-Superintendent Francis Asbury who understood the American situation in ways that Coke never could. Asbury would lead American Methodism to become the quintessentially American denomination identifying completely with the new republic after the War of Independence, but Wesley somewhat bemused at the new developments was resigned to what appeared a remarkable Providence. Through Coke, the Conference was informed of missions to ‘British Dominions in America’, with separate listings for the West Indies, Nova-Scotia and New-Brunswick, and Newfoundland. This world tour, which was a part of every British Conference, ended with an official enumeration, answering the question ‘What is the number of the people?’ In Bristol in 1808, the response to this showed that the total in Great Britain was 116,595, in Ireland 24,550 and in Gibraltar (the first Methodist infiltration into mainland Europe) 40, showing a total in Europe of 141,185.13 The numbers in the West Indies were divided into Whites, Coloured People and Blacks, giving a total in the West Indies, Nova Scotia etc. of 14,796, and total in the United States (probably an underestimate) as 151,590, showing a total in Europe and America of 307,571. Thus from early in the nineteenth century, the Methodists were methodically adding to their numbers in Europe, British North America, the United States and, soon enough, the World. The final section of the Methodist Minutes included ‘Addresses’, which were grand statements from the Irish to the British Connexion, from the British to the Irish Connexion and, occasionally, addresses from the American Connexion as well. Through the Minutes, the Conference represents Methodism as a kind of industrial machine for generating membership and expanding the reach and influence of the new church. Rapid growth, strict regulation and government from the top by the ‘Legal Hundred’ were the defining characteristics of this stage of the movement. So what eventually stopped the Wesleyan Methodist juggernaut? Initially, there was resistance from lay Methodists who were increasingly unhappy with the autocratic style of the organisation and wished to be free to follow their own providential direction in matters including evangelism and preaching style, tent meetings and even lay leadership of the communion service. Major splits in British Methodism followed, of which the most important led to the formation of a number of rival Methodist sects. Many of these new sectarian Methodists had an interest in the colonial churches and formed their own colonial missionary societies to cater for them. These include the Bible Christian Foreign Missionary Society (1821), the Methodist New Connexion Missionary Society (1824) and the Primitive Methodist Missionary Society (1824). The Methodist New Connexion was founded by William Thom and Alexander Kilham in 1797. Methodist Minutes, Bristol 1808, p. 23

13

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According to Gareth Lloyd in his guide to the Methodist archives in the John Rylands Library in Manchester, membership of the New Connexion was focused in a few English districts, including West Yorkshire, Lancashire, the North-east and the Potteries region of the North Midlands. They were also active in some overseas missions including Canada from 1837 to 1874. More important for Australia were the Primitive Methodists who were founded in 1811 and expanded rapidly both at home and abroad. The Primitives launched missions to Canada in 1829, Australia and New Zealand in 1843, and to various parts of Africa from 1870. Finally, the Bible Christians, founded in 1815, by William O’Bryan, were strongest in the south-west of England, but were also keen to create a presence in ‘Greater Britain’, and sent out missionaries to Canada in 1845, spreading from there to the United States, thence to Australia in 1850, New Zealand in 1878 and China in 1885. Yet another breakaway, the Wesleyan Methodist Association (itself the result of a merger of two other schismatic Methodist groups) also had overseas missions to Australia. Division at home was therefore important to the more rapid growth of Methodism in the colonies, particularly led by the schismatics unhappy with the structure of the home church. The most important division in the growing Methodist people, evident from Wesley’s own day, was that between British and American Methodism, each with their own tradition of heroic early expansion in the new world, missionary aspirations and territorial ambitions. While Wesley himself was the undoubted founder of the British movement, his own missionary efforts in America were less happy. After the loss of the American colonies in 1776, American Methodism proceeded more or less under its own steam, though powered by a new impetus. Asbury was the only British-born preacher to remain in America after the Revolution and he oversaw a veritable army of native-born itinerants who rendered to him the kind of respect and deference previously afforded only to Wesley. It was no longer, therefore, a British movement, nor did it make any acknowledgement of indebtedness to the home society. This underlying tension between British and American strands of the movement was expressed at the Conference in elaborate addresses, during which a diplomatic language of flattery and brotherhood was offset by a thinly disguised undercurrent of rivalry.14 Statistics, which were the bread and meat of these events, inexorably revealed the uncomfortable fact that Methodism in America was expanding at a much greater rate than in its country of origin. This is the context for the rising importance of missionaries to the new British colonies of settlement in British North America, Australia and New Zealand. In Bristol in 1814, there was mention for the first time of the appointment of a missionary for New South Wales, Samuel Leigh. The New South Wales posting is listed with other Foreign 14 See for example the ‘Address from the General Conference in America’ to the 1809 Conference in Manchester, Methodist Minutes, vol. 3 (1808-1813), pp. 95–6.

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Missions, including – in Europe – Gibraltar, Asia including Ceylon and, now, New South Wales, Africa, covering Sierra Leone and the Cape of Good Hope, and the established missions in America, including the West Indies, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and Newfoundland.15 Australia was initially the most distant and the most insignificant of these new missions, launched at a time of considerable anxiety. At the Sheffield Conference of 1817, Samuel Leigh is listed as having been admitted into Full Connexion, with a note in the printed copy of the Minutes (p. 295), but not the manuscript of the Journal (where his name appears on p. 182) stating that he ‘should have been admitted last year’. The slip in procedures is just one indication of the challenges of the day. These were indeed testing times for the expanding church, as doctrinal issues, financial issues, the problem of success – rapid expansion, clash of egos, the issue of how to cope with the passing away of the first generation of Wesley’s preachers and create a stable administrative structure for a permanent church – were all more significant problems than the spiritual colonisation of a distant penal colony. Nevertheless, from these inauspicious beginnings as an afterthought of the global expansion of the Methodist movement, Methodists were to play a distinctive role in Australia’s national story. Methodism and the Australian National Character Methodism laid down many tracks in the Australian national landscape as the successive chapters of this volume make plain. One area where their role was important yet little noticed before now was in shaping of Australia’s particular myth of national character. As Benedict Anderson proposed, the nation is an ‘imagined community’ with individual nationalisms coming together around shared signifiers which might include language, religion, land and political and historical events.16 It could be argued that the imagined Australia of the ‘fair go’, egalitarianism and mateship draws heavily on aspects of the Methodist tradition, including its social conscience, political engagement, network of city, suburban and bush congregations, and investment in health and education. Charles Ferguson’s classic work illustrated the contribution that Methodism made to the ‘making of America’.17 More recently Schneider has examined the

Methodist Minutes, vol. 4 (1814–1818), p. 30. For examples W.H. Fitchett, Wellington’s Men. Some Soldier Autobiographies (London: Smith, 1900); Deeds that Won the Empire (London: Smith, 1897), or How England Saved Europe (London: Smith, 1899) 17 C.W. Ferguson, Organizing to Beat the Devil: Methodists and the Making of America (New York: Doubleday, 1971). 15 16

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influence of Methodism on American domestic life.18 Significant attention has been given to the contribution of circuit-riding Methodists to the early American republic and to the ‘civilising’ of the American frontier.19 There are no equivalent studies of Methodists on the Australian frontier, yet the circuitriding model was an important part of Methodism’s reach to newly settled communities in Australia.20 Circuit-rider equestrian statues appear all over America, including in Washington DC, as a way of memorialising the American pioneering spirit. This is not the case in Australia where the ‘bush padre’ is more often than not a figure of fun or anti-clerical ridicule as in the poet A.B [‘Banjo’] Paterson’s ‘Bush Christening’ in which a frustrated priest baptises an unwilling participant with a bottle of whiskey.21 One exception to this is perhaps ‘Flynn of the Inland’ who (though not a Methodist) is remembered for the extension of care to settler families in remote areas. Consulting the diaries of Methodist circuit riders, home missioners and bush nurses yields new insights into this aspect of Australia’s national story.22 Russel Ward’s classic work The Australian Legend examined Australia’s national image based on idealised masculine images of the convict, the bushranger and the stockman as refracted through the songs and poems of the colonial era.23 This is a largely secular narrative yet, like Russel Ward himself (a former Methodist), it has religious roots. In the discourse of Methodist pulpits as well as in Methodism’s tight social networks throughout rural Australia and in influential city churches Methodists represented themselves as nation builders and patriots. This tradition has its roots in British Protestant nationalism and was enthusiastically endorsed and adapted to Australian conditions from at least 1851 when Australia became a separate District.24 This could take some A.G. Schneider, The Way of the Cross Leads Home: Social Religion and Domestic Ideology in 19th Century Methodist Evangelicalism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992). 19 D.E. Andrews, The Methodists and Revolutionary America, 1760–1800: The Shaping of an Evangelical Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000); J.H. Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm: Methodism and the Popularization of American Christianity, 1770– 1820 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). 20 E.G. Clancy, ‘Ecclesiastical Stock Riders: Wesleyan Methodist Ministers in 19th Century Rural NSW’, Church Heritage 9, no. 3 (March 1996): 143–62. 21 A.B. Paterson, ‘Bush Christening’, The Bulletin, 16 December 1893. For the background to the legend of the inept bush parson, see Hilary M. Carey ‘Bushmen and Bush Parsons: The Shaping of a Rural Myth’, Journal of Australian Colonial History 14 (2011): 1–26. 22 For the bush nurses, see S. Somerville, Angels of Augustus (Noosaville, Queensland: Elk and Ice, 2006). 23 R. Ward, The Australian Legend (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1958). 24 Exemplified in the historical writings of W.H. Fitchett. See below chapter six. 18

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unlikely forms. According to J.C. Coles, even Australia’s most celebrated bushranger, Ned Kelly, was subject to Methodist influence through the series of death row visits he received from Wesleyan Methodist preacher John Cowley Coles in September and October 1880.25 Not to be put off by the Governor of the gaol who informed him that ‘Kelly is a Catholic and has his own minister’, Coles persevered until he was kneeling and praying beside Kelly in his cell.26 In the earliest Methodist tradition of accompanying prisoners to the gallows, as John Wesley and others had done on numerous occasions at Tyburn, Coles urged repentance upon Kelly. ‘I refused to hear anything from him about his bushranging exploits, but I kept him to this – that … he was sure to be executed on a certain day, and that he was a sinner standing in need of a Saviour.’27 (To the Methodist preacher no one was beyond redemption.) They knelt and prayed together and upon standing Kelly crossed himself and thanked the preacher for his ministry. This was the last time the two men spoke together and Kelly went to the gallows on 11 November. Here is a touching and little known portrait of an instance of pastoral care in a moment of personal crisis. Kelly, the penitent Catholic Christian, and perhaps Australia’s favourite wayward son, kneels beside Coles the forthright Wesleyan preacher, the two men together calling upon God to grant mercy to a fallen sinner. In these cases, it is interesting that Methodists took pains to insert themselves into the Australian legend, simultaneously sanctifying and appropriating it. Methodists would later celebrate their contribution to the formation of the Anzac myth, arising out of the Gallipoli campaign of 1915–16, one of the most significant episodes in the ongoing performance of Australia’s national identity. Methodist Chaplain-General A.T. Holden spoke of the Gallipoli dead in his Anzac Day sermon delivered at Wesley Church on 30 April, 1916. ‘We now have traditions. With the rich red blood of our noblest sons, we have purchased our place in the councils of the greater British Empire now being begotten in the agonies of war.’28 In speaking of the Anzac spirit, in 1935, C. Irving Benson, Minister of Wesley Church Melbourne at least brought into focus the reality of defeat. ‘The story of Anzac is the epic of men who dared an “impossible” task, and nearly did it. They dared a deed which those who knew said could not be done. They failed, after performing prodigies of valour, and sailed away

J.C. Coles, The Life and Christian Experience of John Cowley Coles (London: Marshall Brothers; Melbourne: M.L. Hutchinson, 1893), pp. 136–8. 26 Coles, Life, entry for Wednesday 22 September, 1880, p. 136. 27 Coles, Life, entry for Wednesday 22 September, 1880, p. 136. 28 Anzac Day sermon delivered at Wesley Church 30 April, 1916, The Spectator, 5 May 1916, p. 575. 25

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at last, unsuccessful.’29 Here we find an early expression of the widely accepted Australian narrative of Gallipoli as a glorious defeat, yet one worth celebrating. Having established their nationalist credentials, Australian Methodists became more publicly assertive and politically active. For example their impact was important in the successful campaign for free, universal and non-sectarian education and the subsequent abolition of state aid for religious schools, the recognition of deity in the post-federation Constitution of Australia (1901), restrictions on the sale of alcohol, conscription, the Vietnam War and a myriad of other issues. Religious impulses are much more muted in the public square in Australia than is the case in America. Nevertheless religion remains an existing part of the political sphere as elucidated in Marion Maddox’s examination of (former Methodist) John Howard and the religious right.30 John Hirst has challenged the view of Australia’s federation founders as businessmen concerned about protecting their own colony’s financial interest, reconfiguring them as noble idealists who considered the building of a nation to be a holy cause. Federation was not the practical businessmen’s scheme but the dream of those who believed that ‘God wanted Australia to be a nation’.31 Hirst found such themes embedded in the poetry of the period. In the religious discourse of Methodists are to be found similarly fresh insights into Australia’s social and political history. Finally, we should say a little about the structure of this book. The Preface provides an account of the reasoning behind the division into a narrative and thematic section. Part I provides narrative histories, written by historians familiar with the relevant Methodist archives, of all the major colonies. As Renate Howe notes, this is not necessarily the only way to lay out the progress of the Methodist movement because regional identities remained strong as the frontier progressed; the goldfields, for example, had a distinct culture and ethos which distinguished it from the surrounding colony in Victoria and elsewhere. However, this was the most straightforward way to achieve the necessary compression and broader picture we aimed to achieve. Part II addresses a series of themes which aim to alert readers to key aspects of the Methodist movement, including worship, music, missions, women and other topics as well as the continuing Methodist legacy in the Uniting Church and smaller Methodist churches active in Australia today. The first chapter begins a more or less chronological survey of Methodism from the time of its planting in Botany Bay to the challenges of the 1960s. The Conclusion gathers the threads together and suggests some of the ways that Methodism has left its mark on the Australian people. C.I. Benson, ed., A Century of Victorian Methodism (Melbourne: Spectator, 1935), p. 40. 30 M. Maddox, God under Howard: The Rise of the Religious Right in Australia (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2005). 31 J. Hirst, The Sentimental Nation: The Making of the Australian Commonwealth (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2000). 29

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Part I Histories, 1811–1977

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Chapter 1

Methodism in the Australian Colonies, 1811–1855 Glen O’Brien

Early nineteenth-century British Methodist expansion followed the imperial trade routes and military expansion of the ‘Settler Revolution’, servicing and exploiting every major population centre in the British dominions. The first Wesleyan Methodist minister to arrive in the colony of NSW, in 1815, was the Rev. Samuel Leigh (1785–1852).1 He was not, however, the first Methodist to arrive in Sydney town, for, as elsewhere in the British colonies (and also in America), Methodism had its origins not in the direct missionary work of preachers but in the hopes, wishes and energetic work of a devout laity. Early Lay Preaching The earliest Methodist class meetings in the colony were those established in the Windsor district by Edward Eagar in 1811. Eagar, a convicted forger whose death sentence had been commuted to transportation, would eventually, in 1818, receive a pardon from the Governor, going on to become the first Circuit Steward in NSW. His assistance to the Rev. Richard Cartwright in reading the Anglican Prayer Book service in outlying areas is an indication of the initial friendly relations between Methodist preachers and the clergy of the Church of England. The schoolteacher Thomas Bowden held a class meeting in Sydney on 6 March 1812. Bowden had been a class leader in England, and had served as Master of the Great Queen Street Charity School in London. After arriving in NSW with his wife and family aboard the Graham in January 1812, he was given charge of the Male Orphan Institute. Bowden encouraged John Hosking, another Methodist schoolteacher, to join him in establishing Methodism in the Antipodes.2 Some of the material in this chapter relating to Samuel Leigh appeared previously in G. O’Brien, ‘Not Radically a Dissenter: Samuel Leigh in the Colony of New South Wales’, Wesley and Methodist Studies 4 (2012): 51–69. 2 Early correspondence with the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (WMMS) in London, Minutes and Leigh’s journal are available on microfilm, Methodist Missionary Society Archives, London (IDC Microform Publishers, 1991), H-2720–H-2721 and at the 1

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It would certainly be appropriate to see in the work of the earlier lay preachers and class leaders, in establishing the distinguishing features of the movement, the beginnings of Methodism in NSW. David Hempton rightly claims that ‘Methodist expansion was the result not of an evangelistic strategy concocted by elites but was carried primarily by a mobile laity.’3 On 3 April 1812, the two class meetings combined to hold a Love Feast and from this meeting sent letters to the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society in England requesting one or two missionaries for NSW. The Rev. Samuel Leigh arrived on 10 August 1815 ready to begin what would turn out to be a gruelling ministry with little earthly reward. The Arrival of Samuel Leigh One would not want to diminish the importance of this early lay ministry. However, the arrival of Samuel Leigh may also be legitimately perceived as a starting point, and he was usually seen as the pioneer in commemorative events organised by the clergy-centred Wesleyanism of a later period. More recent studies have helped restore the vital place of lay preachers as the authentic pioneers of Australian Methodism in every area to which it spread.4 Notwithstanding this important emphasis, nineteenth-century Wesleyan Methodism was a movement dominated by clerical authority, so Leigh’s arrival may at least be seen as the beginnings of NSW Methodism as formally approved by the British Conference. Leigh’s work was in many respects a failure, but he did establish the requisite Methodist discipline that provided a foundation for subsequent growth, something the earlier lay preachers had not been able to do. By March 1816, Leigh had established Sunday Schools and the first Benevolent Society in NSW. Along with Hosking and Bowden he was involved in establishing branches of the Bible Society (1817) and the Australian Religious Tract Society. Leigh met John Lees, a farmer and former soldier, at Castlereagh on the Hawkesbury River where the first Methodist church was built, opening on 7 October 1817. Leigh’s ministry as a circuit rider would take him on a regular 240 km (150 mile) circuit covering Parramatta, Liverpool, Windsor, Richmond, Castlereagh Camden Theological Library in North Parramatta. Much valuable early correspondence is also available on microfilm in the Missionary Papers of the Bonwick Transcripts in the Mitchell Reading Room at the State Library of NSW, though these should be approached with some degree of caution as the original correspondence has been corrupted. 3 D. Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven, CT.: Yale University Press, 2005), p. 30. See also D.I. Wright and E.G. Clancy, The Methodists: A History of Methodism in New South Wales (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993), p. 4. 4 A good recent study of the Victorian situation is B.T. Brown, William Witton (1811–1886): ‘Almost Perpetual Curate’ (Melbourne: Barry T. Brown 2011).

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and the Hawkesbury River district. Spending 10 days in Sydney, frequenting the convict enclave known as ‘the Rocks’, with its evident human need, then 10 or 11 days travelling his circuit, Leigh sought to establish a cause in the tried and true Methodist pattern, considering it his business to be constantly on the move rather than to loiter in one location. This good start augured well but the momentum was not sustained and Methodist membership in NSW would not climb beyond 400 until 1836, after Leigh had left the colony. On the day after his arrival, Leigh was accompanied by Edward Eagar to a meeting with Governor Lachlan Macquarie. The Governor reportedly informed Leigh, ‘I regret you have come here as a missionary, and feel sorry, and cannot give you any encouragement in that capacity.’5 The Governor informed Leigh that he had ‘missed his way’ by not presenting proper letters of introduction from British government officials. Furthermore, ‘I had rather you had come from any other Society than the Methodist. I profess to be a member of the Church of England and wish all to be of the same profession and therefore cannot encourage any parties.’6 Leigh assured Macquarie of his own desire to remain closely attached to the Church of England. The offer of a position in the government, through which Leigh was assured he would grow much more rich and comfortable than by going about preaching, was turned down, Leigh insisting that he had come to the colony as a Wesleyan missionary and could act in no other capacity while he remained there.7 Macquarie seemed eventually to have warmed to the Methodists. In March 1816 he was happy to patronise Leigh’s Benevolent Society and in January 1819 the foundation stone of a Wesleyan chapel was laid in Macquarie Street, Sydney, on land donated by the Governor and by the Crown Solicitor Thomas Wylde. A plot of land was also given for a chapel in Parramatta, and Macquarie undertook to provide further plots of land for the same purpose in ‘any or every settlement in the colony’.8 Methodist Consolidation After Macquarie’s years as Governor (1810–21), colonial Methodists enjoyed favourable relations with Governor Thomas Brisbane (1821–25) who considered them a valuable body of people who did much good. Brisbane drew from both the public’s purse and his own to contribute to a Wesleyan chapel in A. Strachan, Remarkable Incidents in the Life of the Rev. Samuel Leigh, 2nd edn (London: James Nichols, 1855), p. 35. 6 S. Leigh to WMMS, 6 March 1816. Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 2, pp. 213–14, Box 50. 7 Strachan, Remarkable Incidents, p. 35. 8 S. Leigh to WMMS, 24 Feb. 1819. Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 2, pp. 412–13, Box 50. 5

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Pennant Hills in 1825.9 In 1836 Governor Richard Bourke proposed the socalled Irish system, which put a secular system of education in place for children of all denominations with allowance for separate religious instruction. This was howled down by Protestants, led by Anglican Bishop William Broughton. The suggestion of providing equal levels of funding for both Protestant and Catholic schools was argued against, and the end result was that all church schools were set adrift to fend for themselves.10 Wesleyans objected to the Act because it did not give them denominational recognition, protested that the census forms did not reveal their true strength and claimed the financial support of the state for their ministers and schools. We see here the beginnings of the more confident and aggressive style that would typify later nineteenth-century Methodism. Eventually colonial Methodism would take its place alongside the Church of England, the Catholic Church and the Presbyterian Church as one of the four major denominations in colonial Australia. By 1839 each of the handful of Methodist ministers in the colony was eligible to receive a government salary of ₤150–₤200 per annum.11 English Wesleyans suffered some disadvantage in their Dissenting status, but in the religious free market economy of the Australian colonies Methodists suffered no such restrictions, which contributed to their becoming a nineteenth-century religious success story. Disputes over Relations with the Church of England In requesting a minister, Bowden, Hosking and Eagar had made it clear that they wanted someone who was ‘not radically a Dissenter’, but, rather, one who could work with the Anglican chaplains and not act independently of the Church of England.12 Lay Methodists in early NSW appear then to have been ‘Church Methodists’ rather than ‘Chapel Methodists’, not thinking of themselves primarily as Dissenters but as allied closely with the Established Church. Leigh turned out to be just the man they wanted. He quickly established good relations with the Anglican clergy and made it his business to ensure that Methodist activity would in no way interfere with the routines of Anglicanism. Leigh 9 B. Carvosso to WMMS, April 1825. Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 5, p. 1480, Box 53. 10 The details of this tumultuous period may be traced in J. Barrett, That Better Country: The Religious Aspect of Life in Eastern Australia, 1835–1850 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1966), pp. 87–163. 11 A District Meeting held in Sydney in September 1839 was attended by only seven ministers. J. Colwell, The Illustrated History of Methodism. Australia: 1812 to 1855. New South Wales and Polynesia: 1856 to1902 (Sydney: W. Brooks, 1904), p. 301. 12 T. Bowden to WMMS, 20 July 1812; Bowden and Hosking to WWMS, n.d. in Colwell, Illustrated History of Methodism, pp. 36–9.

Methodism in the Australian Colonies, 1811–1855

19

wrote home to the Wesleyan Missionary Society on 2 March 1816, assuring its members that the Anglican clergy were entirely friendly towards him.13 These friendly relations were aided by the fact that the early colonial clergy shared a similar evangelical piety and set of doctrinal emphases with the Methodists. Leigh may have seen the Methodist mission as ancillary to the Church of England, but his colleagues in the Methodist ministry did not seem to share that opinion. In reality Methodists functioned more often as an alternative to Anglican worship than as a supplement to it. Disputes among Wesleyans over their relationship to the Church of England would contribute to the earlier close relations between Wesleyans and the Church of England being disrupted so that after the 1820s the two churches had little to do with one another and when they did, they were not always friendly encounters. It soon became apparent that there was more work in the colony of NSW than a single Methodist preacher could handle. In 1817 Leigh began to request the Missionary Committee to forward a co-worker and Walter Lawry was appointed. Born on 3 August 1793, the Cornishman Lawry had been accepted as a candidate for the Wesleyan ministry in 1817. He arrived on the convict ship Lady Castlereagh, on which he had served as chaplain, on 1 May 1818. Lawry soon saw the need for even more helpers for the work, writing to his ministerial colleague the Rev. Joseph Sutcliffe in September that ‘to ride 24 miles on a hot day and preach three times is no joke’.14 Initial relations between the two preachers were amicable but stresses in their relationship soon became apparent. Leigh had a serious, almost morose character, whereas Lawry had a warm personality, enjoyed company and was somewhat less driven than Leigh in his work ethic. It probably did not help that Lawry decided that he should ‘faithfully and affectionately’ apprise Leigh of the ‘most glaring deficiencies and inconsistencies’ he discovered in him.15 Nor would it have been taken kindly by Leigh that Lawry successfully won the hand of Mary Hassall, a young woman whom Leigh had earlier failed successfully to court.16 In the estimate of the preachers who would join them in the field in 1821, the two men were ‘naturally unfitted for agreement in all the affairs of life’.17 Leigh had been 29 or 30 years old, Lawry 23, upon arriving in NSW. Most 13 S. Leigh to WWMS, 2 March 1816, cited in Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, p. 4. The same sentiment is expressed again in Leigh to Adam Clarke, 14 Oct. 1817, Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 2, p. 202, Box 50. 14 J.D. Bollen, ‘A Time of Small Things: The Methodist Mission in New South Wales, 1815–1836’, Journal of Religious History 7, no. 3 ( June 1973): 225–47, at p. 231. 15 Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, p. 6. 16 M. Reeson, Currency Lass (Sunderland, NSW: Albatross Books, 1985). 17 B. Carvosso, R. Mansfield and W. Walker, letter to WMMS, cited in G.S. Udy, Spark of Grace: The Story of the Methodist Church in Parramatta and the Surrounding Region (Parramatta: Epworth Press, 1977), pp. 58–9.

20

Methodism in Australia

of the 25 ministers who followed them up to 1840 were under 30, reflecting the youthfulness of Methodist missionary work. Young and sometimes hot-headed men without the wisdom and restraint of age can often fail to see eye to eye and be unwilling to compromise. In spite of these personal difficulties, the Methodist cause showed some signs of going ahead. On 17 March 1819 the second chapel in NSW was opened on Prince’s Street, due to the efforts of the layman John Scott. The third was opened at Windsor around the same time on the land that had been donated by Samuel Marsden in 1818. In mid-1821 the Macquarie Street chapel was officially opened. The mission borrowed £2,000 to complete this project, half from the government and half from Edward Eagar, who expected the Missionary Committee in London to repay his investment, which they did but only under sufferance and with considerable delay. The government loan would not be repaid until the 1830s. The method of fund-raising in this early period was unusual. Missionaries were sent goods which they were expected to sell at a profit to support their work. Book-keeping was inaccurate and by March 1819 the mission was ₤150 in debt. Leigh sailed for England on 24 February 1820 where he would travel around provincial cities such as Sheffield, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol promoting the work in Australia and New Zealand. During this visit he also married Catherine Clewes and requested the Missionary Committee to supply at least three additional preachers for NSW.18 He seems to have exaggerated the strength of the work in the colony and this concerned his colleagues whose own estimates of gains were considerably more modest.19 By this time the Committee had already sent missionary reinforcements, including Benjamin Carvosso, Ralph Mansfield and George Erskine. These men did not share Leigh’s outlook towards the Church of England, and thus the nature of colonial Methodism’s connection to Anglicanism was destined to be at the centre of disputes between Leigh, his fellow missionaries and the Methodist leadership back in England. There were many accusations flung in both directions and much plotting and scheming. A situation soon developed in which Leigh, the colonial Anglican chaplains and the Missionary Committee in London on the one side were arrayed against every Methodist preacher in NSW on the other. The Missionary Committee sided with Leigh and the Anglican clergy on all the matters that came before them, writing to the colonial chaplains supporting them over against their fellow Methodists. They issued rebukes and warnings to each of the missionaries, threatening to withdraw them from the field if they persisted in 18 S. Leigh to WMMS, 22 June 1820. Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 3, p. 676, Box 51. 19 W. Lawry to Missionary Committee, 9 February 1821, cited in Udy, Spark of Grace, p. 51.

Methodism in the Australian Colonies, 1811–1855

21

their actions. The towns were to be left to the Established Church; the Methodist preachers were to confine themselves to the scattered population in the bush.20 Any refusal to obey this directive would be considered a dereliction of duty.21 The arrival of the Rev. George Erskine to serve as Superintendent and, later, District Chairman, on 4 November 1822, only further isolated the already besieged Leigh. The conflict between Leigh and his fellow preachers, Erskine considered ‘an exceedingly unpleasant affair’.22 For Erskine, the Wesleyan Methodist Church needed to show little deference to Anglicanism. It was its own ecclesial body with its own doctrine and discipline. To be stationed at so far a distance from England required the granting of ‘a discretionary power to act in accordance with local circumstances, and to have liberty to embrace with prudence every opening of usefulness’.23 In this missionary pragmatism he was at one with the other preachers, pointing towards the self-sustaining and independent future of nineteenth-century Wesleyan Methodism, leaving Leigh looking backwards to the previous century. The fact that Leigh was ‘not radically a Dissenter’, a quality admired by the lay preachers who first requested a missionary, kept him tied to an earlier phase of Methodist development. Lawry, Carvosso and Mansfield were the wave of the future with their vision of Methodism as a strong, independent Dissenting body, holding its own distinctive doctrines and discipline, albeit with Anglican origins. Leigh was a man who belonged more naturally to the eighteenth-century status of Methodism as closely aligned to the Church of England, and thus was a constant drag on the progressive views of the more recently arrived missionaries. Expansion under Joseph Orton Erskine was physically unwell and until 1831, with the arrival of his replacement, the Rev. Joseph Orton, little further progress was made. In 1832 the Missionary Committee considered NSW to be ‘the most unproductive of all its stations throughout the world owing to the “unfaithfulness” of several of its missionaries’.24 According to Orton, Richard Watson, Secretary of the WMMS, 20 Committee Minute Book, 3 July 1822, cited in Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, pp. 10–11. 21 Udy, Spark of Grace, pp. 52–3. 22 G. Erskine to R. Watson, 19 Nov. 1822. Bonwick Transcripts, Missionary Papers, 4, p. 1,200, Box 52. 23 G. Erskine to R. Watson, 19 Nov. 1822, p. 1,200, Box 52. 24 Missionary Committee to Chairman of NSW District, 15 September 1832. Letter Book, pp. 352–5, cited in R.B. Walker, ‘The Growth and Typology of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in New South Wales, 1812–1901’, Journal of Religious History 6, no. 4 (1971): 331–47, at p. 331.

Methodism in Australia

22

saw it as ‘the only one of our Missions that had been a disgrace to us’.25 Erskine, Carvosso, Lawry, Mansfield and Walker had by that time all withdrawn from their work in the colony. After more than 15 years Methodism could report only 112 members of the Society, 20 Sunday School teachers and 137 Sunday School students. Orton would trim these figures down even further to a more realistic 67 members and 12 Sunday School teachers.26 After a brief stopover in Hobart Town, Joseph Orton, a veteran of the Jamaican mission field, arrived in Sydney on 11 January 1832, where for the next several years he would experience many ‘trials’ and ‘racking anxieties’ struggling to ‘restore the fortunes of Wesleyanism’, and not without success for within his first two years membership in Sydney had doubled.27 While the turnaround in Methodist fortunes in the 1830s can partly be attributed to the superior leadership of Orton, migration was also a significant factor, as was recruitment from other churches. The unique machinery of Methodism, with the voluntarism of its classes, circuits and lay preachers, as well as its simplicity of doctrine and emotional directness, seemed eminently suited to the youthful exuberance of a growing colony. Orton was interested in reaching settlers west of the Blue Mountains, as well as reaching the Indigenous population away from the more settled areas, and began by consolidating Methodism in Bathurst, undertaking three journeys there between 1832 and 1834. His experience follows the usual pattern of a minister receiving a request for assistance from a devout Methodist laity already hard at work. Bathurst at this time was a small village, including a few government buildings, a hospital and a convict settlement, though Orton travelled also to the scattered populations in the surrounding region, as well as preaching to the convict gangs assigned to road construction. The Rev. Frederick Lewis arrived in Bathurst on 21 May 1836, and on 8 July the first Quarterly Meeting was held at Orton Park, the homestead named by William Lane in honour of Joseph Orton. The first chapel was opened on 10 October 1837, and by 1850 the Bathurst Circuit had 18 preaching places. The discovery of gold in 1851 saw a large influx of people, many of whom became Methodist converts. The Rev. John McKenny worked to gain legal status for Methodists and their rites of marriage, as well as obtaining government financial support for Wesleyan day schools. Everywhere chapels were built on land generously donated by Methodist lay people often originating in Sussex, Kent and Cornwall, who made important J. Orton, Journal (1832–39), 12 February 1839, cited in A. Tyrrell, A Sphere of Benevolence: The Life of Joseph Orton, Wesleyan Methodist Missionary (1795–1842) (Melbourne: State Library of Victoria, 1993), p. 88. 26 Wesleyan District Minutes 22 March 1831, 10 January 1832, Minute Book of NSW District, vol. 3 Dixson Library, ms Q4, cited in Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, p. 16. 27 Orton, Journal (1832–39), 1 Feb. 1836, cited in Tyrrell, A Sphere of Benevolence, pp. 83, 95. 25

Methodism in the Australian Colonies, 1811–1855

23

contributions. The Rev. W. Schofield visited Wollongong in 1839 and found a society already operating with 18 members at Dapto. A chapel with seating for 200 was built in 1842. Methodism also grew steadily in Goulburn from 1842 until the Rev. Daniel Draper visited and selected the Goldsmith Street site in 1846. The first ministerial appointment was the Rev. William Lightbody in 1847, and a chapel built on land donated by the government was opened on 23 April 1848. An important milestone was reached in 1839 when James Watsford of Parramatta was accepted as the first Australian-born candidate for the ministry. Centenary Chapel in York Street, Sydney, was opened in 1844. By that time there were 10 chapels in Sydney. Daniel Draper opened the first Methodist Church in Newcastle on 29 June 1845 and visited Port Macquarie in 1846. Membership in NSW increased from 121 in 1834 to 707 in 1841, and then to 2,209 in the 10 years between 1841 and 1851.28 Spreading to Other Colonies A District that encapsulated places as far apart as Parramatta, Melbourne, Adelaide and the Swan River Colony in Western Australia must have constituted some kind of record in geographical size. The Rev. William Binnington Boyce arrived in Sydney as General Superintendent in 1846 and presided over the annual meeting of the Australia District on 30 July. Boyce acted as a conciliatory voice between the missionaries and the British Conference. As editor and publisher of the weekly The Gleaner, he showed theological ability in defending the status of Methodism as a strong and vigorous church in its own right. Methodist success in NSW was duplicated and in some areas exceeded in the other colonies. The first service in Van Diemen’s Land was held by Benjamin Carvosso in 1820, and in 1836 it became a separate District. The first service in Melbourne was held in that same year. Methodist work began in the Swan River Colony, Western Australia, in 1838 and on Kangaroo Island, South Australia, in 1836. Moreton Bay (later Brisbane), Queensland, received its first Methodist preacher in 1847. Queensland was not a separate colony until 1859 and the Methodist circuits there were part of the Sydney District until 1863 when a separate District was established. It would not be until 1891 that the Queensland Conference was constituted. More colonists attended Wesleyan services in Victoria and South Australia between 1850 and 1860 than attended any other religious body. We will focus here on South Australia where Methodist growth was particularly rapid and

Walker, ‘Growth and Typology’, p. 333.

28

24

Methodism in Australia

widespread.29 Two brothers, sons of a former president of the British Wesleyan Conference, were prominent in the early years of the colony: Edward Stephens, first cashier and accountant of the South Australian Company and later manager of the Company’s bank, and John Stephens, founder in 1843 of the weekly Adelaide Observer and then owner and editor of the South Australian Register. The first Methodist service in South Australia was conducted on Kangaroo Island on 13 November 1836 by a Wesleyan layman Samuel East. It was another local preacher, John Charles White, who led the first Methodist worship on the mainland, in Edwards Stephens’ tent at Holdfast Bay, on 22 January 1837. The first Society was organised in May that year at Edward Stephens’ home in North Terrace, Adelaide. The Society then raised money to build a chapel in Hindley Street, which was opened on 18 March 1838, the first church building in the colony of any denomination. John White preached the first sermon. All of this was achieved by dedicated laypersons before the congregation received its first minister, William Longbottom, in August 1838. He had been shipwrecked in South Australia on his voyage from Van Diemen’s Land to the Swan River Colony in Western Australia, and the Adelaide congregation grabbed the opportunity to have its own minister; in October its leaders requested the Wesleyan Missionary Committee in London to allow him to stay. Under Longbottom’s successor John Eggleston, a fiery advocate of Christian assurance and the experience of perfect love, Wesleyanism grew to four churches and 277 members by 1841. John Weatherstone’s staunch application of Wesleyan polity upset some members and led ultimately to his being recalled from the field, though not dismissed from the ministry as the complainants had hoped.30 Between 1846 and 1855 the Rev. Daniel Draper’s influence among South Australian Wesleyans was significant for he provided the kind of stable leadership that Joseph Orton had provided in NSW in the 1830s. The Pirie Street Wesleyan Church, built under Draper’s leadership, rose up as a monument to the strength and influence of Wesleyan Methodism in the 1850s. It was regarded, along with Kent Town Church, as a ‘cathedral’ of South Australian Wesleyanism – a reputation that survived until the 1970s. Governor Robe’s offer of state aid to churches in 1846 was supported by Draper who was glad to receive such funds in order to further Wesleyan work. Since this was a legal provision and Wesleyans, by policy, were not to enter into political debates, there was no reason in his view why such monies should not be received without dispute. However, there were some among the Wesleyan flock who took the stronger anti-state-aid position of the Dissenting tradition. Some such as Edward Stephens, Thomas Reynolds and 29 A.D. Hunt, This Side of Heaven: A History of Methodism in South Australia (Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1985); R.B. Walker, ‘Methodism in the Paradise of Dissent, 1837–1900’, Journal of Religious History 5, no. 4 (1969): 331–47. 30 Tyrrell, A Sphere of Benevolence, pp. 35–8.

Methodism in the Australian Colonies, 1811–1855

25

George Marsden Waterhouse (later Premier of the colony) rejected government money as though a gospel principle were at stake, thus bringing them into open conflict with Draper. The fact that the anti-state-aid agitator George William Cole was a Bible Christian before joining the Wesleyans is indicative of the political difference between the Wesleyans and the minor Methodists. The mother church was much more apolitical, respectful of existing structures of authority, and allied more closely with Anglicanism. The minor Methodists on the other hand were more often involved in political agitations and better represented in the newer, more politically radical, labour movements. To say, as did Cole and others, that Draper was acting as an autocratic ‘pope’ with dictatorial powers was only to say that he was acting in a typically Wesleyan way, more concerned for the maintenance of the tried-and-true Methodist polity than about any kind of broader political agitation. The funds received from state aid were relatively small amounts, and ended in 1851, but they contributed to the building of churches in new areas, subsidised minister’s salaries and did not lead to any lessening of giving by the Methodist constituency itself. Not even the discovery of gold in Victoria and a consequent, though temporary, loss of members to that colony could put the brakes on Methodist growth in South Australia throughout the 1850s. Methodism was often the only denomination in South Australia successfully to establish causes in outlying areas. As early as 1843 there were Sunday services and class meetings in at least 16 frontier homesteads and more than 30 preaching places received the regular ministrations of a Methodist preacher.31 In 1858 the various Methodist denominations in that colony provided seats for 11,000 people and Wesleyan Methodists alone made up 13 per cent of the population.32 Growth continued into the 1870s as the Wesleyan Home Mission and Contingent Fund enabled the settled areas in the southern part of the state to subsidise the establishment of new churches in the northern agricultural districts. Growth was aided by immigration, as up until 1840 immigrants to South Australia were drawn mostly from the south of England, 15 per cent from Cornwall, Devon and Somerset where Methodism was strong.33 Of the smaller Methodist bodies, the Bible Christians, who commenced work in 1849, were the most successful. New Connexion Methodists began work in 1840 but could not sustain a cause for very long, eventually merging with the Bible Christians in 1888. Primitive Methodism was also established in 1840 and saw only slight progress in its first decade, reaching only a tenth of Wesleyan membership, though much greater success was experienced in the 1860s under the leadership 31 Douglas Pike, Paradise of Dissent: South Australia 1829–1857 (London: Longmans, Green, 1957), pp. 249–50. 32 Walker, ‘Methodism in the Paradise of Dissent’, pp. 333–4. 33 Walker, ‘Methodism in the Paradise of Dissent’, pp. 331–2.

Methodism in Australia

26

of Henry Cole, John Gibbon Wright and others. The Bible Christian Church was strengthened by Cornish copper miners (as well as farmers) of devout faith and seemingly boundless energy, in places like Burra and Kapunda. The local preacher James Blatchford established a Bible Christian congregation in Burra in 1849, building a chapel in Paxton Square and filling it with 50 people at the opening service. Back in Shebbear in north Devon, the founding place of the Bible Christians, the Conference of 1850, responding to an appeal from the ‘saints’ at Burra, established a South Australian Mission, appointing James Way as Superintendent, to be accompanied by James Rowe. South Australia seems to have had strong pulling-power for Bible Christians, with 14 missionary families arriving by 1856. Samuel Keen, arriving in 1853, further extended Bible Christian witness into the Gawler Plains. Methodism flourished in workingclass areas such as Port Adelaide and Moonta. Arnold Hunt traced a pattern in South Australian Methodism which saw migrants from the minor Methodist bodies worshipping at first with Wesleyans, in the absence of churches of their own. With a population of 63,000 in 1851, the colony was small enough that a single Wesleyan Methodism might have been sufficient to meet the needs. However, the bitter disputes among the competing Methodist bodies in Britain ensured that the minor Methodist leaders were not willing to entrust their migrating flocks to the Wesleyans, and so ensured that they replicated themselves in the Antipodes. Furthermore, the state aid question saw the Wesleyans and the minor Methodists on opposite sides of the debate, the former seeing no problem with accepting government money for the Lord’s work, the latter steadfastly refusing such funds. This competition led to a rather wasteful use of resources and the unfortunate situation of the smaller Methodist bodies often struggling to keep their causes operating in near proximity to one another. The level of duplication is graphically illustrated in a photograph from 1870 of Franklin Street, Adelaide, reproduced in This Side of Heaven, which shows the Wesleyan, Primitive, New Connexion and Bible Christian churches all close enough together to be captured by the same camera lens.34 The Official Formation of an Australasian Connexion To return finally to NSW and the Wesleyan Methodist Connexion where, in 1853, the Rev. Robert Young arrived in Sydney via Albany (Western Australia), Adelaide and Melbourne. Young had been sent by the British Conference on a deputation to present proposals for establishing the mission as a self-governing connexion. At an evening tea meeting on Friday 24 June 1853, with about 500 people present, William Boyce assured Young and the assembled crowd that the Hunt, This Side of Heaven, p. 89.

34

Methodism in the Australian Colonies, 1811–1855

27

proposed Australian Connexion, ‘while enjoying greater freedom of action’, would remain united in doctrine and discipline with the British Connexion. Young was glad to hear that ‘they did not desire any mutilated or new form of Methodism among them’ but that ‘provision would be made for the continued maintenance of Methodism in all its essential, doctrinal and disciplinary principles’.35 The Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Connexion (or Church) was officially convened in the York Street Chapel in Sydney on 18 January 1855. The fact that there was hesitation at this early stage over whether to be officially known as a ‘Church’ or a ‘Connexion’ perhaps reflects the ambiguity Methodists felt about their relationship to ‘the Church’. Were they to consider themselves a Society designed to renew the Church of England or were they a Church in their own right? The latter view would win out in the nineteenth century.36 Forty ministers attended and William Boyce was appointed President by the British Conference. By this stage, Methodism in NSW alone could boast a constituency of more than 15,000 worshippers.37 Young was told during his reception in Melbourne that the infant Methodist Church had been built on a foundation which, it was hoped, would be ‘the means of the conversion of multitudes’.38 This hope would be partially fulfilled in the following half century, when Methodism in all the Australian colonies would grow from 5 per cent to 11 per cent of the population. Its glory days would be seen in the period immediately following its obtaining independence from the British Conference. During these middle decades of the nineteenth century, Methodist strength and influence in the dominions grew rapidly, far exceeding that of its mother church in Britain.

R. Young, The Southern World: Journal of a Deputation from the Wesleyan Conferences to Australia and Polynesia: Including Notices of a Visit to the Gold Fields (London: Hamilton, Adams, 1854), pp. 96–8. 36 A similar hesitancy was expressed by the abolitionists Orange Scott and Luther Lee when in 1843 they formed ‘The Wesleyan Methodist Connexion (or Church) of America’ in Utica, New York. Not until 1947 was the word ‘Connexion’ dropped. I.F. McLeister, History of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America (Syracuse, NY: Wesleyan Methodist Publishing Association, 1934). 37 The General Returns of November 1854 listed 76 chapels, 109 preaching places, 31 ministers, 18 day school teachers, two catechists, 523 Sunday School teachers, 113 local preachers, 170 class leaders, 2,456 church members, 237 on trial, 66 Sunday Schools, 4,929 scholars, 12 day schools, 1,295 day scholars and 15,650 at worship. K. Whitby and E.G. Clancy, Great the Heritage: The Story of Methodism in N.S.W. 1812–1975 (Sydney: The Division of Interpretation and Communication of the N.S.W. Methodist Conference, 1975), p. 11. The 1851 census of NSW showed 10,008 identifying as ‘Wesleyan Methodist’. Young, Southern World, p. 116. 38 Young, Southern World, p. 73. 35

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Chapter 2

Methodism in New South Wales, 1855–1902 Malcolm Prentis

As if to fulfil the sanguine hopes of the first meeting of the Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Connexion in 1855, NSW Methodism in its various branches grew at a prodigious rate between then and union in 1902. It developed a broader demographic profile, a distinctive tone and ethos, and became increasingly confident and assertive. It was not a homogeneous movement, for even though it was not as fragmented as in some other colonies, it nevertheless displayed differing styles of worship and polity. Of the sects resulting from previous Methodist secessions, NSW had Wesleyan Methodists from 1812, Primitive Methodists from 1847 and the United Methodist Free Church (UMFC) from 1870. Although much smaller in number than the Wesleyans, the Primitive Methodists were vigorous and by the time of union they had 27 circuits. They established circuits in working-class suburbs of Sydney, the goldfields (fleetingly), the coalfields and a few country areas: Goulburn, Mudgee, Nundle (a goldfield area on the northern tablelands) and the Macleay River valley on the north coast.1 They held their first meeting in Sydney in 1859. The Bible Christian Church was only represented in NSW at Broken Hill and Silverton by circuits of the strong South Australian Conference; elsewhere individuals joined other connexions. Alongside these were other small offshoots. The more democratic UMFC was weaker than in Victoria; it was confined to a small number of congregations in Sydney and Newcastle and three ministers. They had one district for NSW and Queensland. There was also a tiny indigenous group called the Lay Methodist Church in the Newcastle area which did not enter the union in 1902 and survived until 1951.2 The Methodist New Connexion was not organised in NSW. D.I. Wright and E.G. Clancy, The Methodists: A History of Methodism in New South Wales (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993), p. 47. 2 E.G. Clancy, ‘The Struggle for Methodist Union in New South Wales’, Church Heritage 12, no. 3 (March 2002): 172–97, at pp. 172, 184, 196; E.G. Clancy, ‘The Primitive Methodist Church in New South Wales [Part 1] – Piccaninny Daylight 1847–1854’, Church Heritage 2, no. 4 (September 1982): 305–39, at p. 305; and E.G. Clancy, ‘The Lay Methodist Church’, Church Heritage 5, no. 4 (September 1988): 273–97. 1

Methodism in Australia

30

This chapter deals only with the colony of NSW itself although its Wesleyan district and conference structure included Queensland until the establishment of a Queensland Conference in 1893. From 1855 to 1863, NSW had been a District of the Australasian Conference, subdividing into five districts in 1873.3 Overall, the Wesleyans remained dominant in NSW from the 1850s to 1902 and formed by far the biggest and most widespread connexion, relatively more dominant than they were in South Australia and Victoria. In the 1891 census, of the Methodist 10 per cent, the Wesleyans contributed 7.8 per cent.4 There was an irregular but continuous process of members of minority connexions joining the Wesleyans when the latter connexion was the only one represented in their locality.5 Reasons for Growth Around 1855, a mere 15,000 colonists, or 5.6 per cent of the population, called themselves Methodists of one kind or another (the Methodist denominations were not enumerated separately in NSW census reports until the 1860s). By 1902, the proportion had almost doubled. The growth rate was impressive, especially to 1891 (see Tables 2.1 and 2.2). Table 2.1 1856

%

14,952 5.6

Methodists in the census, New South Wales, 1856–1901 1861

%

23,682 6.2

1871

%

39,566 7.8

1881

%

64,352 8.6

1891

%

112,448 10.0

1901

%

137,638 10.2

Source: W. Vamplew, ed., Australians: Historical Statistics (Broadway, NSW: Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, 1987), p. 428.

What were the reasons for this remarkable growth during the middle and later nineteenth century? Partly it was due to the religious culture of Australia after 1836, including the financial benefits of the Church Act of 1836. Immigration into the colony, and secondary migration within it, also help to explain Methodism’s growth, especially in some localities. For instance, Daryl Lightfoot has demonstrated the influence of the Rev. Thomas Collins in west Kent and east Sussex in the 1830s, an influence carried by dozens of Wesleyan emigrants from the area to NSW. The surnames of the emigrants who arrived in the 1830s Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, p. 38. W. Phillips, ‘Religious Profession and Practice in New South Wales, 1850–1901: The Statistical Evidence’, Historical Studies 15, no. 59 (October 1972): 278–400, at p. 381. 5 Clancy, ‘Primitive Methodist Church in New South Wales, Part 1’, pp. 312–14. 3 4

Methodism in New South Wales, 1855–1902

Table 2.2

31

Methodist churches and church membership in New South Wales, 1855–1901

1854

1856

1871

1891

1901

Churches Members Churches Members Churches Members Churches Members WMC PM

76

2,209

c. 180

5,562

387

7,978

460

11,759

c. 2

c. 120

c. 40

c. 1,200

77

2,070

69

1,737

17

643

10

272

c. 1

c. 40

c. 2

c. 75

UMFC

c. 4

Others TOTAL

c. 78

c. 2,329

c. 224

c. 6,762

c. 482 c.10,731

c. 541 c.13,843

Key: WMC = Wesleyan Methodist Church; PM = Primitive Methodist; UMFC = United Methodist Free Church Source: Vamplew, Australians: Historical Statistics, p. 428. See also Clancy, ‘Struggle for Methodist Growth’, pp. 184, 196; The Methodist, 11 June 1892, p. 2; Clancy, ‘Primitive Methodist Church in New South Wales [Part 1]’, p. 334

and 1840s include many that were to become household names in Australian Methodism, such as Apps, Boorman, Coleman, Playford, Gill, Goodsell, Hilder, Jarrett, Luck, Milgate, Pankhurst, Vidler, Weller, Doust, Towner and Southwell. They and their descendants moved out across the colony, often pioneering the Methodist cause in country areas in the 1850s and beyond.6 In the Newcastle area, most overseas-born members of the minor Methodist groups came from the counties of Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland.7 It is difficult to determine, however, the precise extent of the contribution of immigration to the rate of Methodist expansion. Denis Towner argued that in the Macleay district, where the advance of Methodism was the strongest in the colony, this growth was due not so much to migration as to the labours of Silas Gill, ‘the undisputed apostle of the Macleay’, and his associates.8 Between 1855 and 1902, the ‘circuit-riding’ ministry combined with local lay preachers and leaders helped to place Methodism in almost every nook 6 D.H. Lightfoot, ‘Thomas Collins (1810–1864): A Vicarious Ministry to New South Wales’, Church Heritage 13, no. 1 (March 2003): 13–24. 7 E.G. Clancy, ‘The Primitive Methodist Church in New South Wales, Part 2 – The Dawn of a Better Day 1854–1874’, Church Heritage 3, no. 1 (March 1983): 31–92, at p. 44. 8 D.R. Towner, ‘The Origins and Early Development of the Methodist Church on the North Coast of New South Wales to 1880’ (University of Sydney BD thesis), quoted in E.G. Clancy, ‘Wesleyan Prodigy: Growth of the New South Wales Wesleyan Methodist Church, 1836–1873,’ Church Heritage, 10, no. 4 (September 1998): 254–76, at p. 269. See also E.G. Clancy, A Giant for Jesus: The Story of Silas Gill, Methodist Lay Evangelist (Waitara, NSW: The Author, 1972).

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32

and cranny of the colony, from York Street to Dondingalong.9 The movement avoided reliance on Eurocentric notions of ‘parish’ and possessed a centrally strong but locally flexible organisation. The message was simple and appealing. Congregations were formed and modest chapels were built remarkably quickly. Being first in the field definitely contributed to growth. As Cable points out, ‘Methodism served many people and regions whose primary allegiance lay elsewhere.’10 Walker went further: ‘A main reason for growth was proselytization from other churches.’11 As a product of the evangelical awakening, Methodism was activist in its ethos. Its evangelism confidently proclaimed what it saw as the ‘pure gospel’, refracted through an Arminian lens, offering individuals a salvation which they could confidently grasp, before going on to build a holy life. As in other parts of colonial Australia, camp meetings and other kinds of evangelistic missions were common means of reaching the unsaved as well as enfolding the children of existing adherents. Revivals were expected and were, indeed, frequent, producing membership and adherent growth, but unevenly. One example was the revival at Kiama on the south coast in 1864 under the ministry of the Rev. Thomas Angwin.12 Stuart Piggin associated much Methodist revival in the second half of the nineteenth century with the work of the first home-grown minister, the Rev. John Watsford, who, in inner-Sydney suburbs and country towns, ‘was used to ignite the fires of revival’.13 Mining areas also experienced such revivals, as in Cobar in 1880, where Cornish miners were in the forefront.14 Between 1869 and 1878, the Methodist proportion of Protestant worshippers dropped from 38 per cent to a still impressive 32.5 per cent. Perhaps other denominations had by now got themselves into a better position to be able to reclaim their own ‘lost sheep’.15 See E.G. Clancy, ‘Ecclesiastical Stock Riders’, Church Heritage, 9, no. 3 (March 1996): 143–62. 10 K. Cable, ‘Protestant Problems in New South Wales in the Mid-Nineteenth Century’, Journal of Religious History 3 (1964): 119–36, at pp. 125–6. 11 R.B. Walker, ‘Growth and Typology of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in New South Wales, 1812–1901’, Journal of Religious History 6, no. 4 (1971): 331–47, at p. 333. 12 J.E. Carruthers, Memories of an Australian Ministry 1868 to 1921 (London: Epworth Press, 1922), p. 32. 13 Stuart Piggin, ‘Local Revivals in Australia’, Renewal Journal 2 (1993): 35–42. Watsford had been a missionary in Fiji and later also ministered in South Australia and Victoria; see Renate Howe, ‘Watsford, John (1820–1907)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/watsfordjohn-4809/text8017, accessed 20 December 2012. 14 Walker, ‘Growth and Typology of the Wesleyan Methodist Church’, p. 335. For a fuller discussion of revivals and their causes, see Chapter 11 in this volume. 15 Cable, ‘Protestant Problems in New South Wales’, pp. 126–7, 135, n. 16. 9

Methodism in New South Wales, 1855–1902

33

Areas of Strength Who and where were the Methodists in colonial NSW? They were all over the colony, an increasingly diverse group demographically and occupationally. But there were particular strengths and weaknesses in their social profile. They were for a start significantly under-represented in gaols and mental institutions.16 The early areas of growth around Sydney and the Hawkesbury remained strong. As in South Australia, but not quite to the same extent, NSW Methodists had a rural bias and were over-represented among farmers and miners. Methodism in colonial NSW was very strong in some rural areas, and Methodists were certainly over-represented among smaller farmers. This was especially the case in areas of free selection after 1861. Often being ‘first in the field’, Methodism could garner not only small farmers but many shopkeepers and artisans in rural settlements as well.17 In the 1901 census, while 10.2 per cent of the general population identified as ‘Methodist’ of one kind or another, some agricultural districts returned much higher figures: on the north coast, the figure was 13.5 per cent, on the northern tablelands it was 13 per cent and on the southern tablelands, 12 per cent. As noted earlier, the Macleay River showed the fastest growth in the 1860s, from 10.7 per cent to 16.4 per cent in 10 years.18 The Methodist proportion was lower in pastoral districts, reflecting the strength of Anglicanism and Presbyterianism among graziers and larger landowners.19 Overall, Methodists were over-represented among miners. Indeed, in 1901, 17.1 per cent of NSW miners were Methodists. Many Methodist miners from Cornwall, Wales and the north of England found their way to the lower Hunter River coalfields. Many of these were Wesleyans or were associated with either the Bible Christians or Primitive Methodists, especially the Cornish. In the Newcastle mining villages in 1901, a staggering 31 per cent of the population was Methodist, but only the Wesleyans and Primitives were to be fully organised in this area. The UMFC had its greatest strength in the Newcastle district, and its relative position in the Methodist family is worth noting. In this district in 1891, the Methodist divisions by percentage were Wesleyan 35.5, Primitive 16 New South Wales Statistical Register for 1900–1901 (Sydney: Government Printer, 1901). 17 Walker, ‘Growth and Typology of the Wesleyan Methodist Church’, p. 340; K. Dempsey, Conflict and Decline: Ministers and Laymen in an Australian Country Town (Sydney: Methuen, 1983), p. 73. 18 E.G. Clancy, ‘Rural Methodism in New South Wales 1836–1902’, in Dig or Die: Papers Given at the World Methodist Historical Society Wesley Heritage Conference at Wesley College within the University of Sydney, 10–15 August 1980, ed. J.S. Udy, and E.G. Clancy (Sydney: World Methodist Historical Society, 1981), pp. 89–113, at pp. 92–3. 19 Dempsey, Conflict and Decline, p. 73.

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34

Methodist 55.8, UMFC 2.9, Lay Methodist and others (probably a few Bible Christians), 5.6. The total number of Methodists was 77,210.20 In the 1880s, many South Australian miners, including Cornish Methodists, moved to Broken Hill. By 1887 the Wesleyans, Primitives and the Bible Christians were established there. By 1887 there was a Wesleyan circuit of Broken Hill and Silverton but there were two Bible Christian circuits.21 By 1888, they had four churches in the area and by 1889 three ministers and the new ‘Barrier District’ was attached to the South Australian Conference.22 Life in mining areas was rambunctious. In May 1889, the South Broken Hill Wesleyan service was interrupted by one Cissy Hyndell ‘obstinately occupying the minister’s chair. When put out she persisted in howling out “Annie Laurie” [a Scottish folk song] at the door.’ She was imprisoned for seven days.23 The occupational profile of Wesleyan Methodists at the end of our period in NSW is revealing. ‘[A]lthough 9.3% of all male breadwinners were Methodists only 7.4% of those engaged in pastoral pursuits … were Methodists.’ Since there were many Methodist dairy farmers, this is somewhat misleading. They ‘were also under-represented among bankers (5.5%), general dealers and merchants (8.7%), and those of independent means (7.1%)’.24 There was no Methodist university college and few Methodist parents had the means to keep their sons at school long enough to matriculate. Newington College was later to help more Methodists to better themselves. Interestingly, by 1901 a disproportionate 13.2 per cent of teachers were Methodists. This was not only a respected profession for men and women; it provided a calling to serve as well as incidentally providing another long-term vehicle for social mobility. Methodists were also well represented among skilled workers. Wesleyans, in particular, being more urban as well, were generally more evident in the process of social mobility in the latter part of the century. Social mobility among respectable Methodist farmers, shopkeepers, teachers and businessmen coincided with structural and other changes within Methodism from the 1870s onwards. The old-style practice of piety, symbolised by the class meeting, was on the decline. As Howe notes of Victoria, ‘occupational mobility aided the decline of pietistic religion among the Wesleyans’.25 There were also Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, 49–50; E.G. Clancy, ‘The United Methodist Free Church in New South Wales’, Church Heritage 5, no. 3 (March 1988): 146–70, at p. 158. 21 Burra Record, 12 April 1887, p. 2. 22 South Australian Register, 7 June 1888, p. 3; Barrier Miner, 6 March 1889, p. 3. 23 ‘In the Minister’s Chair’, Barrier Miner, 27 May 1889, p. 3. 24 All of the statistics in this paragraph are from Walker, ‘Growth and Typology of the Wesleyan Methodist Church’, p. 340. 25 R. Howe, ‘Social Composition of the Wesleyan Church in Victoria during the Nineteenth Century’, Journal of Religious History 4, no. 3 ( June 1967): 206–17, at pp. 213–14. 20

Methodism in New South Wales, 1855–1902

35

signs of more liberal theology in more educated congregations and formal ministerial education became more systematic from the 1880s onwards. Structures and Strategies In the Australian colonies, the structure of Class Meetings, Circuits, Districts and Conferences was gradually unfurled. Under the 1855 Wesleyan Methodist constitution, NSW was constituted a District of the Australasian Conference. In 1869, the NSW District divided into five districts, one of which was Queensland. Five years later, the NSW and Queensland Conference was constituted. Only in 1893 did Queensland separate and constitute its own Conference. Ideally, local democracy, with lay involvement in evangelism and preaching, was balanced with central authority. The earlier schisms in British Methodism had often been related to protests against excessive clerical power and centralisation of the Wesleyan body which went back to the founder himself and continued under dictatorial presidents such as Jabez Bunting. Sociologist Kenneth Dempsey argues that Wesley expected the members of the movement to lead active lives of self-sacrificial service but gave them no say in the running of the movement.26 At the Conference level, there was, as Cable puts it, ‘an assembly, clerical in membership and unbounded in authority, which disposed of a tightly-controlled force of ministers’.27 Ministers were ordained by Conference, ‘stationed’ by Conference and moved on by Conference, usually after three years. Variations for influential circuits might be arbitrarily made – by Conference. Between the 1870s and 1902, as local growth was slowing, there were changes in polity and centralising forces increased. ‘The General Conference of 1875, after protracted debate, resolved on the admission of laymen to the Conference, each Circuit to have the right to elect one lay representative who should be elected by ballot at the Quarterly Meeting.’28 This did not render the Conference less authoritarian. The importance of class meetings, district synods and circuit meetings was declining, and the Wesleyan Church’s structure was starting to work more like that of other denominations.29 Local preachers and circuit-riding clergy were fundamental in spreading the web of Methodist connexions across the colony. The action of laity was thus vital to the early growth of Methodism on the front line (see Table 2.3). Prolific local preachers in the period included James Graham (throughout the colony), Dempsey, Conflict and Decline, p. 71. Cable, ‘Protestant Problems in New South Wales’, p. 126. 28 J. Colwell, The Illustrated History of Methodism. Australia: 1812 to 1855. New South Wales and Polynesia: 1856 to1902 (Sydney: W. Brooks, 1904), p. 451. 29 Cable, ‘Protestant Problems in New South Wales’, pp. 126–7. 26 27

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36

William Burgess (the Hunter Valley), John Delves (the Hunter and Manning Valleys), John Bowmer (Ashfield, Rockdale), J.E. Carruthers and John Vidler (Illawarra), William (‘Parson’) Tom (the Central West) and George Everingham (the lower Hawkesbury Valley), as well as the legendary Silas Gill on the Macleay.30 Table 2.3

Local Preachers in New South Wales Methodism, 1891 and 1902 1891

1902

Wesleyan Methodist

452

605

Primitive Methodist

150

124

United Methodist Free Church

30

15

TOTAL

632

744

Source: Clancy, ‘The Struggle for Methodist Union’, pp. 176, 196

Communicating through print media was a priority for a denomination of the Word. In 1858, a church newspaper commenced, known as the Christian Advocate and Wesleyan Record. In the same year, the Book Depot opened as a seller and printer of tracts, books and teaching resources. The Advocate became the Weekly Advocate in 1877 and was edited by the Rev. George Martin for 14 years. It was succeeded by the Methodist in 1892, edited by the Rev. Paul Clipsham. In 1864, the Rev. John Sharpe founded and edited the NSW Primitive Methodist Messenger which seems to have ceased in the 1880s.31 Evangelism was traditionally the lifeblood of Methodism. It may have become more organised and routine as the century wore on but it was still, as Eric Clancy notes, ‘normal for Methodist preachers to conclude their sermons by appealing for people to accept Christ as Saviour and Lord’.32 This was supplemented by special campaigns, including old-fashioned tent or camp meetings which often led to local revivals right through the century.33 A tent meeting was held annually in Sydney in conjunction with the Primitive Methodist Conference. There were

Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, p. 44; Gavin Long, ‘Tom, William (1791– 1883)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu. edu.au/biography/tom-william-2737/text3867, accessed 20 December 2012. Some, such as Carruthers, went on into the ministry. 31 E.G. Clancy, ‘Sharpe, John (1820–1895)’, ADEB, ed. B. Dickey (Sydney: Evangelical History Association, 1994). 32 Clancy, ‘Wesleyan Prodigy: Growth of the New South Wales Wesleyan Church, 1836–1873’, Church Heritage 10 (1998): 254–76, at p. 267. 33 Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, pp. 118–23. 30

Methodism in New South Wales, 1855–1902

37

also visiting overseas evangelists such as ‘California’ Taylor.34 In 1898–99, the Conference funded a Gospel car for outback evangelism.35 Like evangelism, social outreach was integral to the Methodist mission. By the 1880s, the NSW Wesleyan Conference was confronting the fact that the flagship church in Sydney, old York Street, in common with many inner-city Protestant congregations, was experiencing declining membership as a consequence of the ‘flight to the suburbs’ and what we might call ‘militant secularism’.36 York Street had also been rocked by the recent defection of many members after its minister, John Osborne, converted to secularism.37 In the background, there was also the advent of the Salvation Army in Sydney in 1883 whose aggressive evangelism was admired by Wesleyans, even if its style grated with them.38 The Conference recruited the Rev. W.G. Taylor in 1884 to ‘use well-tried evangelistic methods to save a dying church’. Taylor did not so much save a dying church but rather reinvented and reinvigorated the Methodist mission to the city, under a new name, the Central Methodist Mission. Taylor followed tradition in a programme of evangelism and social concern, along with the creative use of publicity and music both on the streets and within the church.39 Taylor was able to enlist the support of businessman Ebenezer Vickery, already a great benefactor of Methodist causes. The work of the Mission expanded rapidly. Taylor set up a mission to seamen in 1886, a college for evangelists in 1889, in 1890 a home for ‘Sisters of the People’ (Deaconesses) and a Boys’ Brigade and in 1893 a ‘Home for Waifs and strays’, which later became the Dalmar children’s home, and in 1902 a shelter for ‘fallen women’. By 1902, the concept had caught on because Taylor showed that it worked. The Ethos of Methodism The Church Act of 1836 treated all ‘churches’ and ‘sects’ equally for the purposes of funding, adding incentive to the natural process of turning them all into a hybrid type of organisation, as ‘denominations’. What tended to happen as the second half-century advanced was the ‘Churchification’ of even formerly Clancy, ‘Wesleyan Prodigy’, p. 267. ‘Wesleyan’, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 February 1899, p. 10. This was an idea from England; presumably it initially used a horse-drawn vehicle. 36 D.I. Wright, The Mantle of Christ: A History of the Sydney Central Methodist Mission (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1983), pp. 1–15. 37 W. Phillips, ‘Osborne, John (1842–1908)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/osborne-john-4342/ text7049, accessed 20 December 2012. 38 Wright, The Mantle of Christ, pp. 21–2. 39 Wright, The Mantle of Christ, pp. 27–9, 31–6. 34 35

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38

‘dissenting’ denominations. The activities which had marked Methodism off from the established Church in England included class meetings, love feasts, watch-night services and frequent prayer meetings. These were integral to the maturing of converts of evangelistic campaigns as well as becoming distinctive parts of the Methodist apparatus of piety. By the late nineteenth century, there were increasing concerns across the Methodist world, no less in NSW, that staleness was beginning to afflict prayer meetings, love feasts and class meetings.40 The Wesleyan polity developed and hardened and the Methodists became as respectable a church as the big three and less of a sect. Methodist relations with other churches naturally varied a good deal. Matters of infant baptism, Arminian theology, connexional polity, the role of the laity in worship and other matters separated Methodists variously from the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Congregational and Baptist churches though the last three, the ‘Evangelical’ churches, were conscious of their common Protestantism and were prepared to share pulpits on special occasions. In NSW, Methodists were prominent among members of the Loyal Orange Institution, the Protestant Political Association and the Protestant Defence League. These organisations flourished after the 1868 attempt on the life of the Duke of Edinburgh. Particularly involved were lay and clerical Methodists Jacob Garrard, Samuel Lees, Joseph Wearne, Thomas Jessep and Stephen Goold. The prominence of English-origin Methodists in these groups, rather than their being the exclusive domain of Northern Irish Protestants and Scottish Presbyterians, is superficially puzzling.41 The identification of Methodists as ‘Protestant’ was unequivocal and was reinforced by involvement in these sectarian groups. Another speculative explanation is that they tended to be the Protestant denomination most invested in relating to the working class, where they were most likely to cross paths with the other strongly working-class denomination, the Roman Catholics. The conflict was sharpened by differing Methodist and Roman Catholic attitudes to drink and gambling.42 A later chapter of this work gives an account of the movement to reunite the separate Methodist denominations in Australia in 1902. The relatively greater comparative dominance of the Wesleyans in NSW probably made the process easier there. There was much movement between denominations partly for geographical reasons and the UMFC was very positively disposed Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, pp. 83–4. See M. Lyons, ‘Aspects of Sectarianism in New South Wales circa 1865 to 1880’ (PhD thesis, Australian National University, 1972). 42 See Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, pp. 100–102. In 1901, Roman Catholics were the most over-represented religious denomination in both Australian prison and insane asylum populations and Methodists the most under-represented, a fact not lost on Methodist sectarians. 40 41

Methodism in New South Wales, 1855–1902

39

in principle.43 Relations between the Wesleyans, the United Frees and the Primitives were generally cordial. Although the Primitives were able to maintain some distinctiveness, and some opposed union, the Wesleyans were so dominant in most of the colony and there was so much movement of members between denominations that the reasons for separation had become very blurred by the 1890s. Only the tiny Lay Methodist church in Newcastle stayed out of the 1902 union. In 1901, as Methodist denominations were about to reunite on a nation-wide basis, the colonial Presbyterian churches federated, having healed their schisms on a colony-by-colony basis some years earlier. The first General Assembly of Australia put out an optimistic invitation to their Methodist, Congregational, Baptist and Anglican friends to discuss a wider Protestant union. Along with the Congregationalists, the Methodists were to respond positively and enter serious negotiations which eventually came to nought in the 1920s when the Presbyterians were hopelessly divided on the Basis of Union.44 In the meantime, there were Union churches in several small rural settlements which frequently involved Methodists and Presbyterians. Methodist Women A characteristic form of Christian service in Protestant churches in the period was embodied in the establishing by the Wesleyan Missionary Society in 1892 of a Ladies Auxiliary. Single women might contemplate a career on the mission field, whereas married women raised money to support their single missionary sisters. The position of women in the Methodist churches did not differ greatly from other Protestant churches at the time and the strong stress on lay involvement in preaching and teaching did not provide much of an opening for women in those areas, and the administration of the church remained the monopoly of authoritarian men. Opportunities were greater in dissenting Methodist minorities, but these were relatively weaker in NSW. The Methodist opposition to drink provided an incentive for Methodist women to become involved in the cause of temperance. It is not surprising, therefore, to find Wesleyan women in the front ranks of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), including in its campaign for women’s suffrage from 1890.

Clancy, ‘Struggle for Methodist Union’, pp. 172–97. M. Prentis, ‘Australia Trying “What Canada is Doing”: The Church Union Movement 1901–1925’, Lucas 29 ( June 2001): 25–38. 43 44

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40

Euphemia Bridges Bowes was the wife of a Wesleyan Minister in Sydney and in 1882 was a founder of the first WCTU in Sydney.45 She was succeeded as President by another Methodist, Sara Nolan.46 Another Methodist prominent in the WCTU was Margaret Wade, who was involved in the Ashfield branch in addition to doing welfare work for the Wesleyan Church.47 The first two women to graduate from the University of Sydney in 1885 were both Methodists: Mary Elizabeth Brown (1862–1952), daughter of the Rev. Dr George Brown, who was described as an ‘Honours man’, and Isola Florence Thompson (1861–1915), daughter of a Methodist school headmaster who attended Stanmore Methodist Church. Thompson later achieved an MA and taught at Sydney Girls High School from 1885 to 1914. Brown taught at Brisbane Girls Grammar School from 1875 to 1908, then helped her father edit his memoirs.48 Sunday Schools Until the introduction of compulsory primary education in NSW in 1880, Sunday Schools were an important means of spreading literacy as well as passing on biblical knowledge and morality, but this had changed from the late 1850s when the schools began to focus increasingly on religious knowledge. As denominational day schools declined and disappeared, and the free, compulsory and secular state system began in 1881, Sunday Schools had a more exclusively religious function and became a way of drawing in potential new members. Between the 1860s and 1880s, enrolment numbers grew impressively but plateaued in the 1890s, as Table 2.4 indicates, and Methodist attendance was disproportionately high, especially from the 1850s to the 1870s.49 Sunday Schools remained the main source of adult members but the carry-over was never entirely satisfactory to church leaders and reorganisations were often called for.50 H. Radi, ‘Bowes, Euphemia Bridges (1816–1900)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/boweseuphemia-bridges-5312/text8969, accessed 22 July 2012. 46 I. Tyrrell, ‘Nolan, Sara Susan (1843–1927)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/nolan-sara-susan-7857/ text13651, accessed 20 December 2012. 47 G. Reekie, ‘Wade, John (1842–1931)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wade-john-8939, accessed 20 December 2012. 48 M. Reeson, personal communication, 3 December 2012; University of Sydney, ‘The first 2 women students and graduates’, http://sydney.edu.au/senate/students_first_women_ Brown.shtml, accessed 25 December 2012. 49 Phillips, ‘Religious Profession and Practice in New South Wales’, p. 397. 50 Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, pp. 87–90; Phillips, Defending ‘a Christian Country’: Churchmen and Society in New South Wales in the 1880s and after (St Lucia: 45

Methodism in New South Wales, 1855–1902

Table 2.4

41

Methodist Sunday School enrolments in New South Wales, 1861–1900

Year

Wesleyan

Other

1861

8,194

684

Primitive

UMFC

Total

1871

12,613

2,012

1881

18,130

6,129

24,259

1891

27,976

8,412

36,388

1900

32,866

8,126

1902

29,815

6,200

8,878 [159]

14,625

40,992 890

36,905

Source: Vamplew, Australians: Historical Statistics, p. 431. See also Clancy, ‘Struggle for Methodist Union in New South Wales’, p. 196; Clancy, ‘The United Methodist Free Church’, p. 147.

Education Under the Church Act of 1836, the Wesleyan Methodists were assisted to establish primary schools. However, efforts to establish these schools proved such a challenge that, by the 1860s, supporting a public system instead became increasingly appealing to Methodists. Indeed, Methodists were prominent in the movement for free, compulsory and secular state education in NSW, including the Public Schools League. In NSW, where ‘secular’ meant that a more benign, generally Christian but non-denominational, ethos would prevail and allowed special religious instruction one day per week, many Protestants, Methodists among them, did not fear the change. The deficiency in religious education could be remedied by attendance at Sunday Schools which were still very popular.51 In 1880, under Henry Parkes’s Public Instruction Act, the remaining Methodist schools were taken over by the state. The Wesleyan Collegiate Institution, later called Newington College, was inaugurated on 23 July 1863, established on the banks of the Parramatta River. At the inauguration, the first President, the Rev. J.A. Manton, emphasised that despite the ‘prosperity’ of the Wesleyans in recent years ‘we had not yet succeeded in raising an educational institution for the sons of our more wealthy people; and it was much to be feared that we had lost vast numbers of fine promising young men in consequence of that want’.52 From the beginning, Newington functioned as a provider of general post-primary education for boys, a home University of Queensland Press, 1981), pp. 83–4. 51 Phillips, Defending ‘a Christian Country’, pp. 207–20. 52 ‘Inauguration of the Wesleyan Collegiate Institution at Newington’, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 July 1863, p. 5.

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42

for theological training and a boarding house for Wesleyan students at the University of Sydney. The school moved to Stanmore in 1880. It lost the second function in November 1914 with the foundation of Leigh College and the third in 1917 with the long-delayed establishment of Wesley College. Politics Given the activist ethos of evangelicalism, including Methodism, it was inevitable that Methodists in NSW would involve themselves in politics. Initially, they were often drawn in by causes of social reform, temperance and Sabbatarianism. In October 1880 the Lord’s Day Observance Society was re-founded in NSW and Ninian Melville MP, undertaker and Primitive Methodist, was a strong supporter of the cause. In 1881, the Society supported his move ‘to terminate the Sunday opening of the Museum and the Library’ as, according to him, ‘Sunday opening of the cultural institutions was “State aid to infidels” and the work of free thinkers’. But, ‘despite a large public meeting of protest’ in Melville’s support, the move failed.53 That Melville was also a strong advocate of temperance reminds us that this was another political issue close to Methodist hearts. Most prominent Methodist politicians were free traders, whether employers like Ebenezer Vickery and Joseph Mitchell or workers’ representatives like Jacob Garrard and John Fegan. The Irish-born son of a parson and successful merchant, Sir William McMillan was a leading Free Trade MP at both colonial and federal levels. On the other hand, John George Gough was elected as Protectionist member for Young in 1889 but was re-elected for Labour in 1891. His fervour as a Primitive Methodist local preacher translated to the hustings with great effect.54 The Methodist pointed with pride to the strong Methodist presence in Reid’s Free Trade ministry of 1894. In 1895, J.C. Neild was first to raise the question of old age pensions in the lower house and in this he received support from his fellow Methodists and others.55 Methodism had a strong and longstanding connection with unionism, dating at least from the Tolpuddle Martyrs of 1834. It is not surprising, then, that the rise of the Labour movement involved many Methodist workers. As early as 1880, the Newcastle miners elected Ninian Melville to Parliament and re-elected him at the next five elections. Though not a fully fledged Labour W.W. Phillips, ‘The Churches and the Sunday Question in Sydney in the 1880s’, Journal of Religious History 6, no. 1 ( June 1970): 41–61, at pp. 46–7. 54 E.G. Clancy, ‘Methodism and the New South Wales Parliamentary Labor Party in the Early 1890s’, Church Heritage 7, no. 1 (March 1991): 13–35, at pp. 17, 20 55 J.D. Bollen, Protestantism and Social Reform in New South Wales 1890–1910 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1972), pp. 101–2, 104–8. 53

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member, he was partly supported by subscriptions from trade unions, and he welcomed the return of Labour members in 1891.56 Despite all this, the Weekly Advocate in 1890 poured cold water on Christian socialism.57 A strong Labour Party (Labor from 1912) suddenly appeared in the NSW parliament after the 1891 election. According to Linder, ‘the fervour with which so many Methodists associated themselves with the Labor Party in 1891 continued on to the 1894 election’. He notes that, ‘[m]any who espoused Christian Socialism were Primitive Methodists’.58 But by 1902, the Methodist presence in caucus had declined permanently. It has been claimed that most Labour MPs elected in 1891 were devout Methodists; nine of the 35 were.59 Conversely, however, not all working-class political Methodists in the 1890s were rusted-on Labour supporters. Some had conscientious difficulties with the ‘pledge’ (always to vote for the party line as determined by the caucus), which had to be signed by Labour MPs after 1893. J.G. Gough left politics when conscience prevented his signing the pledge for the 1894 election. Joseph Cook (1860–1947) was a former child coal-miner in Staffordshire and Primitive Methodist local preacher. He had an exemplary labour career, as a union secretary and President of the Lithgow branch of the Labor Electoral League. Though he was leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party, he refused to sign the ‘solidarity’ pledge in 1893 and resigned. Cook later went on to a long career in Liberal politics at federal level and was Prime Minister in 1913–14. Throughout his political career he remained a Methodist local preacher.60 Methodist Union The nation and churches were in a federating mood in 1900–1902. Methodists, about to reunite in 1902, were in the mood for wider conversations in the community and the churches. Though not very visible as such in the federal movement in the 1880s and 1890s, on the whole, Methodist clergy and people supported the federation of the Australian colonies. Clancy, ‘Methodism and the New South Wales Parliamentary Labor Party’, pp. 15–16. Phillips, Defending ‘a Christian Country’, p. 167. 58 R.D. Linder, ‘The Methodist Love Affair with the Australian Labor Party, 1891– 1929’, Lucas 23 and 24 (1997–98): 35–61, at pp. 37–8. 59 Linder, ‘Methodist Love Affair’, pp. 37–8. Linder estimates, however, that 60 per cent of the 1891 caucus was evangelical. The larger claim is by Wikipedia, misquoting Ross McMullin, The Light on the Hill: The Australian Labor Party, 1891–1901 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 12, where he says four of the five new members in 1891 were devout Methodists. 60 Clancy, ‘Methodism and the New South Wales Parliamentary Labor Party’, pp. 15, 19–23. See also Linder, ‘Methodist Love Affair’, pp. 35–61. 56

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When Methodist union was achieved in 1902, the NSW experience was that the dominant Wesleyan Church virtually simply absorbed and assimilated the United Methodist Free and Primitive Methodist circuits.61 Methodists were at the height of their self-confidence after nearly a century of continual growth, with about double the rate of attendance of the other three major denominations.62 They had also become a thoroughly respectable church, though still firmly attached to their distinctive heritage of evangelism and social action, lay involvement in preaching, worship and hymnody. There were some tensions: incipient theological ones, social acceptance and respectability versus ‘old-time evangelism’, Wesleyan traditions of clericalism and centralisation versus Primitive democracy, and local laity versus increasing clericalism. Would the future belong to collectivism or individualism, social action or evangelism, worldly or spiritual power, Methodist distinctiveness or ecumenism? Or would the genius of Methodism hold these sometimes contradictory tendencies in creative tension? The hope was that the spirit of NSW Methodism was both zealous and pragmatic enough to be able to creatively accommodate the tensions in the new century.

Clancy, ‘United Methodist Free Church’, p. 163. Phillips, ‘Religious Profession and Practice in New South Wales’, pp. 385–94.

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Chapter 3

Methodism in Victoria and Tasmania, 1855–1902 Renate Howe

The recognition of regional differences is fundamental to understanding the various and complex histories of early colonial Methodisms in Australia. This can be seen in the religious and social influence of Victorian ‘goldfields Methodism’, a distinctive strand of Methodism that contributed not only to Victoria’s history but also to the progressive social ideals of Australia’s federation. In the penal colonies of NSW and Van Diemen’s Land, Wesleyan Methodists were confronted with the dominant position of the Church of England, a de facto established church supported by colonial administrators and military leaders.1 It was also a time when John and Charles Wesley were a recent memory and when British Wesleyan Methodism was still in the process of forming its identity and form of governance. These influences shaped early colonial Methodism in NSW and Tasmania when the Australasian District of the British Conference was formed. In this period, NSW included the southern pastoral area that was to become part of the colony of Victoria in 1851 and historical studies of Methodism in Portland, Port Fairy and Warrnambool document the formative influence of early Wesleyan Methodism in this area.2 The same influences were evident in Van Diemen’s Land where Wesleyan Methodist chapels were built at Argyle Street (1821) and Melville Street (1822), and in pastoral areas and military outposts such as Ross and Campbelltown. However, a different Methodism evolved after Tasmania was constituted a separate district in 1835. Anne Bailey has written of the rise in the northern town of Launceston of Wesleyan Methodist middleclass men, successfully involved in commerce and inspired by their faith to use their wealth in an extraordinary range of missionary, philanthropic and civic activities.3 These Wesleyan Methodist business leaders carried their religious The colony of Van Diemen’s Land changed its name to Tasmania in 1855. B. Brown, ‘Warrnambool’s Wesleyan Heritage, 1847–1977’ (MA thesis, Deakin University, 2003); R. Gribben, The Portland Bay Methodists: A Chronicle of Methodism in the Western District (Portland, Vic.: Wesley Church Property Board, 1972). 3 A.V. Bailey, ‘Launceston Wesleyan Methodists, 1832–1849: Contributions, Commerce, Conscience’ (PhD thesis, University of Tasmania, 2008); C. Dugan, A Century of Tasmanian Methodism, 1820–1920 (Hobart: Tasmanian Methodist Assembly, 1920). 1

2

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zeal, missionary spirit and entrepreneurial skills when they moved across Bass Strait to the growing town of Melbourne. Among them were Henry Reed and Walter Powell, partners in a flourishing hardware business. Both were generous philanthropists who supported the establishment of Wesleyan Methodism and also welfare institutions in the raw frontier town. Henry Reed’s long lasting contribution was as a founder of The Age, Melbourne’s progressive newspaper. Goldfields Methodism These influences from NSW and Tasmania shaped Victorian Wesleyan Methodism which by 1850 had over 400 members worshipping in modest chapels at Portland, Port Fairy and Geelong and in the growing town of Melbourne at Coburg, Box Hill, Brighton and Fitzroy. The most substantial chapel was the Georgian style brick building, similar in design to the Melville Street chapel in Hobart, on the corner of Queen and Collins Streets. It was there that meetings were held in 1850 to form an independent Victorian District Conference in preparation for the separation of Victoria from the colony of NSW in the following year. This careful planning could not anticipate the impact of the discovery of gold in Victoria later in the same year and the consequent surge in population. The Rev. William Butters, the District Chairman of the fledging Conference and a talented leader and administrator, was confronted with chaos as the gold rush ‘deranged plans and scattered members’ and more ominously ‘distracted from things unseen and eternal’. During the ‘roaring fifties’ over 500,000 persons arrived in Victoria and the new colony became one of the world’s major gold-producing areas. As Irving Benson wrote in the centennial history, ‘Gold made the colony of Victoria, giving it wealth, population and a sense of itself as a society.’4 History has constructed a dominant heroic tradition around the Victorian gold miners focused on the Eureka rebellion at Ballarat in 1854 and the leadership of Irishman Peter Lalor. This tradition has diverted attention from the complexity of goldfields society and especially the strength of Methodism. The typical digger was never depicted as a pious, hardworking, socially involved Methodist. Among Victoria’s historians until recent years, Geoffrey Serle, in The Golden Age (1963), was one of the few seriously to consider the significance of Methodism on the goldfields. Serle emphasised the quality and diversity of the goldfields immigrants, arguing that the miners were not all greedy gold diggers and that the goldfields were not all grog shanties and rowdy carousing. He 4 C.I. Benson, ed., A Century of Victorian Methodism (Melbourne: Spectator, 1935), p. 95. See also W.C. Blamires and J.R. Smith, The Early Story of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Victoria (Melbourne: Wesleyan Book Depot, 1886).

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documented the strength of religious observance, reflecting on the keeping of the Sabbath and self-imposed law and order, and argued that this was largely due to the striking success of the Methodists, the most successful denomination on the goldfields. ‘In many places they often conducted more services than all the other churches combined.’5 There has been little analysis of the background of goldfields Methodists such as their place of origin and the push/pull factors in their migration. My research suggests that in the early 1850s they were mainly young men – some as young as 14–16 years of age – but with enough money of their own or from families and friends to pay a passage to Victoria. They represented the Wesleyan Methodism of mid-nineteenth-century Britain that was growing in influence among the commercial classes in London and in large towns and cities such as Birmingham and Manchester. Methodist gold miners also migrated from Ireland and from coal-mining areas in the north of England and Wales. Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians came from the declining tin and copper mines in Cornwall and from Devon.6 Many of these miners came via the copper mines at Kapunda, Moonta and Burra in South Australia. Indeed in 1852 the Rev. John Symons was sent to the Victorian goldfields from South Australia to collect money for the debts on deserted chapels in these mining towns. The Rev. William Butters also lost no time in following Methodists to the goldfields where he held class meetings and prayer meetings in the miners’ tents, providing ‘a leavening influence amid the riot of gambling, drinking and moral havoc’.7 Following these visits, Butters wrote to the Missionary Committee in England and the Wesleyan Methodist Districts in South Australia and NSW requesting them to send ministers. As a result the four ministers at the Victorian District Conference of 1851 had increased to nine in 1852 and 13 in 1853. Membership had doubled to 1,190 and there were 72 local preachers and 10 Sunday Schools while three day schools educated 500 children. The spread of Methodism on the Victorian goldfields was further assisted by the British Conference which in 1853 sent the Rev. Robert Young to assess the impact of the gold rushes. On arrival, Young preached to the White Hills congregation near Bendigo where he recognised the faces of many he had known in England and was welcomed with a traditional Cornish saffron cake. Young’s excellent and detailed report, The Southern World (1854), was well received by the British Wesleyans and confirmed the belief that ‘Australia is to Methodism a promised land’.8 The Missionary Committee dispatched eight ministers to serve Wesleyan G. Serle, The Golden Age: A History of the Colony of Victoria 1851–1861 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1963), pp. 342–3. 6 R. Howe, ‘The Wesleyan Church in Victoria, 1855–1901: Its Ministry and Membership’ (MA thesis, University of Melbourne, 1965). 7 Benson, Century of Victorian Methodism, p. 99. 8 Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church, Minutes of Conference, 1858. 5

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Methodist congregations on the goldfields. No other denomination received such rapid support from the church ‘at home’. Not all congregations on the goldfields were Wesleyan Methodist. Cornish miners with Primitive Methodist and Bible Christian backgrounds predominated among the former copper miners from South Australia, most settling in the Bendigo area. Although approximately three-quarters of goldfields Methodists were Wesleyans, Primitive Methodists were well represented and the Bible Christians were an active evangelical group. This mix was to contribute in the future not only to the rich variety of Victorian Methodism but also to its rivalries and tensions. The first official Victorian census of 1861 recorded Wesleyan Methodists as a substantial proportion of the population in goldfields towns – 14.8 per cent in Ballarat, 19 per cent in Maldon, 13 per cent in Avoca and 11 per cent in Castlemaine. The Methodist presence was everywhere evident in the physical landscape of the goldfields in school buildings, chapels and churches, reflecting the importance of Methodism to the miners and the families who joined them after the early years. By the census of 1901 Wesleyan Methodists were almost half the population of Clunes (44 per cent), Creswick and Sebastopol and were around a quarter of the population of Bendigo and Ballarat. These proportions are even higher when adherents of the minor Methodist churches are included. Geoffrey Serle attributed this success on the goldfields to the flexibility of Methodist organisation, especially the circuit system, which made effective use of ministers, and to the vigour of lay leadership. This flexibility was especially important given the migratory nature of the goldfields population, constantly ‘rushing’ to new discoveries. Serle compares the Methodist response to that of the Anglicans who would write to Archbishop Perry in Melbourne about the need for a church. If no assistance was offered, nothing further was done.9 The ability of denominational governance so quickly to respond to the religious needs of the goldfields also contributed to the success of Wesleyan Methodism. In 1855 the Rev. Daniel Draper from South Australia was appointed as minister ‘without charge’ in order to facilitate the establishment of Wesleyan societies. Known as the ‘Bishop of the Goldfields’, Draper wished to continue in this role, but the Victorian Conference feared such an appointment would set a precedent for the emergence of bishops on the American Methodist model. Instead the enterprising Draper, a builder by background, was appointed to take charge of church development for the Victorian District Conference. By 1860, 186 chapels had been built, 112 in goldfields circuits.10 Overwhelmingly the success of goldfields Methodism reflected the activism of laymen and women. The lay preachers and teachers in schools and Sunday Serle, Golden Age, p. 4. Howe, ‘Wesleyan Church in Victoria, 1855–1901’, p. 2.

9

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Schools supported the ordained ministry during the fluid and chaotic goldfields years. In commenting on the leading role of the laity on the goldfields, David U’ren has described goldfields Methodism, especially Primitive Methodism, as a movement rather than a church; ‘a lay movement resourced by the ordained ministry’.11 The Wesleyan Methodists at Eaglehawk had no ordained residential minister for 17 years, yet established a thriving church and Sunday School. Histories of individual churches document the commitment of the laity to establishing day schools, Sunday Schools and churches even in the most unpromising and harsh circumstances. These were important gathering places in the early years for diggers far away from home and family and living in makeshift accommodation. Miners were soon joined by families and women became leaders in class meetings and teachers in day and Sunday Schools, providing vital spiritual and material support in a challenging and unstable environment. The revivals that periodically swept through the goldfields sustained Methodism. In a study of Primitive Methodism near Bendigo, Brendon Marshall writes that ‘the frontier context of Eaglehawk goldfields gave this element of Methodism a chance to once again express itself ’, and describes the calls for conversion and the ‘religion of the heart’ in revivals at Eaglehawk.12 Matthew Burnett, a temperance crusader from Yorkshire, who visited the goldfields in 1863, was famous for his altar calls and the use of ‘unusual methods’ such as torchlight processions in persuading miners to sign the pledge. The visits of the Rev. William ‘California’ Taylor in 1863 and 1869 attracted large crowds. Conversions followed whenever Taylor, six feet tall with keen eyes, overflowing beard and commanding voice, ‘opened fire’.13 Taylor introduced the more organised American revival which included preaching, hymn singing and altar calls. The Victorian District Conference, however, was increasingly wary of demonstrative worship and ‘Cornish conversions’ on the goldfields. The lasting effectiveness of Taylor’s conversions was also questioned while his success in raising funds on the goldfields and later in suburban Melbourne attracted the disapproval of the Conference hierarchy. In assessing the influence of Victorian goldfields Methodism it is important to recognise the ongoing impact of gold. As goldfields towns emerged, Methodists were major contributors to their social and economic development. My study of Ballarat’s move from goldfield to community from mid-1850s to mid-1860s showed the extraordinary influence of Methodists on civic life. Methodists supported the establishment of Mechanics’ Institutes, libraries and art galleries. Methodist emphasis on self-help and astringent living was reflected 11 Foreword in B. Marshall, Mining, Ministry and Miracles: A Short History of the Eaglehawk Wesleyan Methodist Church, 1852–1900 (Eaglehawk Uniting Church, 1998). 12 Marshall, Mining, Ministry and Miracles. 13 Howe, ‘Wesleyan Church in Victoria, 1855–1901’, pp. 10–11.

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in day schools, Sunday Schools and membership of temperance groups, lodges and Mutual Improvement Associations. Methodist social concern was expressed in support for hospitals, benevolent homes and orphanages. Methodism was one of the few denominations to work among the Chinese miners and supported congregations at Ballarat and Castlemaine served by the Rev. Ling and the Rev. Leon On Tong.14 Progressive Methodists supported land reform and protective tariffs to encourage industrial development in declining goldfields towns and they were extensively involved in the establishment and leadership of local government. This latter involvement reflected the rapid move, especially of the Wesleyan Methodists, from gold mining into business and commerce as shopkeepers, estate agents and self-employed artisans. As the goldfields became more settled, alluvial mining declined and deep lead and quartz mining emerged, the seemingly classless goldfields became more socially stratified, as did Methodism. The congregation of the large Primitive Methodist church at Eaglehawk was mostly miners of Cornish background and increasingly workers in the larger corporate mining companies established as alluvial gold declined. The ‘Cousin Jacks’ and ‘Cousin Jennies’ were a visible and close community and historian Charles Fahey estimates that almost half the miners in the Bendigo area were of Cornish background.15 The Cornish miners were expert ‘deep lead’ miners and often unpopular with other miners because of their association with the tribute system, which involved working a particular area for a percentage of profits negotiated with mine managers. After Methodist Union in 1902 Eaglehawk continued for the next 50 years to have two large Methodist churches in close proximity but distinguished by social and theological differences. The congregation of Eaglehawk West was predominantly composed of Wesleyan Methodists who owned businesses or worked in the town while the congregation of Eaglehawk East was of Primitive Methodist and Cornish background, most of whom were the families of workers in the mines. At Creswick, near Ballarat, the development of deep lead mining, accompanied by deteriorating and dangerous working conditions, also impacted on class relations. W.G. Spence, a member of the Creswick Primitive Methodist Church, was instrumental in the formation of a Miners’ Union after a long strike. Spence went on to become a leader of the Victorian and later the national labour movement.

R. Howe, ‘From Goldfields to Community: Ballarat 1856–1866’ (BA Honours Thesis, University of Melbourne, 1960). 15 Charles Fahey, ‘Labour and Trade Unionism in Victorian Goldmining: Bendigo, 1861–1915’, in I. McCalman, A. Cook and A. Reeves, Gold, Forgotten Histories and Lost Objects of Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 67–84, at p. 71. 14

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Post-Goldfields Methodism: Chapel to Church Gold and gold mining infused Victorian society because of its sustained economic and social influence not only in the gold-mining towns but also in the emerging metropolis of Melbourne. As alluvial gold mining declined from the 1860s, Methodism moved to Melbourne. Population movement from the goldfields was facilitated after 1875 by the building of railway lines linking Ballarat, Bendigo and Castlemaine to the metropolis. The characteristics that had fostered Methodism in goldfields towns – the circuit system, the effective use of ordained ministers and the active participation and leadership of the laity – also suited the establishment of Wesleyan Methodist churches in Melbourne’s fast growing suburbs. In the census of 1861 Wesleyan Methodists accounted for 12.5 per cent of the population of Melbourne and suburbs. By the census of 1901 they constituted 25 per cent – a quarter of Melbourne’s population of over 400,000, a city that wealth from gold had changed from a colonial frontier town into one of the world’s largest cities. The transition of the smaller Methodist denominations from goldfields to city was not so successful. The expansion of the Wesleyan Methodists had been facilitated by their acceptance of state aid in the form of grants of land and funds from the Victorian Government for the building of churches and schools. The expansion of the ‘minor’ Methodist churches in Melbourne – the Primitive Methodists, Bible Christians, Methodist New Connexion (MNC) and UMFC – was hindered by their adamant refusal to accept state aid. However, it would appear that this public stance was not always followed in practice and histories of the UMFC and the Bible Christian Church document the acceptance of some state aid, mostly in the form of land grants and teachers’ salaries. Nevertheless, the predominantly working-class members of these Methodist churches were unable to afford the funds necessary for building chapels and supporting full-time ministers. The Primitive Methodist Church had competed with the Wesleyans on the goldfields, but struggled in the metropolis. The class differences between the two churches were more evident as the Primitive Methodists brought their labour movement and trade union traditions to Melbourne and joined the demand for the eight hour working day achieved in 1856. Their links to the labour movement were reflected in the proximity of their Carlton church in Lygon Street to Melbourne’s Trades Hall. The historian of the Bible Christian Church in Victoria describes it as ‘the plain man’s church of artisans and manual workers’ and it lacked the resources and membership to respond to Melbourne’s rapid growth.16 The Wesleyan success in Melbourne was reflected in the built environment. The Rev. Daniel Draper, in overseeing the building of Wesleyan Methodist 16 T. McHarg, The Bible Christian Church in Victoria 1850s–1902 (Boronia, Vic.: Mercia Press, 2011), p. 128.

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churches and Sunday Schools in Melbourne, favoured fashionable gothic revival architecture. This was exemplified in the sale of the classical style Collins Street chapel in 1864 to finance the building of Wesley Church, the bluestone gothic ‘cathedral’ of Methodism in Lonsdale Street. Critics of Draper thought his promotion of the ‘papist-gothic’ style represented the movement of Wesleyan Methodism from chapel to church. In the 1860s large gothic-style churches were constructed in Carlton, North Melbourne, Collingwood, South Melbourne and St Kilda as well as in goldfields towns. At Patterson Street, Launceston, an elaborately decorated gothic style church was built in 1866–68, designed by Melbourne architects Crouch and Wilson. The change from chapel to church was best reflected at Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, where the bluestone two-storey classic style chapel and school constructed in 1849 crouched behind a new twintowered gothic style church built in the 1860s and enlarged four times to hold hundreds of worshippers. This move from chapel to church reflected the social mobility of Wesleyan Methodists. My study of the occupations of members of Victorian congregations found social mobility among Methodist skilled workers, independent business owners and shopkeepers.17 Methodist-owned shops and businesses dominated suburban high streets. Some became large firms, among them Danks in South Melbourne, suppliers of plumbing fittings, the grocery chain stores of Moran and Cato and the tea-importing firm founded by Henry Berry. Melbourne Methodists were active not only in their churches but also in their local communities. Methodist women, ostracised from suburban Ladies’ Benevolent Societies because their husbands were ‘in trade’, formed their own Dorcas Societies, providing welfare assistance to local communities especially women and children. One of the earliest Methodist homes for children (later ‘Orana’) was established by women at Wesley Church in response to the numbers of abandoned children in the city, a tragic aftermath of the gold rush period.18 Methodist Sunday Schools and day schools provided education before the establishment of the state school system by the Education Act of 1872. An outstanding example was the Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, Wesleyan Methodist Sunday School under the long time superintendency of Elijah Stranger, which had a purpose-built two-storey building with classrooms for different age groups and a large library. Methodist businessmen were well represented as councillors and mayors in local government, their civic pride reflected in the construction of the large and imposing town halls built in the inner suburbs and modelled on those in northern British cities. 17 Howe, ‘Social Composition of the Wesleyan Church in Victoria during the Nineteenth Century’, Journal of Religious History 4, no. 3 ( June 1967): 206–17. 18 R. Howe and S. Swain, All God’s Children: A Centenary History of the Methodist Homes for Children and the Orana Peace Memorial Homes (Canberra: Acorn Press, 1989).

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Methodists also effectively influenced state politics as lobbyists for legislation on the teaching of the Bible in state schools, the early closing of shops on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and in opposing the opening of the State Library and Art Gallery on Sunday.19 Methodist women were leaders in the WCTU, one of the largest women’s organisations in the state, which advocated votes for women and the introduction of temperance and social legislation. The advantages of the Methodist combination of evangelism and flexible organisation was also evident in Victorian rural areas opened up in 1865 by legislation allowing the selection of 640 acres of land for small farms and orchards. As these selectors spread out over the state the Methodist missionaries went with them, ‘sharing their privations but bringing into their lives divine pleasure and resolutions’.20 As on the goldfields, informal house churches and ‘shed’ meetings often led to more permanent congregations and churches where worship and hymn singing, class meetings, tea meetings and Sunday School anniversaries helped overcome isolation and loneliness on the bush frontier. The Victorian Methodist Home Mission Department, established in 1875 under the Rev. E.S. Bickford to coordinate and support church extension in these rural areas, was especially successful in the wheat farming areas of the Wimmera and in orchard and dairy farming areas around Shepparton, Rochester and Kerang. Methodism was also successful in Tasmania’s predominantly rural economy with circuits established in the mining communities of the west coast such as Queenstown and Strahan, in timber towns and in small farming areas. The proportion of Methodists in Tasmania remained steady at around 15–18 per cent of the population from the 1890s to the 1950s, with 157 churches and 70 other preaching places by 1920.21 The church in Tasmania was able to maintain this position largely because of financial support and the supply of ministers and home missionaries from Victoria. The annual Victorian and Tasmanian Conference appointed ordained and probationary ministers to Tasmanian circuits for the mandatory three-year terms. Although appointments to churches in Hobart, Launceston and regional towns such as Burnie and Devonport were well accepted when the ‘Station Sheet’ was finalised after tense and protracted negotiations, appointments to rural Victorian and Tasmanian circuits were not always welcomed. Ministers often had to supplement their salaries with labouring work while the basic accommodation and furnishings of many country parsonages, along with the isolation and limited opportunities for the education of children, made life hard for families. Wives were expected to undertake unpaid roles in church and community, underlining the unacknowledged reliance on ‘the two for one’ contribution of parsonage families. Howe, ‘Wesleyan Church in Victoria, 1855–1901’, pp. 53–99. Benson, Century of Victorian Methodism, p. 27. 21 Dugan, Century of Tasmanian Methodism. 19 20

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Methodism in ‘Marvellous Melbourne’ Gold was the foundation of ‘Marvellous Melbourne’ in the 1880s, a decade in which the city doubled its population as the children of the gold rush generation came of age. British historian Asa Briggs described Melbourne as one of the ‘shock’ cities of the Victorian era because of its rapid growth and outward expansion as new garden suburbs were made possible by tram and train systems and by readily available finance for the building industry.22 Wesleyan Methodism responded enthusiastically to the city’s expansion, the social mobility of its members reflected in their movement from the inner suburbs to new suburban churches. An outstanding example was the Auburn Methodist Church in the middle-class eastern suburb of Hawthorn. Members included Mr and Mrs Fred Cato who in 1886 moved from living above the original Moran and Cato grocery shop in Smith Street, Fitzroy, to a magnificent mansion in Hawthorn. George Swinburne, founder of the Melbourne Gas Company and a member of the Legislative Council, also attended the Auburn church along with his wife and talented daughters. On the other side of town in the northern ‘working men’s suburbs’, the congregation of the Brunswick Methodist Church in Sydney Road included local quarry workers and mechanics, among them the Barnett family whose son Oswald was to become a leading Melbourne accountant and housing reformer in the 1930s. Although on different sides of town both churches emphasised Christian education and built innovative Sunday Schools with classrooms opening off a central hall. By the turn of the century the ministers and members of the Methodist churches were predominantly an Australian-born generation, which brought significant changes in the polity and theology of Wesleyan Methodism. Most obvious was the sharp decline in membership and influence of the class meeting. The long extempore prayers and emphasis on piety and Bible reading did not attract the younger native-born generation, as was evident when during a meeting at Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, William Newman, whose family were stalwarts of the church, opposed class meetings because lengthy testimonies suggested the Catholic ‘confessional’. The requirement for attendance at class meetings as the test of Wesleyan Methodist membership was vigorously debated at Annual Conferences in the 1870s and 1880s. Eventually it was decided that the test of membership be changed to an affirmation of faith approved by Conference and that the Leaders’ Meeting continue as the central decision-making body for churches but representing congregational office bearers rather than class leaders.23 This change marked the major theological and organisational shift that underpinned the move from chapel to church. A. Briggs, Victorian Cities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965). Renate Howe, ‘Wesleyan Church in Victoria, 1855–1901’, pp. 24–42.

22 23

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Sunday worship services remained central to the life of Methodist churches but competed for attendance with an increasing range of meetings and activities. Local suburban churches made great demands on ministers and especially their wives, who were expected to organise fetes, chair the Ladies Guild and missionary groups and represent the church in local community organisations. The emphasis on social and sporting activities in suburban Sunday Schools – picnics, anniversaries and sporting teams – shocked the elderly Elijah Stranger who continued his programme of Bible studies and prayer circles at the Brunswick Street Sunday School. The change in the social status and aspirations of Wesleyan Methodists was evident in the expansion of secondary, tertiary and formal theological education. The Victorian Conference had accepted two grants of land (both of 10.5 acres) from the Victorian Government for secondary educational institutions before state aid to religious bodies was phased out in the 1870s. Wesley College, a secondary college for boys, was built at Prahran in 1866 and later housed the Provisional Theological Institution. Later, the Methodist Ladies’ College (MLC) for girls was built at Hawthorn in 1881 with the Rev. W.H. Fitchett as Principal. In 1886, a Methodist Ladies’ College was also established in Launceston, an indication of commitment to women’s education and the growing social status of Wesleyan Methodists in that city. The Wesleyan Conference was also granted land to build a denominational residential college and theological institution in proximity to the University of Melbourne. While the Anglican and Presbyterian churches built substantial residential and theological colleges, the Methodists struggled to raise the necessary building funds. Despite the social mobility of the goldfields generation, neither wealthy squatters nor the colonial elite were represented in Victorian Methodism. There was also opposition within the denomination to the location of theological education in proximity to the university. The establishment of Queen’s College in 1888 owed much to the determination and persistence of the Rev. William Quick, who argued that Wesleyan Methodism had been ‘born in a university’ and that an educated ministry was essential for the future of the denomination. The Rev. E.H. Sugden had taught at Wesleyan Methodist theological training colleges in Britain and was appointed as Master of Queen’s College and head of the Theological Institution.24 Sugden ensured that the theological teaching was of a high standard and in 1897 Queen’s College was designated as the central theological institution for Australia. Around a third of the candidates for the Wesleyan Methodist ministry in Victoria who had not matriculated and were therefore ineligible to undertake theological study at Queen’s College continued the traditional path to ordination, undertaking 24 R. Howe, ed. The Master: The Life and Work of Edward H. Sugden (Melbourne: Uniting Academic Press, 2009).

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reading courses prescribed by the Conference and practical experience overseen by the circuits and District Meetings. A New Nation and a New Church As the influence of the goldfields generation faded, Victorian Methodism was confronted by the social challenges that followed the collapse of the land boom and the bitter maritime strike in the early 1890s. Goldfields Methodism had regarded itself, not always accurately, as an inclusive denomination with strong links to the working classes. These links became more problematic in a complex and increasingly socially stratified Melbourne. As Methodists moved to new suburbs they left behind struggling, indebted churches. It was soon evident in the inner industrial suburbs that the working classes, especially working-class men, were not attending church services. The population decline in goldfields towns also left churches with huge debts. The situation was symbolised by the shrinking congregation at Wesley Church, the bluestone cathedral now marooned in an area of prostitution and poverty. In response, Victorian Wesleyan Methodists looked to the Forward Movement in Britain, especially at the Central Methodist Mission in London led by the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes. Sugden was familiar with the Forward Movement which built on Methodist evangelical tradition but emphasised new forms of worship and encouraged involvement with social issues. Soon after his arrival in Melbourne, he began holding ‘People’s Services’ on the Forward Movement model at Wesley Church in Lonsdale Street. In 1893 the Victorian Conference formally established a Central Methodist Mission (CMM) at Wesley and appointed the Rev. Alexander Edgar as Superintendent Minister. Edgar reflected the traditions of Victorian goldfields Methodism. Described by his biographer as ‘a Methodist Greatheart’, Edgar was born and raised in the gold-mining town of Stawell and had briefly studied for the ministry at the Wesley College Theological Institution. As Superintendent of the CMM, Edgar was released from the three-year itinerancy while the appointment of Sisters of the People provided an opportunity for the ministry of women. The Primitive Methodist Church also embraced the Forward Movement. In 1895, the North Carlton church invited John Hancock, one of the first labour members elected to the Victorian Parliament, to speak on ‘Christ and Socialism’. Hancock informed the congregation that ‘we are all socialists’ especially in Victoria where so many services such as education and transport were provided by the state. Anticipating Methodist Union, Edgar was joined by the Rev. G.D.H. Cole of the Primitive

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Methodist Church in Lygon Street who had introduced aspects of the Forward Movement model, such as ‘Bun and Banana’ nights for the local youth.25 However, not all Methodists welcomed initiatives such as the CMM and the liberal theology taught at Queen’s College. Since the mid-1870s Melbourne’s Protestant denominations had been divided over the issues of the infallibility of the scriptures and evolutionary theory. The Rev. W.H. Fitchett was a leader of the conservative position among Wesleyan Methodists. Fitchett had a rudimentary goldfields education and contributed his outstanding literary and speaking ability to his membership of the Mutual Improvement Association at the Eaglehawk Primitive Methodist Church. As a young minister he had been a popular editor of The Spectator, the Wesleyan Methodist newspaper, and was later a successful editor of the Southern Cross, a paper with a large circulation among Victorian evangelical Protestants, and was an outspoken critic of the ‘higher criticism’ of the Bible.26 Fitchett and E.H. Sugden were both well respected in the Conference but represented different strands of Wesleyan Methodism and often clashed in Conference debates. Fitchett’s election as the first Conference President of the Methodist Church of Australasia in 1902 indicated the increased strength of conservative evangelical Methodism following amalgamation with the minor Methodist churches. Both men were prominent participants in two large rallies held in Melbourne at the turn of century marking the culmination of an era of church and state expansion – one to celebrate the ushering in of the new federated nation at the Exhibition Building in 1901, and a ‘Great Union Thanksgiving Demonstration’ held to mark the union of the various Methodist churches into the Methodist Church of Australasia, also symbolically held at the Exhibition Building in 1902. Fitchett, President of the new Conference, was the speaker, while music for the occasion was arranged by Sugden. Both rallies represented the contribution of Victorian Methodism, with its roots in the evangelistic zeal and social commitment of the golden years, to the new united Methodist Church and to the new nation. At the turn of the century, Victorian Wesleyan Methodists had much to celebrate. The census of 1901 enumerated the success of the denomination. In the census of 1861 the proportion of Wesleyan Methodists had been 8.9 per cent of Victoria’s population and by the census of 1901 the proportion had almost doubled to 15.2 per cent. As has already been noted, the proportion of Wesleyan Methodists was considerably higher in urban areas – a quarter of the population of Melbourne (25 per cent) and up to 30–40 per cent of the population in some 25 R. Howe and S. Swain, The Challenge of the City: The Centenary History of Wesley Central Mission, 1883–1993 (Melbourne: Hyland House, 1993). 26 C. Irving Benson, ‘The Life and Times of Dr William Henry Fitchett’, Heritage 11 (1960); Howe, The Master, pp. 100, 114, 148, 150.

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goldfields towns. The census of 1901 also recorded the high participation rate of Methodists in worship and attendance at Sunday Schools. Tasmanian Methodists also participated in the celebration of the new national Methodist Church in 1902. While Tasmanian Methodism had not had the spectacular increases in membership of the Victorian church, it had maintained a significant presence in the colony. In maintaining this position Tasmanian Wesleyan Methodists had benefited from financial and ministerial support from Victoria, with the strongest links between Launceston and northern Tasmania, including the goldmining area of Beaconsfield, where many Victorian miners had settled. Overall, the wealth and opportunity of the Victorian colony had produced a distinctive style of colonial goldfields Methodism. Compared with Methodism in other colonies, especially NSW, Victorian Methodism had a more liberal theology, a more educated ministry and laity, and activist members involved in public life. However, Methodist influence in Victoria has often been seen as negative, contributing to the ‘wowser’ image of a state where stringent controls on gambling, drinking and Sabbath observance continued into the 1950s. This image has overshadowed the positive contributions of nineteenth-century Victorian Methodism in supporting the protective role of labour legislation, in the participation of the laity in civic life, in establishing social and educational institutions, and in the contribution of Methodist churches and Sunday Schools to the life of so many suburban and rural communities. The achievements of goldfields Methodism in the nineteenth century can also be seen as an important contribution to the broader history of nineteenth-century Methodism where it would be difficult to find a comparative example of Methodism’s rapid growth and influence.

Chapter 4

Methodism in South Australia, 1855–1902 David Hilliard

Methodism assumed a distinctive shape in colonial South Australia where it became a confident, assertive and broadly-based religious movement. It was not homogeneous, for it contained three streams with different styles of worship and government: the Wesleyan Methodists, who formed their first society in 1837; the Primitive Methodists, founded in 1840; and the Bible Christians who were established in 1849. Alongside these were two small offshoots: the Methodist New Connexion, which formed a permanent congregation in Adelaide in 1862 and merged with the Bible Christians in 1888, and the United Methodist Free Church, 1878–84.1 The three Methodist denominations united to form the Methodist Church of South Australia on 1 January 1901. At the beginning of our period some 11,200 colonists, or 13 per cent of the population, called themselves Methodists of one kind or another: the Methodist denominations were not enumerated separately in census reports until the 1860s. The figures reported to the government on the ‘average congregation’ (including Sunday School scholars) were not much smaller, indicating that some four-fifths of self-described Methodists at this time were regular church attenders: Wesleyans 7,056; Bible Christians 1,665; Primitive Methodists 350.2 Together they accounted for almost four in every 10 of the colony’s churchgoing population. The next 20 years were a period of rapid advance for Methodism: adherence and church membership shot upwards, far outpacing the rise in the colony’s population (see Tables 4.1 and 4.2). The combined church membership, for all three branches of Methodism, was 2,603 in 1855 and 8,856 in 1871. By A.D. Hunt, This Side of Heaven: A History of Methodism in South Australia (Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1985); A.D. Hunt, ‘The Bible Christians in South Australia’, Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia 10 (1982): 15–31; J. Haslam, The History of Wesleyan Methodism in South Australia from its Commencement to its Jubilee (1887, repr. Adelaide: South Australian Methodist Historical Society, 1958); R.B. Walker, ‘Methodism in the “Paradise of Dissent”, 1837–1900’, Journal of Religious History 5, no. 4 (1969): 331–47. 2 South Australian Parliamentary Papers, 1857–58, p. 10. In 1856 the Church of England reported 4,215 attenders, Congregationalists 3,256, Lutherans 2,621, Roman Catholics 2,140 and Free Presbyterians 1,205. 1

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then one in 12 South Australians aged over 15 was on the membership roll of a Methodist church. At the 1876 census the proportion of the South Australian population who called themselves Methodists had risen to a peak of 26 per cent. It stayed around this level – one in four of the population – at each census until the 1950s. This proportion was far higher than anywhere else in Australia. Table 4.1

Methodists as a percentage of the population of South Australia, selected census years 1855–1901 1855

1860

1871

1881

1891

1901

13.1

12.1

14.6

15.0

15.3

Methodist 24.9

Bible Christian

Unlisted

3.6

4.2

3.8

4.9

–

Primitive Methodist

Unlisted

3.1

4.4

3.7

3.6

–

Wesleyan Methodist

Source: ‘Religion’, in South Australian Historical Statistics, ed. Wray Vamplew, Eric Richards, Dean Jaensch and Joan Hancock (Sydney: History Project Incorporated, 1984).

Table 4.2 Methodist churches Australia, 1855–1899

and

membership

in

South

1855 1855 1871 1871 1881 1881 1899 1899 Churches Members Churches Members Churches Members Churches Members Wesleyan Methodist

45

1,850

156

5,220

219

5,231

271

8,474

Bible Christian

22

438

83

1,533

114

2,306

128

3,852

Primitive Methodist

c. 15

315

103

2,103

107

2,452

102

3,100

Source: ‘Religion’, in South Australian Historical Statistics, ed. Vamplew, Richards, Jaensch and Hancock.

What were the reasons for this remarkable growth during the nineteenth century? It was partly due to the religious culture of South Australia and the nature of its foundation. Promoted as a colony where all religious bodies would be equal, with no established church, it was attractive from the first to English Dissenters. With only a modest instalment of state aid to religion, between 1846 and 1851, all religious bodies had to rely on their own resources much earlier than in other Australian colonies. The Anglican Church, although it initially

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comprised over half the population, found it hard to adjust to the voluntary principle and the religious free market (though it later rallied), and it was rarely able to achieve a deep penetration of the colony’s farming communities. Between the 1840s and the 1870s the proportion of Anglicans in the population declined. Although there was a significant proportion of Scots among early immigrants to South Australia, the Presbyterian Church for various reasons did not flourish and, outside the south-east of the colony, never attained the numerical strength and influence it had in Victoria and NSW. Baptists, Congregationalists and Methodists, on the other hand, were energised in South Australia, finding no institutional obstacles to their progress. Second, Methodism in all its strands was expansionist in mood. It was confident that it embodied the purest form of Christianity and it wanted to reach everyone with the news of ‘a free, full, present salvation’, exhorting them to repent and ‘to flee from the wrath to come’. ‘Our chief joy and aim’, declared the South Australia Wesleyan Conference in 1876, ‘is to save sinners from the error of their ways, and to advance the kingdom of our Saviour.’3 No other religious body in South Australia collected statistics in such detail, rejoicing over the figures of numerical growth and agonising over any downward trends. The surest way for the church to grow, almost everyone agreed, was through revival. Methodism, a product of the revivalist preaching of John Wesley, sought revival, expected revival and had a language to describe it: ‘showers of blessing’, ‘an abundance of rain’, ‘a gracious outpouring of the Holy Spirit’ and ‘a mighty display of the saving power of God’. In colonial South Australia, evangelistic missions seeking to save the unconverted and the unconverted children of pious parents were a familiar part of Methodist life. Revivals occurred intermittently throughout the nineteenth century. They ranged in scale from the revivals at Kapunda in 1851, Burra in 1859 and Moonta in 1875 (in which whole communities of Cornish miners became caught up in a wave of religious fervour) to eruptions within rural and suburban congregations, often triggered by visiting evangelists and accompanied by weeks of special services and prayer meetings. Although many of those converted were already on the church roll and an unknown number of converts later drifted away, each local revival left its mark on church membership figures. The growth rate in each branch of Methodism peaked in two periods of intensive revivalist activity: the mid-1860s and the early 1880s.4 Third, through its localised lay leadership Methodism achieved a physical presence in almost every area of European settlement. Its message of salvation Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church, Minutes of South Australia Conference, 1876, annual address to members, p. 29. 4 For the Wesleyans, see H.R. Jackson, Churches and People in Australia and New Zealand, 1860–1930 (Wellington and Sydney: Allen & Unwin and Port Nicholson Press, 1987), pp. 49–53. Growth rates for the Bible Christians and the Primitive Methodists reflect the same pattern. 3

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available to all and individual responsibility was congenial to small farmers. So was its willingness to use converted men without much formal schooling as local preachers. In 1870 there were some 550 local preachers in the three Methodist denominations, outnumbering ministers by seven to one. In newly settled communities keen Methodists typically initiated Sunday services in their own houses, or in a hotel, or in a blacksmith’s shop, or in the open air. They established a congregation without waiting for a minister; local preachers conducted services. Later they collected subscriptions and took steps to build a church, architecturally modest and built of local stone, often on land donated by a local farmer. Because Methodist chapels were so numerous in rural areas they became religious and social centres for their surrounding communities and absorbed local settlers from other Protestant denominations who had no church of their own within reach. Fourth, Methodism was reinforced by a substantial immigration from southwest England. From the early 1840s Cornish miners and their families began immigrating to South Australia to work in the colony’s metal mines: initially silver and lead near Adelaide, then copper mines at Kapunda (1844), Burra (1845) and the upper Yorke Peninsula (1859). During the 1850s some 11 per cent of assisted immigrants were from Cornwall; the great majority of them were miners. Between 1862 and 1870 the Cornish proportion of assisted immigrants had risen to 28 per cent. At that time Methodism was the popular religion of the Cornish people and the Cornish left a strong imprint on South Australian Methodism. Cornwall and Devon (where the Bible Christians originated) were the source of one-third of the Methodist ministers who worked in South Australia in the nineteenth century.5 A Strengthening Connexion In the early years of South Australia almost every religious body except the Methodists comprised a fluid grouping of autonomous and independentminded congregations. During the 1850s and 1860s, conscious of the practical need to cooperate, they came together to assume the shape and outlook of a self-governing denomination.6 The Methodists, by contrast, were from the first part of an interlocking structure that embraced the other colonies. From 1855 P. Payton, ‘The Cornish’, in The Australian People: An Encyclopedia of the Nation, its People and their Origins, ed. J. Jupp (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1988), pp. 327–31; P. Somerville, ‘The Influence of Cornwall on South Australian Methodism’, Journal of the South Australian Methodist Historical Society 4 (1972): 1–13. 6 The colony’s Congregational churches formed the Congregational Union of South Australia in 1850; the Anglicans constituted a diocesan synod that met for the first time in 1855; the Baptists set up the South Australian Baptist Union in 1863; and the three branches 5

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South Australia was one of nine districts within the newly created Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Connexion, led by a chairman appointed annually by the Conference. This arrangement lasted until 1874 when, under a new constitution, South Australia became a self-governing Conference (including Western Australia until 1900 and Broken Hill in western NSW from the 1880s) with the right to elect its own president. The Conference met annually in Adelaide in February. The Bible Christians in South Australia, regularly reinforced by ministers sent from England, became an autonomous Conference in 1877. The Primitive Methodist South Australian District Assembly remained under the authority of the Conference based in England. Methodists were proud of the Connexional principle: that they were ‘one people’ with a ‘united pastorate’.7 Each congregation, circuit and minister was bound together under the authority of the Conference, with the local church subordinate to the whole body. Connexionalism was expressed through print. Journals and newspapers in other South Australian denominations were privately produced; in all three branches of Methodism they were published by the District or Conference. From 1875 the official Wesleyan journal in South Australia became a weekly, packed with denominational, political and personal news and comment from the colony and overseas. By 1889 it was said to have the largest circulation of any Methodist paper ‘south of the line’, which really meant Australia and New Zealand.8 The Connexion also sought to meet the demand from families and Sunday Schools for Methodist literature. The Wesleyans (in 1865), and later the Bible Christians and Primitive Methodists, established book depots in Adelaide to sell the works of Wesley, Methodist theology and biographies, sermons, tracts, Sunday School rewards, Bibles, hymn books and edifying novels. The culture of Methodism, and its sense of identity, was sustained and fortified by the printed word. By its capacity to create new circuits, station ministers and allocate funds where they were most needed, the Conference was a powerful machine to enable church extension in a newly settled colony. ‘The value of Connexionalism for the purpose of organised aggression can hardly be represented too strongly’, was a proud claim.9 One of its expressions was the Wesleyan Church Extension Fund, set up in 1855, which was empowered to hold an annual collection and raise subscriptions to aid needy circuits and to assist home mission work in sparsely populated areas. Each circuit was levied at about 10 per cent of its annual income. It was a modestly effective method of compelling the old established of Scottish Presbyterianism came together in 1865 to form the Presbyterian Church of South Australia. 7 Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church, Minutes of Conference, 1863, pastoral address to members, p. 48. 8 Christian Weekly and Methodist Journal, 25 January 1889, p. 4. 9 Christian Weekly and Methodist Journal, 13 November 1885, p. 5.

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circuits around Adelaide to subsidise new work in the northern agricultural areas in the 1870s and 1880s. Farmers and Miners Methodism in South Australia flourished among two groups in particular: farmers and miners. From the 1840s it expanded into the Mount Lofty Ranges and Southern Vales, south-east and south of Adelaide. By the 1870s in this region of small properties and mixed farms there were 50 Wesleyan chapels. They were grouped into five circuits with five ministers and 57 local preachers who conducted two services each Sunday in almost every settlement and locality. In addition, there were four Bible Christian circuits and two Primitive Methodist circuits, each of them with a string of chapels and preaching places. The quarterly preaching plan of the Primitive Methodists’ Strathalbyn Circuit, for example, listed 26 places where Sunday services were held.10 By comparison, in the same region there were 12 Anglican churches and four clergymen. In the towns of Strathalbyn, Nairne, Clarendon and Willunga, and in some smaller communities, there were two Methodist chapels close together, each of them conscious of their distinct identity but joining together for the celebration of church anniversaries and other special occasions. Reflecting their greater numbers, the Wesleyan chapel was invariably the largest. The Primitive Methodists eschewed the prevailing Gothic style and their chapels typically had Romanesque, not pointed, windows. The miners were Methodists because they were Cornish. The highest concentration of Methodists in South Australia, and in Australia, was in the ‘copper triangle’ of the upper Yorke Peninsula (Kadina, Moonta and Wallaroo) where copper was first discovered in 1859. Until the early twentieth century three-fifths of the 12,000 people living in this region were Methodists, mostly of Cornish background. In these transplanted mining communities (‘Little Cornwall’) Methodism provided immigrants with ‘social and cultural reassurance as well as spiritual support’.11 With its pulpit oratory and annual celebrations, Methodism was a central component of local culture, and this was demonstrated by its physical presence. In the Moonta area in 1875 there were 14 Methodist churches: Wesleyan, Bible Christian and Primitive Methodist. In appearance they resembled the chapels of Cornwall. The Moonta circuit with 520 members accounted for almost one in 10 of Wesleyan church members in South Australia.

South Australian Primitive Methodist Record, January 1863, p. 22. P. Payton, Making Moonta: The Invention of Australia’s Little Cornwall (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2007), p. 156. 10 11

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65

One of the region’s principal churches was Moonta Mines Wesleyan Church. Its foundation stone was laid in 1865 by Henry Richard Hancock, the superintendent of the mines. When galleries were added a few years later it could seat 1,200 people. Hancock ruled both the mines and Moonta Mines Church with benevolent paternalism; trade unionist miners later saw it as ‘the bosses’ chapel. As he entered with his family to take his seat before a service it was customary for the congregation to stand as a sign of deference and respect. In 1888 Hancock gave his church a pipe organ, an indicator of the church’s rich choral tradition. He was also superintendent of Moonta Mines Wesleyan Sunday School, the largest Sunday School of any denomination in South Australia, which had over 600 scholars on its roll, led by 120 officers and teachers. His successor as superintendent (and chief mining captain) from 1898 was his son Henry Lipson Hancock. The school was proud of pioneering modern methods in Sunday School teaching, based on separate departments for different age groups and graded lessons, which were expounded in a book for Methodists elsewhere to emulate.12 Methodist chapels in the mining areas played an important role in fostering working-class organisation and action. As self-governing institutions, they encouraged their (male) members to acquire skills in public speaking, the formulation of ideas, administration, financial management and the arbitration of disputes.13 They also supplied a moral framework: a language of social justice derived from the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Methodists, many of them local preachers, were prominent in the early labour movement, though they were more likely to come from the Primitive Methodists than the more conservative Wesleyans or the rural-based Bible Christians, who were suspicious of any talk of socialism and class solidarity. Of the labour members elected to the South Australian Parliament during the 1890s at least five were Methodists, more than from any other denomination. John Verran, born in Cornwall and a miner at Moonta, was a Primitive Methodist local preacher who entered the South Australian Parliament in 1901 as a member for Wallaroo in the House of Assembly. As leader of the United Labor Party, he was Premier of South Australia in 1910–12.

12 W. Shaw and H.L. Hancock, A Sunday School of To-day: An Illustration of Principles (Adelaide: Hussey & Gillingham, 1912). 13 J. Ellis, South Australian Methodists and Working-Class Organisation (Adelaide: Uniting Church Historical Society, 1992).

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Methodism in Australia

Rural Churches During the latter decades of the nineteenth century, under government legislation that allowed farmers to purchase land on credit, the sheep runs of the Mid-North and Yorke Peninsula were replaced by family-owned mixed farms, growing cereals and raising sheep. These newly opened lands were interspersed every 16 km (10 miles) with a government-created township which became the location for churches, schools, institutes, banks, lodges and sporting clubs. Methodism lost no time in starting work in these areas. At Maitland on Yorke Peninsula, for example, the first church services of any denomination were conducted at the end of 1873 by Wesleyan local preachers, miners who came down from Moonta and Wallaroo, some 30 km distant.14 The Wesleyan Conference created new circuits at Yorketown (1873), Maitland (1875), Minlaton (1876) and Ardrossan (1884). In this region the Wesleyans were the only Methodist church. In the Mid-North the Primitive Methodists were thinly represented but the Bible Christians established a string of circuits alongside the Wesleyans as settlement surged northwards as far as Quorn and Carrieton in the lower Flinders Ranges. Other denominations envied the Methodist capacity to cover the region with places of worship as soon as it was settled: ‘Let a new township arise, and after the inevitable store, smithy, and public-house, a preaching place is sure to be opened by either the Wesleyan denomination or by one of its offshoots.’15 The story of Samuel White is typical of many Methodist farmers of the time. Emigrating from England in 1865 as a farm labourer, having been brought up in the Church of England, he was converted by a Wesleyan minister at Kapunda in 1867 and became a member of Finnis Point Wesleyan Chapel. Almost immediately he began to conduct services and preach. After his marriage to Elizabeth Webber, from a strongly Wesleyan family at Tarlee, in 1874 he selected land at Yacka when it was opened for selection, attended the first Methodist services there, held in the open air, and became a foundation member of the first Wesleyan society. For many years he was a class leader, local preacher, superintendent of the Sunday School and, until his death in 1918, a trustee of the Yacka Church. Reflecting his status as a pioneer and successful farmer, his grave is the largest in the local cemetery.16 The Methodist circuit system based upon an itinerant ministry was well adapted to the colony’s agricultural areas with their scattered population, small towns and abundant supply of local preachers. However, it was unsuitable for the outback. The Far North of South Australia was occupied mainly by extensive 14 F.W. Brasher, Methodism in the Maitland District (Adelaide: South Australian Methodist Historical Society, 1958). 15 South Australian Independent and Presbyterian, September 1878, p. 11. 16 Australian Christian Commonwealth, 19 July 1918, p. 254.

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sheep stations with clusters of mining settlements, and the largely male workforce was itinerant and reportedly cynical about organised religion. It was the Bible Christians who initiated work among this ‘Gospel-starved people’, though their vision did not embrace the Indigenous peoples of the region.17 In 1895 the Conference founded the Bible Christian Bush Mission of South Australia, which quickly extended into western and north-western NSW. Within five years the mission comprised three missionaries, young men in their twenties, who received no regular salary. Their work was demanding, producing meagre results. They travelled huge distances – in some years 10,000 km – around their hot and dusty mission fields on bicycles, named the ‘Way’, the ‘Truth’, and the ‘Life’. When these broke down they walked. At the same time, the Methodists extended their work to the Northern Territory, which in 1863 was annexed to South Australia. In 1873 Archibald Bogle, a young Wesleyan minister, was sent by the South Australia Conference to Palmerston (later Darwin) to begin its Northern Territory Mission. For the next 20 years he and his successors were the only resident clergymen of any denomination. They travelled on horseback to minister to gold prospectors and other settlers in the far north, held services in pubs, telegraph stations and the open air, and took a lead in community affairs. At one place Bogle recorded: ‘The drunkenness prevalent is most shameful. Good congregation however.’18 In 1889 the Methodists began mission work among the Chinese who had been brought in by the government as ‘coolies’ to work on the mines and to build a railway line. The mission was initiated by a minister who had learnt to speak Chinese in China and was assisted by a Chinese catechist. Two years later the minister returned south but the mission was carried on with modest success by the catechist Loie Foy and later by a Chinese-born minister, Joseph Tear Tack. After Tack’s departure in 1899 the work collapsed, to be resumed in the 1940s.19 Suburban Churches Methodism in nineteenth-century South Australia was predominantly a rural church; in 1901 two-thirds of its adherents lived outside Adelaide. However, during the latter decades of the nineteenth century it strengthened its presence in suburban Adelaide. In 1900 only one-fifth of Bible Christian members lived in the Adelaide area and the Primitive Methodists in the urban area were predominantly G.H. Paynter, ‘The Story of the Bush Mission’, in John Thorne: A Few Reminiscences of Those who Esteemed and Loved the Man and the Minister, comp. W.G. Torr (Adelaide: W.K. Thomas, 1925), pp. 83–95. 18 Arch Grant, Palmerston to Darwin: 75 Years Service on the Frontier (Sydney: Frontier, 1990), p. 41. 19 Grant, Palmerston to Darwin, pp. 58–64. 17

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Methodism in Australia

working class, but the Wesleyans comprised a sizeable proportion – up to 30 per cent – of residents of the new middle-class suburbs with their tree-lined streets and stone villas. From the late 1870s imposing Wesleyan churches were built at Parkside, Unley, Malvern, Norwood, St Peters, Payneham and Prospect. A few Methodists moved into the colony’s social elite. One of these was the chief justice and lieutenant-governor Samuel Way, son of James Way, the pioneer Bible Christian minister. In 1899 he was created a baronet, the only Methodist baronet in the British Empire. His complicated private life – secretly he maintained a common-law wife and family in Hobart, then in Melbourne – was unknown to his fellow Bible Christians.20 Another was Langdon Bonython, who was proprietor and editor of the Advertiser newspaper and a member of Pirie Street Wesleyan Church. In 1898 he was one of the first two Australian newspaper proprietors to be knighted. Methodists, many of them active in church affairs, became prominent in the colony’s business world. Among them were Arnold Davey (miller), John Dunn (miller), Francis Faulding (chemist), James Gartrell (wholesale grocer), J.W. Gillingham (printer), George Harris (merchant), M.H. Madge (baker and confectioner), James Martin (manufacturer), T.J. Matters (estate agent), Edward Spicer (pastoralist, later importer), N.W. Trudgen (builder) and T.G. Waterhouse (mining and an original director of the Bank of Adelaide). Methodists were not numerous in the upper levels of colonial politics but three figures were very influential. Sir John Colton, founder of a saddlery and ironmongery firm, was Mayor of Adelaide in 1874–75, a member of the House of Assembly from 1862 and twice premier, in 1876–77 and 1884–85. Sir Frederick Holder, Mayor of Burra, was elected to the House of Assembly in 1887, premier in 1892 and 1899–1901, a member of the House of Representatives of the new federal parliament from 1901 and speaker until his death in 1909. Tom Price, a stonemason, was elected to Parliament in 1893 for the United Labor Party and was premier in a coalition government from 1905 until his death in 1909.21 Prosperous Methodists, keen to stop a drift to the Anglicans’ St Peter’s College, wanted their sons to obtain a higher education in a Wesleyan institution. A group of rich merchants led by Waterhouse and Colton provided the impetus and advanced the money that contributed to the foundation in 1869 of Prince Alfred College as a Wesleyan grammar school for boys. The college, in Kent Town, was named in honour of the Duke of Edinburgh who laid the foundation stone on his visit to the colony in 1867. The Wesleyans delighted in the royal patronage, a sign of their new status in South Australia; the Anglican bishop was affronted by the Methodists’ coup and privately referred to them as ‘We-sly20 A. Parkinson, ‘The Regret of Sir Samuel Way’, Australian Journal of Legal History, no. 1 (1995): 239–57. 21 For a longer view of South Australian Methodist participation in politics, see D.J. Hopgood, ‘Methodists in South Australian Public Life’, Aldersgate Papers 10 (2012): 85–95.

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ones’.22 Prince Alfred College soon became a recognised pathway into Adelaide’s business and professional classes, the principal rival of St Peter’s College. Although not narrowly a ‘church school’, it ensured that Methodists who moved up the social scale tended to remain Methodists.23 The Bible Christians, growing in confidence, were equally concerned to provide a secondary education for their sons, and in 1892 they founded Way College.24 Following Methodist Union, Way College was closed, its pupils transferred to Prince Alfred College, and in 1904 its premises were handed over to the recently established Methodist Ladies’ College. The Methodist Ethos In the 1850s Methodist church members saw themselves as members of a disciplined society, converted from ‘the world’, and were expected to demonstrate holy life and conduct. They were exhorted to keep holy the Sabbath (refraining from working and travelling), to regularly read the Word of God and practise private prayer, dress modestly, avoid dancing, public houses, gambling and frivolous entertainments, vote only for men of morally upright character and read ‘good books’: ‘Much of the literature of the age is more than worthless, it is poisonous’, Wesleyan church members were told by their Conference in 1896.25 But as Methodists became more prosperous and comfortable it became harder to maintain the discipline of earlier years. In every Methodist denomination this was demonstrated by the waning of the weekly class meeting. In the 1850s it was a distinguishing mark of Methodism: all church members were required to attend. During the following decades, in Britain as in Australia, a growing proportion of members, especially men, found themselves uncomfortable with the idea of a weekly ‘spiritual conversation’ on the state of their soul, ignored exhortations to their ‘duty’ and rarely attended. At the same time, it was claimed that thousands of regular worshippers were deterred from taking up church membership because of the class meeting requirement. But many older Methodists – some of whom had been class leaders for 40 or 50 years – regarded the class meeting as vital to their own spiritual lives and resisted attempts to sever the link with John Wesley’s creation. Although the rule was slightly modified in 1890, to allow for a monthly rather than a weekly meeting, the downward trend continued. The number of Wesleyan class leaders in South Australia fell from 363 in 1873 to 231 in 1899 and the President of the Wesleyan Conference, J.M. Brown, Augustus Short, DD: Bishop of Adelaide (Adelaide: Hodge, 1974), p. 183. R.M. Gibbs, A History of Prince Alfred College, 2nd edn (Adelaide: Peacock, 2008). 24 B. Petersen, Way College, 1892–1903 (Lane Cove, NSW: Bernard Whimpress, 2013). 25 Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church, Minutes of South Australia Conference, 1896, annual address to members, p. 91. 22

23

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Joseph Berry, regretted that classes were ‘languishing to the verge of extinction’.26 Finally in 1905, after union, the Methodist Church dropped the requirement for church members to participate in a class. The boundaries between the three main branches of Methodism in South Australia were porous. Methodists of each denomination habitually preferred to worship with ‘the people of their first choice’ but, conscious of a shared heritage, happily ‘entered into fellowship’ with whatever Methodist congregation was most convenient. In the course of their lives, as they moved from place to place, many Methodists were at different times members of two or three Methodist denominations. A study of 115 obituaries of Bible Christians showed that 58 had been brought up in the church, either in England or South Australia, 41 had transferred from another branch of Methodism and 16 had once been Anglicans or members of another Protestant church.27 Methodists and Other Denominations Methodists in colonial South Australia generally formed friendly relationships with the other non-episcopal (‘sister’) churches: the Baptists, the Congregationalists and the Presbyterians. Their annual conferences and assemblies exchanged greetings, their ministers exchanged pulpits on special occasions such as church and Sunday School anniversaries, and their members worked together in interdenominational societies such as the Evangelical Alliance and Christian Endeavour. Roman Catholics, by contrast, were typically regarded with suspicion. Writers in Methodist papers occasionally had a crack at the ‘unscriptural’ doctrines and practices of the Roman Church, its failure to promote the moral growth of its followers and its persistent threat to liberty. On the whole, however, Methodist ministers ignored the Church of Rome. In South Australia, where the Catholic proportion of the population was much smaller than in the other colonies, it was not seen as a present threat and they had more pressing concerns. At the local level, the main rival of Methodism in South Australia was the Church of England, which had a larger body of nominal adherents and close links with the social and professional elite of the state but almost everywhere was outnumbered in weekly churchgoers and Sunday School enrolments by the more energetic Methodists.28 Because of this, the Anglicans were habitually on South Australian Register, 2 March 1898, p. 6. Hunt, ‘Bible Christians in South Australia’, p. 23. 28 D. Hilliard, ‘Anglican Relations with the Protestant Churches in South Australia, 1836–1996’, in Heritage of Faith: Essays in Honour of Arnold D. Hunt, ed. G.W. Potter et al. (Morphett Vale, SA: George W. Potter 1996), pp. 195–207. 26 27

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the defensive, resentful of the influence of ‘Dissent’ and Methodism. Moreover, there were theological tensions. Since the arrival of Bishop Short in 1847 the Anglicans had had an edgy relationship with non-episcopal Protestants. This was reinforced by the growing influence of Anglo-Catholicism in South Australia from the later nineteenth century. The new generation of Anglican clergy taught their flocks that Methodists had wilfully separated from the Church and lacked a valid ministry. Methodists resented what they regarded as Anglican snobbery and defective theology. Yet despite this resentment and the frequent warnings by Anglican clergy of the dangers of ‘undenominationalism’, the lines were often crossed. In the 1870s the minister of Pirie Street Church, James Bickford, was ‘great friends’ with the (broad church) Dean of Adelaide, Alexander Russell, who wrote occasional articles for the Methodist Journal. On Good Friday, which Methodists rarely observed, Bickford regularly attended a service in an adjacent Anglican church, and then went to his own church’s Sunday School picnic.29 Anglicans (and other Protestants) with a loose attachment to their own denomination might attend a Methodist church in their area if it was the only place of worship and would send their children to a Methodist Sunday School if it was close to home and offered more activities. Methodists at Worship The first Methodists in South Australia brought with them the styles of Methodist worship they had known in England. Each denomination had its own hymn book, sold in a remarkable range of prices, sizes and bindings. They all shared the hymnody of Wesley but each included hymns derived from other sources, creating a distinctive mix. With a hostile eye on high church Anglicans, Methodists were always keen to avoid set prayers and ‘empty’ forms. ‘We need no beautiful liturgy or pompous ritual, we only need the power of the Holy Ghost to give life and freshness to our worship’, declaimed a Bible Christian minister.30 The Primitive Methodists were typically egalitarian and boisterous in their worship. Ministers did not wear clerical dress and members of the congregation responded to prayers with pious exclamations such as ‘Amen, brother’ and ‘Praise the Lord’. By contrast, in the latter decades of the century Wesleyan worship tended to become less spontaneous and less emotional, more decorous and dignified, with shorter and less florid sermons. This shift was particularly marked in Adelaide’s prosperous city and suburban churches such as Pirie Street, Kent Town, St Peters and Norwood. It became the custom for 29 J. Bickford, James Bickford: An Autobiography of Christian Labour… 1838–1888 (London: Charles H. Kelly, 1890), pp. 283, 288, 292. 30 South Australian Bible Christian Magazine, February 1878, p. 366.

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church interiors to be decorated with flowers and texts for special occasions such as church and Sunday School anniversaries and Harvest Thanksgiving services, and a few churches began holding services on Good Friday and Christmas Day. Only occasionally do we find first-hand accounts of typical Sunday worship in this period. For a year in 1894–95 Harry Evans, editor of the weekly paper Quiz and the Lantern, wrote a series of articles describing services in different Adelaide churches: 11 of these were Methodist. Evans was impatient with rhetorical tricks and shallow arguments and he disliked the sing-song voice, nasal drawl and pulpit mannerisms that he saw as typical of Wesleyan ministers: ‘A Wesleyan parson is as easy of identification as an old man kangaroo.’31 He approved of preachers who were not overly solemn, used everyday language and applied their message to the problems of the present day. Not many did. One of those he liked was John Day Thompson, minister of Wellington Square Primitive Methodist Church, whose church was a mecca for those who sought a critical approach to the Bible combined with the social gospel. He did not exhort his hearers to flee the wrath to come but urged them to make this world a better place.32 Thompson’s preaching, open to new currents of thought and calling his hearers to improve the condition of society, attracted educated men and women with questioning minds such as the Unitarian writer and social reformer Catherine Helen Spence, who regularly attended Wellington Square Church on Sunday evenings. However, Thompson’s liberal theology, exemplified by a published address on ‘The Simple Gospel’, worried some conservative Primitive Methodist ministers in England who in 1896 charged him with deviating from received Methodist doctrines.33 In defence, Thompson claimed that he had been seeking to re-express Wesley’s great doctrines ‘in my own forms’, to harmonise with the light of modern knowledge. He was supported by the South Australian District Meeting, though it conceded that his use of words and highly coloured language may have exposed him to being misunderstood. In 1896 the Primitive Methodist Conference, meeting in England, decided after passionate debate to take no action. Twenty years later, after his return to England, Thompson was held in such esteem that he was appointed Secretary, then President, of the Conference. Quiz and the Lantern, 15 November 1894, p. 8. Quiz and the Lantern, 1 November 1894, p. 8. 33 South Australian Primitive Methodist, April 1896, pp. 425–6; S. Mews, ‘Against the Simple Gospel: John Day Thompson and the New Evangelism in Primitive Methodism’, in Modern Religious Rebels: Presented to John Kent, ed. Stuart Mews (London: Epworth Press, 1993), pp. 206–25; K. Secomb, ‘The Excitable Little Pastor’: The Ministry of Rev. J. Day Thompson in the North Adelaide Primitive Methodist Church (1892–1898) (Adelaide: Uniting Church Historical Society, 2002). 31 32

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Women in Methodism In late nineteenth-century Methodism, men were the ministers, the local preachers, the trustees and the lay members of Conference. They preached the sermons, made the speeches, ruled the Sunday Schools, sat on the committees and controlled the finances. Within that structure, however, Methodist women began to create almost a parallel church, with their own leaders. Women comprised some two-thirds of church members, were the majority of church attenders and provided much of the labour that kept the church going. They gave religious instruction to the young, led Christian Endeavour societies, participated in prayer meetings, conducted family worship, provided hospitality to itinerant ministers and local preachers, made articles for bazaars and sales of work to raise money for church funds, collected subscriptions and donations, distributed tracts, baked cakes and biscuits for church teas and meetings, cleaned the church and visited the sick and the bereaved. Women were more likely than men to feel comfortable in the intimate atmosphere of the class meeting where in prayer and testimony ‘they learned to use their voices in public Christian service’.34 Methodist women were active in the interdenominational WCTU from its formation in South Australia in 1886. The temperance cause propelled them into political activism. Elizabeth Webb Nicholls from Prospect Wesleyan Church became South Australian, and then Australasian, President of the Union and an effective leader in the campaign for women’s suffrage, achieved in South Australia in 1894. New women’s organisations were created to support overseas missions. In 1892 Bible Christian women formed the Bible Christian Women’s Missionary Board to raise funds to support a South Australian missionary in China. The following year Wesleyan women founded a Ladies’ Auxiliary, with local branches, to support the newly founded Wesleyan mission in Papua. Women who were married to ministers were expected to take a lead in all these activities, in addition to caring for their families. Elizabeth Rowe, wife of the pioneer Bible Christian minister James Rowe, was praised at her death in 1900 for her ‘many-sided’ work in the church: tract distributing, Sunday-school teaching, sick visiting, visits to church members to encourage them to cleave to Christ, efforts to reclaim backsliders, condolences with people under heavy trials, singling out strangers who happened to come into the congregation with a view of securing their regular attendance, and even keeping an open table for the country people of the denomination when they came to town.35

Christian Weekly and Methodist Journal, 6 September 1889, p. 5. Christian Weekly and Methodist Journal, 12 October 1900, p. 10.

34 35

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Methodism gave women an opportunity to preach, though not as ordained ministers. In this the Bible Christians were less constrained by tradition than the Wesleyans. Their first female preacher in South Australia, in the 1870s, was Serena Thorne Lake, a granddaughter of William O’Bryan, the founder of the Bible Christians.36 During the 1890s women preachers, usually in teams of two, conducted evangelistic services in country and suburban circuits around the colony: among them were the Bible Christians Miss Angell and Miss McLennan and the Wesleyans Miss Green and Miss Nesbit. Now women were accredited for the first time as local preachers. In 1893 Harriet Ashenden was appointed as a local preacher in the Bible Christians’ Mount Lofty Circuit and the following year, after the Wesleyan General Conference lifted its ban, Mary George was nominated by the Pirie Street Circuit to become the first Wesleyan local preacher. Methodism at the beginning of the twentieth century was, in active participation, the largest religious body in South Australia, touching the lives of a substantial segment of the state’s population. Methodist leaders worried that the church was in the doldrums – ‘not prospering as it should’ – but they looked ahead with confidence in their mission: ‘We venture the conviction that Methodism has an interpretation of Christ to the new century of a distinct character, clear note, and unique charm.’37

‘Serena Thorne’s Diary’, Uniting Church in South Australia Historical Society, Newsletter, no. 1 (1978): 5–9. 37 Christian Weekly and Methodist Journal, 23 February 1900, p. 7; Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church, Minutes of South Australia Conference, 1901, annual address to members, p. 40. 36

Chapter 5

Queensland Methodism until 1902 John Harrison Queensland is God’s land, and we mean to live and labour at an augmented and cemented Christian community. Brisbane Courier report of Rev. Charles Stead’s presidential address, Methodist Conference in Queensland, 3 March 18981

If South Australia was, in Douglas Pike’s memorable phrase, ‘a paradise of dissent’, then Queensland was a ‘paradise of piety’ shaped by Methodists along with Anglicans, Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Roman Catholics. Together these religious forces fostered the common pious conservatism which has been central to the political culture of Queensland.2 The Historiographical Setting Despite this important shared history, much of the scholarly literature about colonial Queensland fails to recognise the central role played by religion. The standard academic and general histories by W. Ross Johnson, Ross Fitzgerald and Raymond Evans all ignore it.3 The few biographies written of religious figures in Queensland have been of the Roman Catholic archbishops: Tom Boland’s monumental James Duhig4 and Neil Byrne’s Robert Dunne.5 Several

‘First United Methodist Conference’, Brisbane Courier, 3 March 1898, p. 6. Presbyterian clergy in Queensland tended to come from the more evangelical postDisruption forms of Scottish Presbyterianism, and from Northern Ireland. Apart from the English Benedictine spring, Australian Catholicism owed most to Irish Catholicism. 3 W.R. Johnston, A Documentary History of Queensland (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1988); R. Fitzgerald, From the Dreaming to 1915: A History of Queensland (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1982); R. Fitzgerald, From 1915 to the Early 1980s: A History of Queensland (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1984); R. Evans, A History of Queensland (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 4 T.P. Boland, James Duhig (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1986). 5 N.J. Byrne, Robert Dunne: Archbishop of Brisbane (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1991). 1 2

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accounts have been written about John Dunmore Lang, who, while influential in the establishment of the colony, never actually lived in Queensland.6 Presentations to the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, subsequently published in that organisation’s journal from 1914 to 2011, show that of 976 papers presented, only 31 were about religion, and a disproportionate number of these were about Lutheranism.7 Perhaps the only exception to this dearth of historical writing about religion in Queensland is Ron Lawson’s Brisbane in the 1890s, which arguably is as much a work of sociology as it is history.8 So a systematic study of the role of religion in the colony and state of Queensland remains unpublished and, possibly, as yet unwritten. The Religious Culture of Colonial Queensland Nonetheless, the Christian religion did exist in colonial Queensland; and its predominant form was pietistic Evangelicalism of which Methodism was a core constituent. The origins, nature and influence of Pietism and the Evangelicalism that arose from it, especially in Europe and the United States, have been widely studied.9 In Queensland, where Lawson argues that the want of clergy inhibited the development of institutional religion in the colony, Methodism grew most strongly of all the denominations in the period between separation and Federation. In their rhetoric about clergy recruitment, the Wesleyan Methodists saw piety as the essential attribute of any aspiring colonial circuit rider. An unattributed piece in the Christian Witness and Methodist Journal in 1889 proclaimed: The ministry of today needs of those who with some emphasis may be called men; they need to be strong in every sense of the word. A good physical basis of life is a necessity. Piety – strong, deep, healthy – is an essential; but no less is sanctified common sense.10

D.W.A. Baker, Days of Wrath: A Life of John Dunmore Lang (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1985); W.S. McPheat, ‘John Dunmore Lang with Special Reference to His Activities in Queensland’ (MA thesis, University of Queensland, 1952); R. Lawson, ‘Dr John Dunmore Lang and Immigration’ (MA thesis, Australian National University, 1966); and P.C. Weekes, ‘The Colonist’ (BA (Hons) thesis, Australian National University, 1973). 7 W.N. Gunson, ‘The Nundah Missionaries’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland 6, no. 3 (1960–61): 511–39. 8 R. Lawson, Brisbane in the 1890s (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1973). 9 See, for example, F.E. Stoeffler, The Rise of Evangelical Pietism (Leiden: Brill, 1971); G. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism 1870–1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980); and E.R. Sandeen, The Origins of Fundamentalism: Toward an Historical Interpretation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968). 10 Christian Witness and Methodist Journal 1, no. 2 (February 1889), p. 3. 6

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Certainly the polity of Methodism – its emphasis on circuits, lay preachers, class meetings, the stationing of clergy and lower educational barriers to entry for clergy – meant it was tailor-made for servicing new settlements on the rural frontier, but also well adapted to meeting the needs of transient railway camps and boom-and-bust mining towns. Denominations relying on ordained clergy, rigorously trained in seminaries or universities, such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England and the Presbyterians, all struggled to provide clergy across the enormous distances of a colony whose capital was closer to Melbourne than it was to Cooktown. This common piety, which also spawned a de facto congregationalism in church polity, was reflected in an accommodating ecumenism which saw clergy from the various evangelical churches – Presbyterians, Congregationalists, the various Methodist sects and occasionally the Baptists – engaged in what appears to have been a constant round of pulpit exchanges. It also led to a joint newspaper publishing venture.11 Even though relatively short-lived, commencing publication in July 1876 and ceasing in December 1886, the Queensland Evangelical Standard appeared at a critical time and served through its interdenominational character to maintain the ascendancy of pietistic Evangelicalism in Queensland. Joining Edward Griffith as promoters of the Standard were his fellow Congregationalist minister T.J. Pepper, Methodist ministers F.T. Brentnall and W. Osborne Lilley, D.F. Mitchell, minister of Park Presbyterian Church, South Brisbane from 1876 to 1908, and Presbyterian layman Gilbert Lang. The writers of the Standard epitomised pietistic Evangelicalism in colonial Queensland. With the breaking of the drought in the summer of 1877–78, the Standard’s editorial covered its lack of exegesis with exhortation: when the land languished, the watercourses were dry, the cattle were perishing by the hundreds, and our hearts were sad with fear, we called upon the Lord with one consent, and He heard our prayer … Let us be self-reliant and struggle through our present financial difficulties, for God helps those who help themselves.12

In 1885, when drought again threatened and worship services to offer prayers for rain were being organised, the Standard spelled out the relationship between piety and prosperity, or more specifically between poverty and impiety: ‘The springs of wealth are professedly under His control, and if they be dried up, we

11 The role of non-Anglican Protestant clergy in the development of the press in colonial Queensland is a topic worthy of further research. Denis Cryle’s excellent study The Press in Colonial Queensland: A Social and Political History 1845–1875 (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1989) concludes at 1875. 12 Queensland Evangelical Standard, 30 March 1878.

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must seek the cause not in a capricious and arbitrary will, but in the misuse of our blessings when they flowed freely.’13 Pietistic Evangelicalism and Political Conservatism The second historiographical issue to address is that of Methodist history itself; the portrayal by E.P. Thompson of English Methodism as reactionary and the subsequent debate about Thompson’s claim among historians.14 Without prejudging the evidence we are about to examine, there is certainly a divide between conservatism and activism in Methodism in colonial Queensland. While it is an overstatement to suggest that in Queensland this reflected the divide between the Wesleyan Methodists and the Primitive Methodists, reading the extant copies of the respective denominational journals,15 newspaper reports of District Meetings and Conferences of the respective traditions, and the life stories of some of the key actors in the 40 years between separation from NSW in 1859 and Federation in 1901, there is a sense that the Primitives were more evangelical in sentiment and democratic in temperament, and more rural rather than urban in location, than the Wesleyans. Moreover, in politics, as the labour movement emerged, the question arises whether the Wesleyans eventually aligned themselves with the conservatives, as the nineteenth-century urban liberals, of which they were originally part, joined the rural (Anglican and Presbyterian dominated) squattocracy, and whether connections with the nascent labour movement are more likely to be found among the Primitive Methodists. This, in turn, raises the question for the study of twentieth-century Methodism in Queensland as to whether the numerical dominance of the Wesleyans over the Primitives at Connexional Union in 1898 extinguished the fires of activism, a commitment to engaging with the working class and to assisting and advocating for the poor, or indeed for strangers in a foreign land. So what was the position of Methodism in colonial Queensland, according to the available census data, and the respective strengths of the two major traditions represented?16 Queensland Evangelical Standard, 16 October 1885. For a most recent canvassing of this issue, see R. Boer, ‘E.P. Thompson and the Psychic Terror of Methodism’, Thesis Eleven 110, no. 1 (2012): 54–67. 15 The Wesleyan publication the Christian Witness and Methodist Journal and the Christian Ensign (The organ of the Primitive Methodist Connexion, Queensland). 16 Given that nominalism was far less in the nineteenth century than in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, it is argued that the nineteenth-century census data offers a reasonably reliable snapshot of religious affiliation. The assiduous work of the RegistrarGeneral of Births, Deaths and Marriages in colonial Queensland has provided historians 13 14

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Methodism across Queensland, 1846–1901 The first census of the Moreton Bay settlement in March 1846 found a population of 24 Methodists, in a total population of 1,569. Of Methodism’s various traditions, the Wesleyans and Primitives were strongest in Queensland. The first census of the colony in 1861 (after separation) shows Methodists at 4.77 per cent of the total population which numbered some 30,000. They were, however, over-represented in the Brisbane census districts with some 10.22 per cent of the population, confirming that Methodism was, at that stage, principally urban. The Lutherans, by contrast, were strong in the rural farming districts. In 1861 there were no adherents of Methodism north of the Tropic of Capricorn. Methodism’s strength in the early years lay in urban Brisbane, and in the regional centres of Ipswich, Warwick, Toowoomba and Maryborough, and in Rockhampton, where the Primitive Methodist cause flourished from 1864 with the arrival of the Rev. Robert Hartley. The sugar-growing cities of Bundaberg, Mackay and Cairns were not strong centres of Methodism,17 and it was also almost entirely absent in the western Darling Downs, the far-west and the far-north of the state. Across the four decades to Federation in 1901, the Methodist proportion of the population grew to 5.99 per cent in 1871, 6.72 per cent in 1881, 7.84 per cent in 1891 and 9.25 per cent in 1901, the strongest growth of any denomination in that period. By 1891 the census collection was sufficiently sophisticated to disaggregate the various forms of Methodism in the colony, and we find that the Wesleyans made up approximately two-thirds and the Primitive Methodists one-third of the Methodist constituency of some 30,000 souls, in a total population that was nearly 400,000. By 1901 the colony had a population of half a million; and nearly 50,000 (almost 10 per cent) of these were Methodists, of whom some 6,575 reported themselves to be Primitive Methodists, just over 14 per cent of the population calling itself Methodist. The urban rural imbalance among Methodists had been reduced to some extent, with 11.2 per cent of the Brisbane population claiming Methodist affiliation, as against 9.25 per cent of the state as a whole. Methodist Foundations Queensland began as a convict settlement on the shores of Moreton Bay, and later on the banks of the Brisbane River, in 1824. Free settlement commenced in with detailed census data captured in 1861, 1864, 1868 and 1871 and thereafter every five years to 1891, when the census became decennial. 17 Although these cities did have a higher than average percentage of Presbyterians.

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1842, and the colony separated from NSW in 1859 and by 1863 the Union Jack was planted at Somerset, on the tip of Cape York. All that remained was for the land mass between the tip of Cape York and Point Danger on the Queensland– NSW border to be populated. This occurred through the steady northward expansion of the pastoral industries, the opening of coastal ports to service the pastoralists, and the sudden, often short-lived, explosion of mining communities beginning with the discovery of gold at Gympie in 1867. Prior to the Gympie gold rush, exploitation began of a large deposit of copper in the Peak Downs district in 1863, a deposit which could only be mined efficiently through the importation of experienced Cornish miners. In 1847, William Moore, a lay missionary who had volunteered for service in Fiji, was appointed to establish a (Wesleyan) Methodist circuit in the colony at Moreton Bay, and on 24 October that year Moore conducted his first service at an interdenominational mission hall in Queen Street. Moore was preceded in his evangelistic endeavours by a party of German missionaries who had arrived in 1838, under the auspices of the Rev. Dr John Dunmore Lang, to establish a mission to Aborigines at Nundah, then known as Zion’s Hill. Lang, who represented the colony in the Legislative Council of NSW, was a diligent, if not always ethical, promoter of immigration to Moreton Bay. Lang recruited English artisans for Moreton Bay, and many were Methodists, laying the foundation for a class of small business people who became an influential, progressive, liberal voice in the politics of a colony, unsurprisingly, dominated by large landholders until the emergence of the labour movement in the late 1890s. The first Primitive Methodist appointment to Queensland, the Rev. W. Colley, arrived in 1860. He was joined in 1861 by the Rev. Thomas Thatcher, and in 1872 by the Revs J. Addison and J. Williams from NSW, and in 1874 by the Rev. William Powell. In 1865 the Rev. J. Buckle was appointed to Ipswich. After Colley accepted an invitation to work in Rockhampton in 1863, he was joined by the Rev. Robert Hartley in 1864, who stayed until his death in 1892. Hartley was ‘a public figure as well as a church statesman’.18 In addition to vigorously promoting the extension of the Primitive Methodist cause in central Queensland, Hartley was instrumental in the creation and management of the Rockhampton Benevolent Society, a non-sectarian activity dedicated to the relief of the poor and destitute.19 In 1880, amid strong public debate about the supply of labour for the colony, including proposals to import indentured labour from India (as occurred in Fiji), the Primitive Methodists floated a proposal to bring English working men of their persuasion to Central Queensland. Given that discussion about immigration into the colony had invariably had sectarian overtones since 18 Dingle, R.S.C., ed. Annals of Achievement: A Review of Queensland Methodism, 1847–1947 (Brisbane: Queensland Book Depot, 1947), p. 281. 19 ‘Rockhampton Benevolent Society’, Morning Bulletin, 15 July 1880, p. 2.

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J.D. Lang’s efforts in the late 1840s and the activities of Bishop Quinn’s Catholic Immigration Society in the 1860s, it was promising that one of the colony’s more sectarian journalists, Thaddeus O’Kane, the Catholic editor of the Charters Towers Northern Miner, supported the proposal, arguing, ‘we do not see how the government could object to the proposal on its merits’, O’Kane editorialised: Those Primitive Methodists would not keep their rigidities long under an Australian sun. They would soon melt into the general body of citizens. They would come here, not as a congregation, but as a community, and for the common worldly purpose of making a living. The same course would be open to the Methodists, the Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Anglicans, and the Roman Catholics.20

The colonial government, however, did not support the proposal. Methodism and the Working Class in Colonial Queensland Renate Howe and R.B. Walker have drawn our attention to the social composition of Methodism in Victoria and NSW respectively.21 No such similar studies exist in Queensland, although Ronald Lawson argues that the conclusions hold true for Queensland.22 In his wide-ranging presidential address to the first united Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist Conference in 1898, following Connexional Union, the Rev. Charles Stead made reference to the relationship between Methodism and the working class.23 This was unusual in that such references are almost absent from addresses, reports and resolutions of Conferences and District Meetings across the colony in the preceding decades. Also of interest in the report of this address are the points where applause is reported: While intemperance is prevalent, and Sabbath desecration is robbing the labouring man of his rights, the Methodist Church has work before her. (Loud applause.) It is undeniable the sphere of Methodism must not change. She began her noble career amongst the working classes, when she commenced to lay hold on the populations of Great Britain. She soon began to make poor men rich, Ignorant men wise, and

Northern Miner, 11 October 1881, p. 2. Renate Howe, ‘Social Composition of the Wesleyan Church in Victoria during the Nineteenth Century’, Journal of Religious History 4, no. 3 ( June 1967): 206–17; R.B. Walker, ‘Growth and Typology of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in New South Wales, 1812–1901’, Journal of Religious History 6, no. 4 (1971): 331–47. 22 Lawson, Brisbane in the 1890s, p. 271. 23 Stead spent much of his long career as a Methodist minister in NSW; his only appointment in Queensland appears to be the presidency of the united Conference. ‘Late Rev. Charles Stead’, Sydney Morning Herald, 31 May 1916, p. 12. 20 21

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profligates prosperous, pure, and noble … When Methodism forgets the poor man she will deserve to die. (Applause).24

Not all Methodists were so sympathetic to the cause of the poor. An almost archetypal example of the Wesleyan clergyman-turned-businessman was Frederick Brentnall (1834–1925) who arrived in Queensland in 1873 and retired from the ministry in 1883. Born in Derbyshire, he was in business before being sent to NSW in 1863 as a Wesleyan minister. Entrepreneurial and organised, Brentnall quickly rose to become chairman of the district, and was also, according to his biographer Ron Lawson, ‘a forceful and eloquent preacher’, serving in metropolitan Brisbane and Ipswich.25 He joined the Telegraph newspaper as a journalist after retiring from active ministry and became a substantial shareholder, becoming chairman of directors in 1885. He was also involved in banking, insurance, mining and real estate development. As his business career progressed, he became more conservative politically, and his biographer described him as ‘an uncompromising enemy’ of the Labor Party. One of the few Methodist clergy to engage with the working class and become part of the labour movement was the Rev. John Adamson, a Primitive Methodist who arrived in Australia in 1884. Born in Durham, Adamson trained as a blacksmith and was involved in the trade union movement prior to his arrival in Australia. His first appointment was in the gold-mining town of Mount Morgan, and he subsequently served at Cooktown, Barcaldine, Maryborough, Ipswich and Boonah – all rural and regional communities. Adamson left the Methodist Church in 1904 and was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly for the seat of Maryborough in 1906. Uncomfortable with the strictures of party discipline, he declined to stand for re-election but was re-elected to the Queensland Parliament in 1911 as the member for Rockhampton, and when the Ryan Labor Government came to power in 1915 he was made Minister for Railways. An empire loyalist, whose two sons volunteered for the Australian Imperial Force in the First World War, he was compelled to resign from the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in 1916. He was strongly pro-conscription and aligned with William Hughes, and his career in politics continued when he was elected to the Senate as a Nationalist in 1919.26 As the Primitive Methodist minister of Mount Morgan from 1884 to 1889 he was diligent and hardworking. By his own account,

‘First United Methodist Conference’, Brisbane Courier, 3 March 1898, p. 6. R. Lawson, ‘Brentnall, Frederick Thomas (1834–1925)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/brentnallfrederick-thomas-3050/text4487, accessed 24 November 2012. 26 ‘Tragic Death’, Brisbane Courier, 3 May 1922, p. 5. 24 25

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he has ridden horseback, on an average 300 miles a month, or about 15,600 miles during the four years, and had also had much walking, and travelling on the railway. He has visited about fifteen families weekly, or about 3200 in the four years, reading and praying with them, generally conducted about three services every Sunday, or 624 in all, also two services weekly in various places in the bush, making 604 in all.27

While much of Adamson’s ministry at Mount Morgan is reported in terms of his success in building a church and a parsonage, there is little public evidence of his labour proclivities. However, upon his departure from Barcaldine almost a decade later in 1898, an article appeared in the press, noting that the employees at Barcaldine Downs have sent £16 2s. 6d. to Mr. Adamson as a parting gift in consideration of the great interest he has taken in the men engaged in shed work. The donation was accompanied by a letter, signed by the chairman of the shed, thanking Mr. Adamson for the zealous endeavours made by him for the moral and intellectual improvement of the workers in the Barcoo.28

Adamson was apparently an exception to Banjo Paterson’s famous description of ‘the outer Barcoo where the churches are few and the men of religion are scanty’.29 Sabbatarianism For the non-Anglican Protestants of colonial Queensland (Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists), desecration of the Sabbath was one of the great sins of the late nineteenth century. On Sunday, 22 June 1890, a young lady described in the press as ‘a female acrobat’, who rejoiced in the name of Gladys van Tassell, ascended in a hot-air balloon in Townsville in the presence of several hundred members of the Queensland Defence Force, one of whom, Major Des Vouex, on bended knee, presented the lady with the bouquet of flowers prior to her ascent. ‘The effect was’, the Courier reported, ‘sweetly romantic.’30 The Defence Force members had been marched to the event by their officers, and paid a shilling each for admission. The Rev. James Stewart, a onetime Presbyterian minister then engaged in the non-denominational Town and Country Mission, was present at the event and publicly protested against ‘Mount Morgan’, Morning Bulletin, 18 March 1889, p. 5. ‘Barcaldine’, Morning Bulletin, 18 April 1898, p. 6. Barcaldine was the site of the 1891 shearers’ strike which led to the formation of the ALP. 29 A.B. Paterson, ‘Bush Christening’, The Bulletin, 16 December 1893. 30 ‘Sunday Balloon Ascent: The Defence Force Assisting’, Brisbane Courier, 27 June 1890, p. 3. 27 28

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the desecration of the Sabbath, and, according to one newspaper report, ‘was hooted’ for his trouble.31 The following Sunday, the Rev. W. Osborne Lilley, from his UMFC pulpit in Ann Street, attacked the actions of Defence Force officers in conniving at the desecration of the Sabbath. Similar sentiments were expressed in Presbyterian and Baptist pulpits on that day, and at the Opera House Evangelistic service that evening, according to the Brisbane Courier, resolutions were passed in support of Mr Stewart, and those present resolved to ‘protest in the name of morality and all that conserves the well being of our national life against the recent desecration of the Sabbath in the Acacia Vale Gardens’.32 The Chief Secretary was apparently unimpressed by Colonel French’s explanation of the Defence Force’s involvement, and the colonel was subsequently admonished.33 The Pacific Island Labour Trade However, the greatest moral challenge facing colonial Queensland was not temperance, or Sabbath observance or social purity, or, indeed, the plight of the working class, but the Pacific Island labour trade. Beginning in 1863, and ending in 1901, an estimated 60,000 Pacific Islanders were brought to Queensland as indentured labourers.34 They worked on some 73 plantations, principally in the sugar industry, with the largest concentrations, in descending order, in the districts of Mackay, Bundaberg, Maryborough, Ayr, Cairns, Innisfail and Halifax (Ingham).35 The issue dominated colonial politics in Queensland from separation to Federation. Abolitionists like William Brookes, a Methodist layperson who devoted his political career to the issue and almost went bankrupt in the process, were on one side; on the other were sugar plantation owners, including the Gibson Brothers at Bingera, described in the Wesleyan monthly journal the Queensland Christian Witness in the following terms: ‘These gentleman

‘Queensland News’, Rockhampton Morning Bulletin, 24 June 1890, p. 5. ‘The Pulpit: Ann St Methodist Church’, Brisbane Courier, 30 June 1890, p. 6. 33 ‘The Sunday Balloon Ascent at Townsville: Commandant’s Explanation, The Chief Secretary’s Opinion’, Brisbane Courier, 10 July 1890, p. 6. 34 R. Evans, K. Saunders and K. Crown, Exclusion, Exploitation and Extermination: Race Relations in Colonial Queensland (Brookvale, Sydney: Australia and New Zealand Book Company, 1975), p. 167. 35 Evans, Saunders and Cronin, Exclusion, Exploitation, and Extermination, pp. viii– ix. They came principally but not exclusively from Melanesian islands – Vanuatu and the Solomons – and were brought to Queensland between 1859 and 1901. 31

32

Queensland Methodism until 1902

85

are Wesleyans, and strong supporters of our cause.’36 Some 230 Pacific Island labourers were domiciled at Bingera in 1890. In January 1884, William Dart, a plantation owner described as one of the pioneers of Methodism in the Redlands, was found guilty of not providing adequate medical care and attention to a Pacific Islander who died of burns suffered while working at his plantation.37 Charges were brought under the Pacific Island Labourers Act of 1880, and the police prosecutor argued that the case was akin to manslaughter and the defendant should receive the maximum penalty. Dart pleaded guilty and was fined £20.38 He subsequently left the Redland district, moving first to establish a sugar plantation on the Brisbane River at Saint Lucia and then to Bundaberg.39 Even after the recruiting of Pacific Islanders was subject to regulation, the islanders were still exploited as cheap plantation labour. A Wesleyan layman, William Brookes arrived in Sydney in 1848 and, after an unsuccessful sojourn on the Victorian goldfields, moved to Brisbane, where he purchased an ironmongery business. Brookes entered the Legislative Assembly in 1864 and soon began to lobby for improved conditions for Pacific Island labourers imported to work in Queensland. Brookes lobbied the imperial government to take action against the trade and the imperial Pacific Islanders Protection Act of 1872 went some way towards meeting his concerns.40 Among his fellow Methodists, Brookes was exceptional in his agitation on this issue. Unlike the Presbyterians, whose New Hebrides missionaries such as the Rev. John G. Paton were vociferous in their public opposition to the Pacific Island labour trade, and who established their own Queensland ‘Kanaka Mission’ at Mackay,41 the councils of the Methodist churches seemed almost oblivious to the presence of the Pacific Islanders. A search of the minutes of the Wesleyan Conferences from 1863 to 1901 shows regular resolutions on temperance, gambling, desecration of the Sabbath, the proclamation of public holidays on race days, the place of the Bible in state schools, the opium trade and social purity but no mention of the Pacific Island labour trade.42 By 1901, however, the 36 W.B., ‘Kanaka Sunday School’, Queensland Christian Witness and Methodist Journal 1, no. 9 (September 1889): 18–19. 37 Brisbane Courier, 12 January 1924, p. 9. 38 Brisbane Courier, 14 January 1884, p. 5. 39 Brisbane Courier, 16 July 1930, p. 20. Dart’s plantation was on the river flats where the University of Queensland now stands. 40 D. Dignan, ‘Brookes, William (1825–1898)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/brookes-william-3066/ text4523, accessed 24 November 2012. 41 D. Hilliard, ‘The South Sea Evangelical Mission in the Solomon Islands: The Foundation Years’, Journal of Pacific History 4, no. 1 (1969): 41–64, at p. 44. 42 The 1894 Conference Minutes are typical in this respect, see pp. 52–4.

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recently united Conference had noticed the presence of Chinese immigrants in the colony, and reported: After long waiting a Chinese missionary has been sent by the Board of Missions to North Queensland … where there are several thousand Chinese, Malays, and men of other races. It is a comfort to know that we have at length done something to wipe away the reproach of ‘neglecting the heathen who are at our own door’.43

That same Conference also noted the impact of the Boxer Rebellion in China, saying, ‘The troubles in China have interrupted missionary work there’, but that ‘the subsidence of the Chinese trouble will witness a revival of missionary efforts’.44 But the repatriation of Melanesians who had settled in Queensland troubled the Methodist Conference. In 1902, after the inaugural Commonwealth Parliament passed the Pacific Island Labourers Act in 1901, the Rev. A.J. Hutchinson was reported as saying in his presidential address to the Queensland Conference: I must say that it does seem to be a wrong thing that some fifty, or it may be 100, Kanakas who are members of our church and are honest, industrious men at that, should be exposed to the danger of being sent out of our country, back to their own land of savagery. And I think that this conference will be quite within its rights if it determines to send a strong protest to the Federal Premier against any such inhumanity being perpetuated against Christian men.45

In the previous year, when the General Conference was held in Brisbane, the indefatigable F.T. Brentnall had organised a rail excursion from Brisbane to Bundaberg, so that members of the Conference could inspect for themselves the Gibson and Howes plantation at Bingera and he ‘believed it would mean much towards removing grave misapprehension respecting the Kanaka question, and be calculated to permanently benefit all concerned’.46 The ‘misapprehensions’ to which Brentnall refers were no doubt suggestions that the Pacific Islanders were living in less than ideal conditions and being treated less than fairly, suggestions made in less than fraternal fashion by the Presbyterians, and the labour movement. No doubt other Wesleyan Methodists shared the view of the Victoria and Tasmania Conference President who, after a visit to North Queensland in 1903, unhesitatingly declared that white labour on the sugar p. 20. 44 p. 20. 45 46 43

Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church, Minutes of Queensland Conference, 1901, Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church, Minutes of Queensland Conference, 1901, Brisbane Courier, 27 February 1902, p. 3. Brisbane Courier, 22 May 1901, p. 12.

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plantations is next to impossible north of the Tropic of Capricorn. He disagreed with the statement that white labour would ultimately replace black labour in the northern cane fields.47 Again, the available evidence suggests that the Primitive Methodists had a closer affinity with the poor, the sojourners and the dispossessed than did the Wesleyans. In 1889, the Primitive Methodist Minister Robert Hartley at Rockhampton accompanied a reporter on a visit to the camps on the town’s northern fringe populated by time-expired Pacific Islanders. It was reported ‘there were 200 Kanakas living in the scrub at North Rockhampton earning a precarious livelihood in the neighbourhood’.48 Hartley knew his way around the camps, obviously having been a frequent visitor, and had celebrated marriages for the fringe dwellers.49 Six years earlier, in response to accusations in the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin that the spiritual needs of the Pacific Islanders had been neglected, Robert Hartley wrote to the editor that, ‘For a long time fifteen to twenty regularly attended the Primitive Methodist Church, and were allowed the use of the church on the afternoon of the Sabbath to hold a service in their own language.’50 Methodism at Federation: Almost Equally Gorgeous In the 1890s, just as the federal spirit swept through the colonies’ parliaments and polling places, so, too, did it sweep through the nation’s pulpits and pews. In 1898 the inaugural Queensland Methodist Conference was held, bringing together the Wesleyans, the Primitive Methodists, the United Free Methodists and the Bible Christians, although there were some hold-out congregations such as the Leichhardt Street Primitive Methodists.51 As Methodist Connexional Union approached in 1898, the Primitive Methodist Church reported itself as having 35 ministers, 152 local preachers, 77 churches, 116 other preaching places, 1,110 members and 85 Sunday Schools with 573 teachers and 4,959 students.52 Beyond the advocacy by Conference resolution of prohibition, ‘social purity’, restraints on gambling and Sabbatarianism, there is little evidence of active engagement by nineteenth-century Queensland Methodists with the working Brisbane Courier, 22 April 1903, p. 1. ‘The Kanaka Settlement, North Rockhampton’, Morning Bulletin, 16 August 1889,

47 48

p. 6.

‘The Kanaka Settlement, North Rockhampton’, Morning Bulletin, 16 August 1889,

49

p. 6.

Morning Bulletin, 10 February 1883, p. 3. Lawson, Brisbane in the 1890s, p. 250. 52 Christian Ensign, 3 December 1896, p. 117. 50 51

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class and the nascent labour movement, a movement which in Queensland grew from radical shearers and miners in the bush;53 the non-conformist conscience was notable by its absence. Methodism’s petit bourgeois constituency and hierarchical polity paved the way for social entrepreneurship to be the defining legacy of Queensland Methodism in the twentieth century. At Federation, Methodism had undoubtedly secured its place at the top table of colonial society. This was exemplified by the career of Arthur Rutledge. Rutledge (1843–1917) was ordained as a Wesleyan minister in 1865, serving principally in NSW and then in Brisbane, where he settled in 1875, and took to the study of law, being called to the bar in 1878.54 Henceforth his life was devoted to politics, as a Griffith liberal, and to legal and judicial work. He represented Queensland at the 1891 inter-colonial Conference; in 1899, supported by the Protestant connections at the Brisbane Courier, he prevailed over the popular Labor member for Maranoa, Robert King, went into opposition with the advent of the Dawson Labor Government in December of that year, and attempted to form a government after the resignation of Premier Robert Philp in 1903. He was knighted in 1902.55 Rutledge represents the upwardly mobile petit bourgeois, characteristic of Queensland Methodism. This is how the Brisbane Courier reported what it headlined as a ‘Royal Levee And Reception … Important Social Gathering for HRH the Duke of Cornwall and York’ (later King George V) on 24 May 1901: ‘Sir Hugh Nelson, with amplitude of gold lace on his Court dress, followed, and after him came the Hon. Arthur Rutledge, K.C., almost equally

53 Arguably the Roman Catholic Church effectively locked the Protestant churches out of the union movement and the Labor Party in Queensland, such was the sectarian spirit of the age, and those such as John Adamson who were members of the ALP, and who achieved ministerial office, were forced out in the split over conscription in the First World War. Bob Linder’s examination of the influence of Methodists in the ALP rightly shows that Queensland was different; there were no Methodists prominent in the Queensland union movement. R.D. Linder, ‘The Methodist Love Affair with the Australian Labor Party, 1891– 1929’, Lucas 23 and 24 (1997–98): 35–61. W.G. Spence was not a Queenslander; the only Queensland union official with a Methodist background was Anthony Ogden from North Queensland, who, according to Brian Stevenson, was ‘Involved in temperance movements from boyhood, he was a candidate for the Methodist ministry but withdrew; however, he held many offices in the local church as a lay preacher’. B.F. Stevenson, ‘Ogden, Anthony (1866–1943)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http:// adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ogden-anthony-7885/text13709, accessed 24 November 2012. 54 J.C.H. Gill, ‘Rutledge, Sir Arthur (1843–1917)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/rutledge-sirarthur-8307/text14565, accessed 23 September 2012. 55 R. Fitzgerald, Seven Days to Remember: The World’s First Labor Government, Queensland 1–7 December 1899 (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1999).

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gorgeous, and the other Cabinet Ministers.’56 One can only wonder, however, what the Tolpuddle Martyrs, those early Methodist pioneers of trade unionism transported to Australia in 1834, would have made of such a display.

‘Royal Levee and Reception … Important Social Gathering’, Brisbane Courier, 24 May 1901, p. 9. 56

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Chapter 6

Methodism in Western Australia, 1829–1977 Alison Longworth1

Wesley Church, Perth, was crowded on 29 March 1900, when the congregation rose to sing the Charles Wesley hymn traditionally sung at such occasions: ‘And are we yet alive?’ It was the opening service of the inaugural Western Australian Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australasia. Henry Burgess, President of the General Conference, addressed the gathering and suggested that time and distance from the other colonies meant the Methodist cause in Western Australia was a church apart.2 The history of Methodism in Western Australia is certainly unique and therefore this chapter will cover the whole period from 1829, when the Swan River Colony was established as a remote British colony on the Indian Ocean rim, through to 1977, when the Methodist Church of Australasia entered into the Uniting Church of Australia. ‘Swan River Mania’ was the description given to the excitement generated in London about the establishment of a colony of free settlers on the Swan River in 1829.3 The first colonists to arrive, however, were disappointed and camped for months in tents on the sandy coastline at Fremantle during a very wet winter. When discouraging reports were published in London newspapers later that year, the flow of immigrants slowed.4 The colony struggled for decades and yet some determined settlers remained, among them a small group of Methodist laypeople, including those who arrived on board the Tranby in February 1830. The Earliest Methodists Those early Methodist colonists belonged to the Wesleyan stream of Methodism. Joseph Hardey was a local preacher and a prominent member of the Tranby I am grateful for research assistance provided by David Hilliard in accessing material from South Australia. 2 Western Mail, 24 March 1900, pp. 59, 61; Western Methodist, 31 March 1900, pp. 1–4. 3 Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 15 May 1830, p. 3. 4 I. Berryman, ed., Swan River Letters, vol. 1 (Glengarry, WA: Swan River Press, 2002), p. 23. 1

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group. Hardey recorded in his diary that on 28 February 1830 he conducted the first Methodist service in the colony, at the port of Fremantle, with approximately 50 people in attendance.5 The Tranby Methodists settled on the Peninsula, upstream from the main settlement at Perth. From 1831 some also acquired land over the Darling Scarp at York. The Wesleyans initially attended the Church of England ‘rush church’ in Perth while conducting their own class meetings and services in homes or under a jarrah tree in the settlement of Perth.6 It was this traditional Methodist emphasis on lay leadership that enabled the Wesleyan settlers to establish themselves in the colony. By 1834 a brick chapel, known as the Subscription Chapel, had been built in Murray Street, Perth. As the Wesleyans built their first church, conflict was escalating between the settlers and the Nyungar people.7 The previous year, men from the Peninsula, including Hardey, had joined with Captain Ellis’ soldiers and captured the old Nyungar warrior Midgegooroo and his young son.8 On 27 October 1834 Governor James Stirling plus 24 men set out for Pinjarra on a punitive mission. There were conflicting reports, but one eyewitness account suggested that 25 to 30 men were killed and possibly more bodies floated down the river.9 Joseph Hardey recorded on 28 October: ‘It has been a shocking slaughter, I fear, more so than was needed.’10 While Hardey was dismayed by the massacre, their presence as settlers meant the Methodists were part of the process of dispossession. In 1836 they requested the WMMS in London to send a missionary who would minister to them and the Indigenous people.11 It was four years before the Rev. John Smithies, his wife Hannah and their four children arrived in Fremantle early in June 1840.12 Smithies set to work with evangelistic passion. Within two months the foundation stone had been laid for a chapel at the port of Fremantle and a larger chapel and mission house were planned for Perth on four acres of land granted by the government.13 It The Diary of Joseph Hardey, Extracts, 1830–1939, ACC 346A (Battye Library), f1. T. Shipley, Full Circle: A History of Wesley Church Perth (Perth: Uniting Church in Australia, Synod of Western Australia, 2003), p. 13. 7 Nyungar is the generic name for the Indigenous people of the south-west of Australia. 8 Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, 18 May 1833, pp. 77–8. 9 Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, 1 November 1834, pp. 382–3. 10 The Diary of Joseph Hardey, Extracts, 1830–1839, Entry for 28 October 1834, ACC 346A, folio no. 6. 11 Joseph Hardey & others to WMMS, London, 17 July 1836, MN 172 ACC 2309 A/1 Records, in Methodist Church of Australasia WA Conference (Battye Library). 12 W. McNair and H. Rumley, Pioneer Aboriginal Mission: The Work of Wesleyan Missionary John Smithies in the Swan River Colony 1840–1855 (Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 1981), p. 34. 13 J. Smithies to Wesleyan Missions London, 8 October 1840, MN 172 ACC 2309 A/1 Records. 5 6

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was named the Centenary Chapel in honour of the centenary of John Wesley’s conversion at Aldersgate Street, London in 1738.14 Reflecting a Methodist emphasis on holiness and evangelism, Smithies encouraged the Wesleyans to live holy lives that would lead both Indigenous people and unchurched settlers to commit to the Christian faith. Smithies recalled his first encounter with two young Nyungar boys in traditional dress of kangaroo skin who rowed him from Fremantle upstream to Perth. The Subscription Chapel became a school for Nyungar children, with the Methodist Francis Armstrong appointed as the mission teacher, supported by his wife Mary. The children attended school for two hours each day and worked as servants for various settlers, returning to sleep at Armstrong’s residence. So the school was to serve two functions: evangelism and training the Nyungar students to fill a servant role in the colony. The mission was soon beset by difficulties when influenza caused several deaths and the girls needed protection from the advances of male colonists. Consequently, in 1844 the Mission moved to Gullillilup, 20 km north of Perth, with the intention to establish a mission farm, however further deaths among the students who had no immunity against introduced diseases meant parents were increasingly reluctant to trust the mission with their children. Growth of the colony, as well as the Methodist community, continued to be slow. The 1848 census calculated the population, excluding Aboriginal people, at just 4,622 settlers, with 276 declaring Methodist adherence.15 After 10 years in the colony Smithies expressed his discouragement when he reported to the Wesleyan Mission in London: ‘We have entered the year 1850 and what to do I do not know.’16 His despair was related to his isolation and concern about the future of the Aboriginal Mission, particularly since his assistants at the mission, Frederick and Fredericka Waldeck, were about to leave. The colony was struggling too and to ease the labour shortage it was decided to accept convicts. The first convicts arrived in June 1850. In response to the increase in population through the arrival of convicts, their wardens and new settlers, Smithies commenced regular services in Fremantle which added to his workload.17 The fact that many newcomers had abandoned any form of religion troubled Smithies. He was overwhelmed providing an itinerant ministry to scattered communities and ministering to the Indigenous people. Smithies Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, 9 January 1841, pp. 3–4. J.C. Caldwell, ‘Population’, in Australians: Historical Statistics, ed. W. Vamplew (Broadway, NSW: Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, 1987), pp. 23–41, at pp. 23 and 26; W.W. Phillips, ‘Religion’, in Australians: Historical Statistics, pp. 418–35, at p. 426. 16 J. Smithies to Wesleyan Missions London, January 1850, MN 172 ACC 2309 A/1 Records. 17 J. Smithies to Wesleyan Missions London, 26 September 1851, MN 172 ACC 2309 A/1 Records. 14 15

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continued to express his loneliness and complained about the lack of response from the Wesleyans in London or the eastern colonies. Smithies moved the Aboriginal Mission to York in 1851. He provided an itinerant ministry to the Methodist settlers there, and a request to Governor Fitzgerald resulted in a land grant in York of 100 acres and an additional 8 acres for a chapel and manse. Ironically, after the decision was made, collegial support finally arrived in the person of William Lowe from Adelaide. Smithies left him in charge of the congregations in Perth and Fremantle and moved the family to York in 1852, where a church was built that year. In York, as in Perth and Gullillilup, Smithies hoped to begin work with the Indigenous children. Like the colonial mission work throughout the Australian colonies, however, the mission in York was not successful due to a combination of factors including the trauma of dispossession, disease and the colonists’ lack of understanding about the importance to Nyungar people of their cultural and kinship ties. The Aboriginal Mission was closed in 1854. Joining a Wider Connexion While Methodism in the west continued to struggle, in 1854 the Wesleyan Conference in England appointed Robert Young to investigate the possibility of establishing a separate Wesleyan Conference within Australia and Polynesia. The isolation meant that Young did not include the Swan River District in his itinerary. Passenger and mail shipping avoided the hazardous west coast and instead used the safe harbour at King George’s Sound at Albany, on the south coast. Young did not travel the approximate 400 km journey by road from Albany to the Swan River settlement. Smithies wrote to Young when he was at Albany in July 1854, informing Young that the Aboriginal mission had passed into the control of the government and wrote, ‘Truly a visit from you would have been as life from the dead. Well that is nothing new, disappointed hopes seem to be our unhappy lot.’18 Smithies was not alone in expressing disappointment. When Young passed through Albany on his return journey to England, William Lowe wrote to him, to express his deep regret that for the second time Young had not visited the main settlement in the Swan River region.19 Lowe pleaded for an additional minister, preferably a single man as the Wesleyans did not have finance enough to support another married person. Initially the population had increased with 18 J. Smithies to R. Young, 15 July 1854, MN 172 ACC 2309 A/1 Records, in Methodist Church of Australasia Western Australian Conference (Battye Library), p. 139. 19 W. Lowe to R. Young, September 1854, MN 172 ACC 2309 A/1 Records, in Methodist Church of Australasia Western Australian Conference, pp. 141–2.

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the arrival of convicts, but when other settlers left for the newly discovered goldfields in Victoria Methodist numbers were reduced. Lowe may have been exaggerating when he suggested that if it were not for the convicts, the colony was in danger of being abandoned, but it reflected the desperation of both ministers. Disappointed hopes continued for the Western Australian Wesleyans. Young focused on the wider Australasian context and was confident that the Wesleyan churches in Australia were ready to form a separate connexion and be financially independent.20 It was a new era for Wesleyan Methodism in Australia, but what about the isolated church in Western Australia? When the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australasia gathered for its inaugural Conference in Sydney on 18 January 1855, Western Australia was recognised as a District, but no representatives from Western Australia were among the 40 Wesleyan ministers present.21 The long sea journey from Perth to Sydney made this impractical. The Western Australia District comprised two ministers and four circuits; William Lowe was stationed in York and Samuel Hardey was now stationed in Perth. Fremantle and King George’s Sound (Albany) circuits were both listed as vacant while John Smithies had left his lonely post and was stationed at New Norfolk in Van Diemen’s Land.22 The chapel in the heart of Perth continued to be the dominant centre for the Wesleyans. Within a decade it had outgrown the Centenary Chapel and a larger chapel was planned. Thanks to generous donations from Joseph Hardey and the estate of George Shenton, further land was acquired on the corner of Hay and William Street in Perth.23 Named Wesley Church and opened on 10 April 1870, the church was described as ‘the most handsome that has been erected in the city’, built in the early English Gothic style, with a gallery to be erected at a later date.24 William Traylen was ordained two days after the church’s official opening, the first ordination in the colony and the culmination of a year of training in London plus three years as a probationary minister in Western Australia.25 Even with the growth of the central church, statistics, as shown in Table 6.1, demonstrate that the Wesleyan cause remained small in Western Australia. Consequently, when a new constitution for the Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Conference came into effect in 1874, Western Australia remained a District, R. Young, The Southern World: Journal of a Deputation from the Wesleyan Conference to Australia and Polynesia: Including Notices of a Visit to the Gold Fields (London: Hamilton, Adams, 1854), pp. 401–4. 21 Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church, Minutes of Conference, 1855, p. 3. 22 Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church, Minutes of Conference, 1855, p. 8. 23 Shipley, Full Circle, p. 98. 24 Inquirer and Commercial News, 13 April 1870, p. 3. 25 C.H.T. Germon, ed., A Wesleyan in the West: The 1866–1872 Diary of William Traylen (Grovedale, Vic: Cyril Germon, 2006), pp. 27, 46. 20

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attached to the South Australian Conference.26 From that time a General Conference was to meet every three years, while the four regional Conferences would meet annually. Table 6.1

Membership of the Western Australia District of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australasia, 1854–1873

Year Number of chapels Other preaching places

1854 2

1873 10

4

10

67

118

Number of scholars

150

483

Total attending worship including children

450

1,330

Full and accredited members

Source: Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church, Minutes of Conference, 1855, Appendix 2; Minutes of South Australia Conference, 1874, General Returns, p. 24

Some Methodists, like Sir George Shenton, son of the pioneer George Shenton, made a significant contribution to civic life.27 A generous benefactor, choirmaster, organist and trustee of Perth Wesley, Shenton was elected as the first Mayor of Perth in 1880. Ten years later he was elected to the Legislative Council when Western Australia was granted responsible government. Another trustee of Perth Wesley was James Sykes Battye, who came to Perth in 1894. He served as state librarian, was a historian and became Chancellor of the University of Western Australia.28 A dramatic change occurred in the history of Western Australia and Methodism when gold was discovered in Coolgardie in 1892. The sudden rise in population was largely from the eastern colonies and included an influx of Methodists. Over the next few years numerous congregations sprang up in the goldfields serviced by itinerant ministers or local preachers. The South Australian Conference appointed George Rowe as minister of Perth Wesley Church in March 1893. With a Methodist concern for social issues, Rowe responded to the lack of services in the colony and established the Sisters of the People. Within three months two nurses from South Australia arrived. Sister Marian (Billing) A.D. Hunt, This Side of Heaven: A History of Methodism in South Australia (Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1985), p. 97. 27 West Australian, 1 July 1909, p. 7. 28 F. Alexander, ‘Battye, James Sykes (1871–1954)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/battye-jamessykes-5156/text8651, accessed 16 March 2013. 26

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and Sister Louie (Harriet Goldring) were joined by the Western Australian recruit Sister Ada (Murcutt), and the three were inducted on 24 July 1893. The Sisters established their pastoral work in Perth and Fremantle.29 Sister Louie commenced an evening class for Chinese residents of Perth in 1893. Following the visit of the Chinese Methodist Minister James Moy Ling from Melbourne, a Chinese Mission was established with Paul Soong Quong as the resident minister serving the Chinese in Perth and Fremantle.30 The Sisters of the People offered nursing care to all in need, especially on the goldfields, during the typhoid epidemic of 1895, often in makeshift canvas hospitals.31 Mission work among Japanese in Perth was commenced in 1897 initially by the missionary Miakowah, a convert of George Rowe, and later by Isabella Taylor who had previously worked with the Chinese Mission in Ballarat.32 This work continued for many years. The Movement towards Methodist Union Until this time Methodists in Western Australia were united as Wesleyans, while in the eastern colonies there were several minor Methodist denominations, including the Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians. These like-minded groups were recognising the wisdom of working together in the Australian context. In 1894 the Wesleyan General Conference agreed to work towards union, and the Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians made a similar decision in 1895. Ironically, within months of that decision, Bible Christian John Dingle and Primitive Methodists Thomas Allan and Arthur Burt arrived in Western Australia to minister to their people who had come to the west during the gold rush.33 They soon came to an agreement that the Bible Christians would build a church in Coolgardie, while the Primitive Methodists would build in Kalgoorlie with a double roll of members kept at each centre. The arrival of the minor Methodists carried the potential for disunity in Western Australia, as the Wesleyan Methodists had already begun work in the goldfields in 1894. George Rowe was in Kalgoorlie in May 1896 to promote the work of the Sisters of the People and to introduce Sister Mildred. When he extended a welcome to Burt at the public meeting, it appeared hopeful that the three Methodist denominations would work amiably towards Methodist V. Whittington, Women of Compassion. The Sisters of the People: Their Mission and Work in Western Australia 1893–1977 (Perth: Vera Whittington, 2002), pp. 3, 10–11. 30 Western Methodist, 18 May 1899, p. 3. 31 Whittington, Women of Compassion, pp. 4–7. 32 Western Methodist, 22 June 1899, pp. 1, 5. 33 South Australian Primitive Methodist, July 1896, pp. 9–13. 29

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Union.34 As they negotiated church union, Methodists in Western Australia demonstrated their loyalty first to God, and then to the British Empire and the British Crown. This loyalty included support for British involvement in the Boer War. Western Australian troops served there from 1899. Methodist support was evident when the entire front page of the February 1900 edition of the Western Methodist reported on the service of Lieutenant H.F. Darling, a Methodist from Geraldton who was serving as part of the First Western Australian Contingent, while another full page was devoted to a letter from the British Wesleyan Chaplain, the Rev. E.O. Lowry, also serving in the Boer War.35 The dramatic growth in the colony created the perception among Western Australian Methodists that they were unique in their progressive attitude and not afraid to take risks.36 Certainly the isolation had contributed to a Methodist community that could be innovative in its decision-making. Methodist Union in Western Australia was achieved on 1 January 1900, the same date that Western Australia finally achieved the status of a Conference. It was two years to the day before the Methodist Church of Australasia would become a reality. Statistics for the year 1900, shown in Table 6.2, confirmed that much of the growth could be attributed to the Methodist presence on the goldfields, within the Eastern District. Table 6.2

General Returns, Western Australia Conference, 1900 Southern District Northern District Eastern District Totals (including Perth) (mainly goldfields)

Churches

28

7

25

60

Other preaching places

56

22

13

91

Members

1,152

229

626

2,007

Scholars

3,785

378

1,898

6,061

Sitting in churches

6,730

720

4,131

11,581

Source: Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church, Minutes of Western Australia Conference, 1901, General Returns

The goldfields vote was a significant factor in achieving the affirmative vote for Federation, which came into effect on 1 January 1901. When the establishment in Perth seemed ambivalent about Federation, goldfields residents proposed separation into an independent colony in order to join the Commonwealth of Kalgoorlie Miner, 22 May 1896, p. 2. Western Methodist, 22 February 1900, pp. 1, 5. 36 Western Methodist, 12 January 1899, p. 6. 34 35

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Australia, and this prompted a change of heart from Premier Sir John Forrest.37 The dissension in Western Australia over Federation was still lingering in 1902, when Methodists were reminded of the positive benefits that would come from Federation when the whole continent was connected by the railway.38 Post-union Methodism The 1902 Conference demonstrated its adherence to traditional Methodist values when it called members to continue to support total abstinence from alcohol and Sabbath observance. It acknowledged the service of local preachers, and the work of the Sunday Schools and Christian Endeavour movement among young people. The Conference resolved that, subject to the approval of the Leader’s Meeting, active members of Methodist Christian Endeavour societies could be considered members of the Church and the monthly Consecration meeting of the Christian Endeavour Society could be regarded as a class meeting.39 Class meetings were becoming less frequent, but church extension was pronounced. For example, in 1905 the Southern District reported six new churches and an additional 17 were approved to proceed in both metropolitan and rural areas.40 As people moved out of the city to live in the suburbs the city church needed to adapt to declining congregations. Social services were continued in Perth through the Sisters of the People until recognition of Perth Wesley as a Central Mission in 1915 enabled this work to expand. Fremantle became a Central Mission in 1923. A generous donation received from Sarah Hardey, daughter of the pioneer Joseph Hardey, was designated for the establishment of a home for needy young women. The early twentieth century saw new initiatives emerge in the field of education. In 1908 Methodist Ladies’ College commenced as a day and boarding school in the suburb of Claremont.41 In 1911 the Western Australian Conference recognised the need to establish a theological college for the training of ministers.42 Two candidates for ministry were accepted and lectures were provided at the Perth Wesley site until they were discontinued in 1916 as a consequence of the First World War. While Australian loyalty to Britain continued through to the war, the issue of conscription created bitter conflict in Kalgoorlie Miner, 4 January 1900, p. 2. Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of Western Australia Conference, 1902, pp. 18–23. 39 Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of Western Australia Conference, 1902, p. 61. 40 West Australian, 17 November 1905, p. 2. 41 C.A. Jenkins, A Century of Methodism in Western Australia, 1830–1930 (Perth: Methodist Book Depot, 1930), pp. 43–4. 42 Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of Western Australia Conference, 1911, p. 98. 37

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the community. Methodists, including Premier John Scaddan, tended to support conscription. Prior to the federal election of 1917, Thomas Allan addressed a political meeting held to support the National Party led by Prime Minister Billy Hughes, who was urging conscription.43 Conscription referenda were held in 1916 and 1917 and both were defeated. Methodists in the western third of the continent were financially stretched in the 1920s to provide home missionaries for the influx of new immigrants within the Group Settlement centres in the south-west.44 In addition there was a growing concern that the spiritual well-being of people in outback Australia was being neglected through lack of finance and personnel. Arthur Barclay from Western Australia submitted the motion to the General Conference of 1926 that established the Methodist Inland Mission (MIM) Board to oversee the work in remote areas of Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory.45 It was a sign of the continuing smallness of the Western Australian Conference when Western Australia was asked to contribute 7.5 per cent of the total cost. The first appointments through the MIM occurred in 1927 and included H.H. Fennell, appointed to Meekatharra in Central Western Australia, and W.J. Ormandy, appointed to Wyndham in the Kimberley Region.46 The MIM intended to work in cooperation with the Presbyterian Australian Inland Mission which had commenced in 1912. Meanwhile the Home Mission work continued to expand and, in 1929, Barclay appealed to the Conference for increased financial support.47 Twenty-eight home missionaries had travelled from England over the past six years, with 24 continuing to work in rural centres around the state. The centennial year of Western Australia, 1929, saw the General Conference meet in Perth for the first time. So far, Methodist ordination was exclusively a male domain, but the agenda that year included a discussion on the ordination of women.48 The majority were in agreement on principle, but the persistence of separate spheres for women and men in Australian society resulted in the perception that divided loyalties would prevail if ordained women married. While the issue was deferred for further discussion by the Conferences, the Sisters of the People continued with their welfare and pastoral ministry. The plight of Indigenous people was also considered at the 1929 General Conference. In 1928 Methodist minister Athol McGregor and Annie Lock, Daily News, 11 April 1917, p. 4. The Group Settlement Scheme was introduced in the 1920s by the state and federal Australian governments and the British Government as a means to encourage immigrants and develop land in the south-west of Western Australia. F.K. Crowley, A Short History of Western Australia (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1967), p. 101. 45 Register, 28 May 1926, p. 9. 46 Brisbane Courier, 28 January 1927, p. 6. 47 West Australian, 1 March 1929, p. 22. 48 Hunt, This Side of Heaven, p. 340. 43 44

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a missionary with the Australian Aborigines’ Mission, had both raised public awareness about the Coniston Massacre in the Northern Territory.49 After robust debate, the General Conference protested the treatment of Aborigines and expressed regret about aspects of the Royal Commission that followed.50 It further resolved to instruct the Mission Board to consider extending its work among the Aboriginal people of Australia. Some Methodist people became involved with local Indigenous people. In the wheat-belt township of Dangin, ministers and members of the Methodist Christian Endeavour group supported the Nyungar families at the United Aborigines Mission at Badjaling Reserve, where Mary Belshaw and her co-worker May McRidge began work in 1930. During the Depression years of the 1930s the Dangin Methodists provided food and participated in anniversary, Christmas and Easter celebrations at Badjaling, and led worship services.51 Like the missionaries, they did not appear to challenge the discriminatory practices of the time. Another Methodist concern during the 1930s was the escalation of international tension. At the 1936 Conference, Western Australian Methodists declared their commitment to the League of Nations and world peace.52 At the outbreak of war in 1939, however, Methodists rallied with other Australians to defend the nation and grieved at the mounting casualty lists. The Central Missions at Perth and Fremantle continued their social work after the war and provided support to the influx of post-war migrants and refugees. Hardey Lodge received a new focus from 1949 when it became a home for elderly women.53 This was the beginning of extensive work by the CMM in the area of aged care. In 1958 Ralph Sutton, minister at Perth Wesley, provided employment for Bernice Moorehouse, a young woman with hearing impairment.54 From this beginning, Good Samaritan Industries developed, offering employment and training for people with disabilities. Post-war Methodism In the 1950s many congregations in suburban Perth were experiencing growth as a result of the post-war baby boom and migration. The Wembley Methodist Henry Reynolds, This Whispering in our Hearts (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1998), pp. 191–200. 50 West Australian, 30 May 1929, p. 20. 51 United Aborigines’ Messenger, January/February 1932, p. 14; February 1933, p. 11; November 1938, p. 9; November 1940, p. 10. 52 West Australian, 3 March 1936, p. 14. 53 West Australian, 17 November 1949, p. 24. 54 Good Samaritan Industries, Annual Report 2008–2009 (Canning Vale: Good Samaritan Industries, 2009), p. 2. 49

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Church was in its heyday, planting several churches in neighbouring suburbs and building a new hall to accommodate their growing Sunday School.55 The Christian Endeavour group was strong and provided young leaders within the Sunday School and youth group and as local preachers. This continued into the 1960s as the baby boomers entered their teens. The Wembley congregation was typical in that the previously large Sunday School catered almost entirely for the children of church members by the 1970s. Methodist work among Aboriginal people in Western Australia recommenced, 97 years after the closure of the Aboriginal Mission begun by John Smithies. The widespread view that Aboriginal people were a dying race was a factor in this neglect, with assimilation perceived to be an appropriate response in settled areas.56 Ern Clarke was inducted on 8 August 1951 as superintendent of the Mogumber Methodist Mission.57 Established on the site of the former Moore River Native Settlement, the mission covered some 12,000 acres of land and came under the General Conference’s Methodist Overseas Mission. It aimed to provide a self-contained farming community and employment opportunities for married couples, as well as to train children of mixed descent, many of them wards of the state, to assimilate into the general population. Sealin Garlett lived as a child at Mogumber from 1964 to 1970 and recalled that the cultural and social dislocation he experienced as a result of separation from his family led to his initial alienation from the Church.58 At the time the Church saw its role as implementing the government policy of assimilation, although the Uniting Church would later apologise for its involvement in this practice. The Methodist focus on evangelism was not forgotten in the mid-twentieth century when the Mission to the Nation was launched in 1953, with Alan Walker appointed as Missioner. Western Australia proved to be the learning ground for the mission, when Perth was the location of the first of the week-long series of

M. Thomas, A Church in Retrospect: The Story of 75 Years of Worship and Witness in Wembley Uniting (Formerly Methodist) Church, 1917–1992 (Perth: Maud Thomas, 1992), pp. 10–14. 56 A. Longwirth [sic], ‘Churches and Aboriginal Issues’, in Encyclopedia of Religion in Australia, ed. James Jupp (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 107. 57 West Australian, 8 August 1951, p. 7. 58 C.J. Kelly, ‘Dreaming Dreams and Seeing Visions. An Examination of the Lives and Work of Some Christian Aboriginal Leaders’ (Honours Dissertation, University of Western Australia, 2000), pp. 9–13. Converted through the ministry of Aboriginal evangelist Ron Williams, Garlett was ordained in 1991 as a minister with the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress established by the Uniting Church Assembly in 1985. He has struggled with his ambivalence towards the non-Indigenous church and yet recognised his call to ‘cross the line’ and be an advocate for reconciliation. 55

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meetings.59 Walker avoided emotionalism, but did challenge people to make a personal commitment to Christ. Unlike Thomas Cook 50 years earlier, Walker visited the goldfields. It should be noted, however, that not all Methodists in Western Australia supported Walker’s style of evangelism or his theology, perceived as too conservative for some and too liberal for others.60 During the 1940s theological formation was provided at the CMM buildings, although some candidates did train interstate; in 1948 Roland Giese and Presage Sullivan were continuing their studies at Queen’s College Melbourne, with Alfred Wesson about to join them, while Robert Watts was to begin his training at Wesley College in South Australia.61 Theological education progressed in 1951, when the Western Australian Conference resolved that a non-residential theological college be established with Joseph Green appointed Principal.62 The first two women students, Margaret Geddes and Merle Snell, were admitted for training as deaconesses in 1953.63 The college continued to be located in the Queens Buildings adjacent to Wesley Church in William Street, Perth, and, in recognition of Arthur Barclay, who held the position of PresidentGeneral of the Methodist Church of Australasia from 1935 to 1937, was named Barclay College.64 Tentative approaches had been taken towards union between Protestant churches in Australia at the turn of the century.65 Negotiations did not progress until 1954 when the Methodist and Congregational churches confronted the Presbyterian Church with a challenge regarding union of the three churches and dialogue resumed. The long journey towards church union included gradual cooperation in the area of theological education. Kingswood College opened in 1963 as a Methodist College affiliated with the University of Western Australia and from 1964 the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches began to share some theological education either at the Barclay Theological Hall, now located at Kingswood, or at the Presbyterian Oxer House in Mount Lawley.66 By 1967 the two colleges operated out of Kingswood and combined their libraries. R. Mathias, Mission to the Nation: The Story of Alan Walker’s Evangelistic Crusade (Melbourne: Joint Board of Christian Education, 1986), pp. 37–41. 60 R.D. Linder, ‘Alan Walker among the Sharks: Why the Most Important Christian in Australia in the Latter Half of the Twentieth Century was not also a Beloved National Figure’, Church Heritage 17, no. 1 (March 2011): 2–23. 61 Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of Western Australia Conference, 1948, p. 15. 62 Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of Western Australia Conference, 1951, p. 14. 63 G.M. Smith, ‘Transplanting Tradition: The History of Kingswood College’ (MPhil thesis, Murdoch University, 2009), p. 44. 64 Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of Western Australia Conference, 1954, p. 50. 65 M. Owen, Back to Basics: Studies on the Basis of Union of the Uniting Church in Australia (Melbourne: Uniting Church Press, 1996), p. 8. 66 Smith, ‘Transplanting Tradition’, pp. 105–7. 59

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The General Conference of the Methodist Church in Australasia met for a second time in Perth in 1966 and is memorable for its decision to finally move forward with the ordination of women.67 The Western Australia Conference had the distinction of conducting the first female ordination, that of Margaret Sanders on 19 October 1969.68 One other woman, Margaret Zayan, was ordained by the Western Australia Conference, on 17 October 1975. As women were entering into ordained ministry and lay leadership, so the era of the Sisters of the People was coming to a close. A farewell service for Sister Ella Williams was held on 11 January 1976, following her resignation from the Perth Central Mission after a ministry of 28 years. Included in the post-war migration to Australia were many people from the Pacific nations. In the 1970s the Methodist Church in Samoa began sending Pacific Island ministers to Australia. The Rev. Fa’ato’ese Auva’a was the first candidate for this work.69 Although most Pacific Islanders settled in Sydney, in another first for Western Australia, he came to the West Perth Church in 1972, and became the director of the Charles Street Youth Centre.70 The Methodist Church in Western Australia experienced growth in membership that climaxed in the 1960s, however this growth was not in proportion to the growth in total population. The decline did not go unnoticed by the new Director of Home Missions, Arthur Meyer, in 1973; rather than dwell on the reasons for decline, he urged that the traditional Methodist emphasis on evangelism should still be at the heart of all Methodist endeavour.71 Even so, it was timely to have the new focus of imminent church union. Western Australian Methodists were determined to bring their heritage with them into the Uniting Church, particularly their emphasis on evangelism, music, social witness, social services and a growing appreciation of scholarship.72 The musical heritage was certainly recognised in the combined opening service for the three denominations entering into union, at the commencement of their respective annual meetings in 1976. As the united Methodists had done at their first Conference in Perth Wesley Church in 1900, the congregation sang the Charles Wesley hymn, traditionally sung at such an occasion, ‘And are we yet alive?’73 After the long journey towards union, it was a time of nostalgia and hope. The former Methodist delegates, alongside former Congregational Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of General Conference, 1966, pp. 162–4. Peter Bentley, ‘Women Ministers Before 1977’, Church Heritage 10, no. 3 (1998): 161–74. 69 Western Methodist, May 1977, p. 10. 70 Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of Western Australia Conference, 1976, p. 15. 71 Western Methodist, March 1973, p. 1. 72 Western Methodist, November 1976, p. 2. 73 Order of Service for combined worship service held in Wesley Church, Perth, 8 October 1976. 67

68

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and Presbyterian delegates, were living and enduring the changes of history as they entered the process of building a new identity as members of the Uniting Church in Australia.

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Chapter 7

Methodism and Empire Troy Duncan

When the Rev. James E. Carruthers arrived in London for the first time in May 1908, he found himself caught up in the excitement surrounding the PanAnglican Congress. One of the largest religious gatherings witnessed in the imperial metropolis, the Congress attracted clerical and lay representatives from throughout the Anglican Communion and served to emphasise the Church of England’s importance in the life of Britain’s empire. As a Methodist minister of 40 years’ standing and a former President of the NSW Wesleyan Conference, Carruthers was merely a spectator to the Anglican gathering.1 However, shortly afterwards Carruthers travelled to York, where he represented the NSW Methodist Church at the annual Conference of the British Wesleyan Methodist Church. Its members were no less concerned about imperial matters than were delegates to the Pan-Anglican Congress. One of Carruthers’ tasks was to discuss with officials of the Wesleyan Missionary Society the arrangements for sending Australian missionaries to India who were shortly to begin their work there under the aegis of the British church.2 Over half a century had passed since the British Conference had granted autonomy to the Wesleyan Church in Australia, but Carruthers continued to think of it as the most significant deliberative body in the Methodist world and he was gratified to find that he and his fellow Australians represented the largest of the colonial delegations at York.3 The Methodist, the official organ of the church in NSW, noted that these delegates were the subjects of detailed profiles in the British Methodist press. ‘The presence of Australian ministers in the Home land is not ignored by English Methodism as was too frequently the case some years ago. Now they are recognised and welcomed and honoured.’4 Carruthers observed that the importance attached to the presence of the colonial representatives was reflected in the fact that they were seated on the platform directly behind the President of the Conference. From this vantage point Methodist, 22 August 1908, p. 2. J.E. Carruthers, Memories of an Australian Ministry, 1868 to 1921 (London: Epworth Press, 1922), p. 175. 3 The Methodist, 19 September 1908, p. 1. 4 The Methodist, 22 August 1908, p. 3. 1

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he was able to spot among the lay representatives ‘a peer of the realm (Viscount Wolverhampton), two or three baronets, a score or more of knighted “Sirs”, at least one Lord Mayor, a Cabinet Minister, and several Mayors, and members of the House of Commons by the dozen’.5 Contemplating this scene, Carruthers thought how anachronistic William Wilberforce’s fear about being ‘a bigoted and despised Methodist’ now seemed. He felt that ‘Methodism has won for itself, under the blessing of God, a position of power and influence that removes its people from any danger of being “despised”, because of their connection with it.’6 The one disappointing aspect of the Conference was the refusal of the Anglican representatives to acknowledge that Methodism was a church, a regrettable omission, observed The Methodist, given the ‘manifest seal of God upon it in its increasing influence in the Old Land and in the Outposts of Empire’.7 Methodists and the Future of the Empire During the quarter century before Carruthers made his appearance at the York Conference, there had been much theorising in intellectual and elite circles about the future of the British Empire. This debate, as Duncan Bell shows, was heavily influenced by the ideas of writers such as Charles Dilke and J.R. Seeley who envisaged the creation of a ‘Greater Britain’ or an imperial federation in which the ‘Mother Country’ and its colonies would be permanently united.8 Carruthers and other Australian Methodists may not have committed themselves to a particular model of imperial unity but, having previously lamented the apathy about the settler communities which they felt existed both within and outside the Methodist churches of Britain, they welcomed the increased interest in the colonies which the debate about imperial federation had helped to arouse in the imperial metropolis. It was hardly surprising that Methodists in Australia should have greeted the upsurge of interest in the empire within Britain. For them, as Don Wright and Eric Clancy have noted, the empire was an ‘article of faith’ and like most of their co-religionists throughout the empire they had imbibed a belief in Britain’s providential mission as the pre-eminent champion of Protestantism and the civil and political freedoms they associated with it.9 Such a conviction, as Linda Colley and others have shown, was a crucial The Methodist, 5 September 1908, p. 1. The Methodist, 3 October 1908, p. 1. 7 The Methodist, 19 September 1908, p. 1. 8 D. Bell, The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860– 1900 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. 1–30. 9 D. Wright and E.G. Clancy, The Methodists: A History of Methodism in New South Wales (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993), pp. 102, 130. 5

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element in the shaping of Britain’s national identity.10 Many in the Australian Wesleyan Methodist Church believed during the late nineteenth century that Methodism was making a crucial contribution to the British Empire. Buoyed by the growing prestige of the Methodist churches in Britain, whose leaders were increasingly attentive to the affairs of their colonial co-religionists, Wesleyans in NSW confidently asserted Methodism’s significance as a force binding together Britain’s global community. Drawing mostly on material from the denominational press in NSW between the 1860s and the Boer War, this chapter is a survey of opinions expressed by Wesleyans about the significance of the Church in the consolidation of the empire. Australian Methodists and the British Conference The Wesleyan Church’s progress towards self-government following the creation of the Australasian Conference in 1855 did not result in any slackening of interest in the affairs of the parent body. Of the articles reproduced from the British denominational press in Christian Advocate and Wesleyan Record and its successors none appear to have attracted greater attention than those dealing with the British Conference. It was Methodism’s pre-eminent deliberative body, according to the Advocate, occupying a significant place in the history of Christendom.11 The annual session of that illustrious assemblage, which is still pre-eminently the Conference, is an event not only in British Methodism, but in Methodism throughout the world. Thousands of Wesleyan readers, from Vancouver’s Island to Fiji, look for the conference columns of the Watchman, more eagerly than for the stirring items of ‘Reuter’s Telegrams.’ The British Conference is, perhaps, the largest clerical conclave in existence. It certainly represents the largest purely voluntary organization that has characterized the Christian era. Every year its deliberations assume features of greater interest and of more impressive magnitude.12

When in 1877 the Weekly Advocate succeeded the Christian Advocate, it felt little need to justify its decision to continue its predecessor’s policy of devoting significant space to reports about the annual meeting of the WMMS, ‘the mother of Australasian Methodism’, which was held each May in Exeter Hall.13 These accounts, appearing under such headings as ‘Voices from Exeter Hall’ or ‘Echoes 12 13 10 11

L. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (London: Vintage, 1996), p. 58. Christian Advocate and Wesleyan Record, 24 October 1861, p. 73. Christian Advocate and Wesleyan Record, 29 October 1864, p. 101. Weekly Advocate, 7 July 1877, p. 113.

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from Exeter Hall’, usually elicited extensive editorial commentary in which the Australian church’s indebtedness to British Wesleyanism was emphasised. They not only informed readers of the extent of Wesleyan missionary efforts throughout the empire but they allowed immigrants to keep in touch with church life at home and were often an occasion for nostalgic reflections about British Methodism and life in the ‘Mother Country’. The editor of the Christian Advocate wrote wistfully about how May in England was the ‘Queen of Months’ when [the] loveliness of nature was in striking harmony with the season of festivity and holy joy, which marked the annual meetings of the various evangelical and philanthropic Societies of Great Britain, and which crowned the British metropolis with a diadem of glory, as the queen of all cities in the domain of religious enterprise.14

The meetings of the British Conference took on additional interest for readers of the Wesleyan press when they were attended by clergy representing the Australasian Conference. Probably no minister was able to address a British audience about Antipodean affairs with greater authority than the Rev. W.B. Boyce. In many ways, Boyce personified the link not only between the Australian Church and the parent body but also its connection to Methodism in the wider empire. After a lengthy career as a missionary in South Africa, Boyce was appointed by the WMMS as Superintendent of its missionary churches in Australasia for the purpose of overseeing their transition to independence. In 1855, he became the first President of the Australasian Conference.15 While Boyce’s influence was felt most in Australia, it also extended to England, where he served as General Secretary of the British WMMS, and to Canada, where he presided over the first Conference of East British America. Not surprisingly, he developed an imperial perspective on the Church’s growth and took a deep interest in the development of Britain’s colonies.16 However, Boyce’s main concern remained the Australian Church whose interests he continued to promote in England. The Christian Advocate reported in 1873 that Boyce, acting as the representative of the Australian Church which he had recently visited, told the British Conference that Australians ‘speaking generally, were more English than the English themselves – they were intolerably English – all the faults and all the virtues of our national character had there run to seed. If they wished to see John Bull exaggerated in all his points, rotundities, and angularities, they must go to Australia.’17 Christian Advocate and Wesleyan Record, 1 August 1873, p. 72. Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, pp. 28–32. 16 J. Colwell, The Illustrated History of Methodism. Australia: 1812 to 1855. New South Wales and Polynesia: 1856 to 1902 (Sydney: William Brooks, 1904), p. 392. 17 Christian Advocate and Wesleyan Record, 31 October 1873, p. 113. 14 15

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Strengthening Fraternal Ties There was an intense interest among Australian Wesleyans about how their Church was perceived at ‘home’. This was reflected in the denominational press. During the 1860s and 1870s, however, many feared that despite the efforts of Boyce and others to raise awareness of colonial Methodism most British church members were apathetic about their brethren in the wider empire. When William Kelynack, a Cornish-born minister, returned to the land of his birth in 1877 to represent the Australian Church at the British Conference, he found these anxieties to be well-founded.18 In a series of lengthy articles written for the Weekly Advocate, the future President of the NSW and General Conferences described how his elation at being back in England slowly gave way to a sense of dismay as he was confronted by the ignorance of Methodists about the Australian colonies. ‘The truth is that there is much ignorance respecting this fair land. I was sometimes amused and at other times slightly indignant at the ideas which prevailed touching Australia.’19 When Kelynack addressed the Bristol Conference in 1877, he acknowledged that Australia ‘lacks those features of picturesqueness’ which characterised the missionary fields of Italy, India, China and Japan but he emphasised that in Australia Wesleyan Methodism was ‘a very powerful element in shaping the lives of those great communities which are so fast rising into the dimensions of empires’.20 Australian Wesleyans pinned much of their hopes on countering the apathy which existed about them in the imperial metropolis upon occasional visits of British church dignitaries. Hopes of strengthening ties with the British Church were raised when Dr Gervase Smith, a former president of the British Conference, visited Australia in 1877. The Weekly Advocate declared that ‘we doubt not that his patriotic feelings have been strengthened by what he has seen of this part of the great British Empire’.21 Smith’s presence at the Second Australasian General Conference prompted it to seek to establish fraternal ties with the General Conference of the Methodist Church in Canada. ‘United to you as we are by blood, by language, by commercial interests, by connexion with the British Empire, and by belonging to “the Methodist family,” we greet you in the name of the Lord Jesus’, ran the official address to the Canadians, which referred to the presence of Dr Smith, who had visited North America five years before. ‘His visit to these lands has strengthened the bonds of attachment between us and the British Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church.’22 Colwell, Illustrated History of Methodism, pp. 577–8. Weekly Advocate, 29 September 1877, pp. 209–10. 20 Weekly Advocate, 29 September 1877, pp. 209–10. 21 Weekly Advocate, 1 June 1878, p. 69. 22 Weekly Advocate, 1 June 1878, p. 74. 18 19

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A more optimistic note about the future of relations between the Australian and British churches is evident in articles and editorials from the early 1880s, a time when there was growing discussion among intellectual and elite circles in Britain about the value of the empire. The debate was largely inspired by the appearance of Charles Dilke’s Greater Britain and Sir John Seeley’s The Expansion of England. These and other works dealing with the subject of imperial unity were noted in the Wesleyan press. In 1883, the Weekly Advocate, which had often complained of England’s neglect of colonial interests, claimed that ‘British statesmen are beginning to regard Australia as an integral part of the Empire’, and there was developing ‘a wider and juster appreciation of the value of the Australian colonies’ in England.23 However, the paper was not prepared to allow secular writers to claim all the credit for the recent upsurge of interest in imperial matters. It argued that recent interchanges between the Australian and British churches had strengthened the bonds of empire. To support its claim it pointed to ‘Notes on Australasia’, a series of articles which appeared in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine. They were penned by Dr Thomas B. Stephenson, a leading English minister, who had recently visited Australia. He criticised the indifference that existed in England about the colonies and urged the teaching of colonial geography in English schools to help overcome it, a suggestion applauded by the Advocate. ‘It does seem to us an immense mistake to teach young England the names and physical features of every petty Germany principality, and leave him ignorant of the geography of the magnificent colonies which any one of the great European powers would be proud to call their own.’24 The Advocate also endorsed Stephenson’s call for closer contact between British and Australian Methodists, noting that he had ‘expressed some degree of regret concerning the autonomous character of Australian Methodism’, and feared that British Methodists were becoming better acquainted with leading American Methodists than their counterparts in the colonial churches.25 Jubilees and Anniversaries During the late nineteenth century, interest in John Wesley and his place in British history peaked. The increased interest was stimulated by the third Jubilee of Methodism in 1890, the Centenary of Wesley’s death in 1891 and the Bicentenary of his birth in 1903. These anniversaries, together with the celebrations associated with the dedication of Wesley’s house in London as a Weekly Advocate, 10 November 1883, p. 258. Weekly Advocate, 24 March 1883, p. 412. 25 Weekly Advocate, 24 March 1883, p. 412. 23 24

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museum in 1898, were occasions for Australian Wesleyans to join with their co-religionists in England and elsewhere to reflect on the significance of the movement Wesley founded to Britain and the empire. ‘The rise and progress of Methodism is undoubtedly the greatest fact in modern history’, declared the Weekly Advocate in 1890. ‘While modern England has been the greatest factor in the progress of the modern world, Methodism has, more than any other force, awakened the slumbering powers and shaped the destinies of modern England. To this fact, historians, statesmen, and ecclesiastics have borne abundant evidence.’26 When Carruthers was in Britain in 1908 he followed a well-worn path to Wesley’s house in London, which adjoined the City Road Chapel, described by Carruthers as the ‘Westminster Abbey of Methodism’.27 There had been considerable interest in Australia when 10 years earlier it was announced that Wesley’s house was to be converted to a museum, a decision taken partly to gratify a demand from Methodist pilgrims from Britain’s settler communities. Australian Wesleyans greeted this as an indication of a growing awareness among British Methodists of the significance of the colonial churches and of the importance of Methodism as a movement in the wider empire.28 For many Australians, Wesley’s house had already become a focus of reverence in the imperial metropolis to rival St Paul’s. The Methodist saw the presence of the Dean of Canterbury and the representatives of other Protestant Churches at the dedication ceremony as further evidence of Methodism’s growing prestige in England. Far away as we are from the Mother Land and the Mother Church, the great dedicatory service has a twofold meaning to us. It was a unique demonstration of Methodist vitality and loyalty, and at the same time one of the strongest proofs of the essential spiritual unity of the great Christian churches in England … The choice intellects and the large hearts of British Methodism were present as the representatives of a Church on whose world-wide operations the sun never sets, and they were not ashamed of Methodist doctrine nor Methodist lineage.29

During the 1870s, when it seemed that interest in the colonial churches was at a low ebb among British Methodists, Dr Kelynack had urged them to think of Australasian colonies as partners of Britain in fulfilling a divine mission. To us it seems as if the great Lord of all lands had reserved the territories of the South as the home of States having an Anglo-Saxon origin, which should in the coming time

28 29 26 27

Weekly Advocate, 15 February 1890, p. 384. The Methodist, 25 July 1908, p. 3. The Methodist, 19 March 1898, p. 10. The Methodist, 7 May 1898, p. 9.

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cooperate with England on the one hand and America on the other, in hastening the jubilee of nations, in speeding the universal triumph of Christianity.30

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, with discussion of Greater Britain at its height, Australian Methodism produced in the person of the Rev. William Fitchett one of the most popular exponents of British imperialism. Although he had been a dominant figure in Victorian Methodism from the early 1880s, the NSW connexional journal shared the pride which many of its readers felt about the fame Fitchett achieved throughout the British world following the publication in 1897 of his Deeds that Won the Empire.31 Describing Fitchett as the best-known Australian Methodist in Britain, The Methodist noted that upon his arrival in England in 1905 he was made an honorary member of the Athenaeum, ‘being the only Methodist minister who has been so honoured’.32 Fitchett, who was renowned for his impassioned advocacy of Australia as the ‘unrealised asset of the Empire’, had no difficulty in discerning God’s providential purpose in the life of the empire.33 In Deeds that Won the Empire, Fitchett attributed British success in battle to superior strategy and innate racial characteristics and the belief that God had protected England and given it an empire because of its fidelity to the Protestant faith. In many of the speeches which he gave, as well as in his 1906 publication Wesley and His Century: A Study in Spiritual Forces, Fitchett maintained that the Wesleyan revival of the eighteenth century provided much of the spiritual foundations for England’s imperial greatness. The magnitude of Wesley’s achievement, said Fitchett, was best seen in the flourishing state of Methodism beyond England’s shores. Pointing to the progress of the Church in Australia and Canada, where it was the largest Protestant denomination, Fitchett observed: ‘Why, just as to understand the greatness of the British Empire you must get away from England, so to see Methodism in its true proportions you must live at a distance from the Old Country.’34 The Growing Prestige of Methodism One measure of British Methodism’s rising status, in which Australian Wesleyans took pride, was its connections with royalty. The Wesleyan press, like that of other Protestant denominations, praised Queen Victoria as an exemplar of 32 33 34 30 31

Weekly Advocate, 31 August 1878, p. 176. W.H. Fitchett, Deeds that Won the Empire (London: Smith, Elder, 1897). The Methodist, 5 August 1905, p. 5. The Methodist, 30 September 1905, p. 2. The Methodist, 7 October 1905, p. 2.

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Christian womanhood and lauded her fidelity to those Reformation principles which were supposedly why Providence advanced Britain’s global fortunes.35 Reports of the prominent part played by Methodists in the 1897 Jubilee were received with pride in Australia. Relying on the detailed accounts in the Methodist Recorder, a leading British weekly, The Methodist noted that at Chelsea Barracks, ‘a great Methodist parade service is held every Sunday morning for Colonial troops during their visit’, and that many Australians had been present at the special service in Wesley’s Chapel which preceded the great procession from Buckingham Palace to St Paul’s Cathedral. The Methodist also reproduced an account from the Recorder of the Thanksgiving service held on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral which emphasised the proximity of leading Methodists to the other dignitaries, particularly the Archbishop of Canterbury and Prime Minister Lord Salisbury.36 The remarks made about the spiritual significance of the Jubilee by the President of the British Wesleyan Church, the Rev. Wilkinson, in his address to the 1897 Conference appeared in The Methodist. Wilkinson believed he discerned in the great Jubilee procession of ‘Satraps, envoys, ambassadors, representing kingdoms, empires, nations and races’ a reflection of the moral forces which had been unleashed by the Wesleyan revival. Has not Methodism made a contribution to this … in my opinion the Evangelical Revival in this country a hundred years ago was to a vast extent the spiritual root, the tree of which has grown the wealth and power of our modern civilization. In common with other Evangelical Churches, we have made a very real and very large contribution to the wonderful improvement in the liberty, in the wealth, virtue, contentment of this great people.37

Wilkinson gave his speech in the presence of Sir Samuel Way, the Chief Justice and Lieutenant Governor of South Australia, who was acting as an Australian representative at the Conference.38 The sense that Methodism was a force binding together the empire was reinforced by the increasing number of church members, particularly those with Australian connections, who were occupying positions of influence within the imperial power structure. Active in the affairs of the Wesleyan Church and a leading proponent of Methodist Union, Sir Samuel was appointed a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the

37 38 1897. 35 36

The Methodist, 3 July 1897, p. 7. The Methodist, 7 August 1897, p. 1. The Methodist, 4 September 1897, p. 8. Mention of Way and other Australian representatives: The Methodist, 18 September

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jubilee year of 1897. Two years later he was acclaimed as the first Methodist baronet in the British Empire.39 The Methodist wrote: in the honours thus conferred upon a distinguished colonist by the Imperial authorities, we cannot fail to see how wonderfully things have changed within the last 20 or 30 years. For a long time the colonies were regarded as an encumbrance rather than otherwise; and it was not then the fashion to confer social honours upon successful colonists. All this, however, has changed; and Great Britain is now recognised as an empire rather than a kingdom.40

For many, Way’s career symbolised not only the strengthening of ties between Australia and the motherland but the growing prestige of Methodism within the empire. Referring to Way’s swearing in as a privy councillor at Windsor Castle, The Methodist observed that while the attention Way received ‘seems natural enough to us here [in] Australia’, it meant ‘a great deal in England, where Nonconformity is still looked upon as connected with social inferiority’.41 Methodists and the Divine Mission of the Empire Given the intensity of imperial sentiment among Australian Wesleyans, it was hardly surprising that The Methodist should have wholeheartedly supported Britain during the Boer War.42 Not only did the Methodist constantly inform and exhort Wesleyans about the Boer War between 1899 and 1902 it also in doing so elaborated its convictions concerning the role of God in human affairs, the mission of the British Empire, the theology of war, the parameters of human responsibility, and the criteria for an effective peace.43

However, in addition to deepening its readers’ sense of Britain’s imperial mission, The Methodist was also eager to highlight the significant part played by Methodists in fulfilling that mission. For its understanding of the conflict The Methodist relied heavily on the opinions expressed in such British journals as The Spectator and the Methodist Times, whose editor was the famous Methodist minister Hugh Price Hughes. The paper noted that the Wesleyans ‘are J.J. Bray, ‘Way, Sir Samuel James (1836–1916)’, ADB, vol. 12 (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1990), pp. 417–22. 40 The Methodist, 5 June 1897, p. 7. 41 Spectator in The Methodist, 3 July 1897, p. 3. 42 A. Patrick, ‘A Dreadful but Absolute Necessity: The Boer War according to The Methodist’, 39

Church Heritage 6, no. 4 (September 1990): 109–21. 43 Patrick, ‘A Dreadful but Absolute Necessity’, p. 112.

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essentially an Imperial body, and their leaders are not likely to lack information on matters of Imperial concern’.44 Commenting on this observation, The Methodist thought The Spectator had raised a point that was not sufficiently appreciated by its own readers: The great English journal has herein stated a truth of which we Wesleyans are not fully conscious. Methodism is an imperial body to an extent that Wesleyan Methodists themselves do not fully realise. We are to be found in every province, colony, and dependency of the British Crown. Wherever you find Englishmen in Europe, Africa, Australia, and America, you will also find Methodism. And Methodists everywhere are loyal – intensely, enthusiastically loyal. As the Methodist Times remarks, Methodism is the living cement of the British Empire; and it is one of its greatest providential duties to bind the British Empire together, and also to promote the most intimate relations between the British Empire and the United States of America.45

For one Wesleyan chaplain, Captain James Green, who fought in South Africa as part of the NSW Bush Contingent, the conflict confirmed what he had previously been told about Methodism being a force for imperial unity. ‘I had heard that Methodism was world-wide; since coming to South Africa, I have begun to understand what that means’, wrote Green, in a letter to The Methodist which appeared in September 1900, one of a series to appear in the paper throughout the war.46 When the Commonwealth Government sent new contingents to South Africa early in 1902, Green returned with them.47 Shortly after the Boers capitulated, Green told readers of The Methodist that the British victory had opened up new opportunities for Methodism in South Africa. He noted that in numbers and influence the Wesleyan Church was second only to the Dutch Reformed Church in the Cape Colony, Natal, the Orange River Colony and Transvaal. These areas were still under the British Conference and Green attended a Synod in Johannesburg where he met British church leaders who had travelled to South Africa with the assistance of the War Office for the purpose of reorganising their Church. One of these was the Rev. Marshall Hartley, expected to become the next president of the British Conference, who, noted an impressed Green, ‘had the entrée to official circles, and not only could enlist the sympathy of Lord Milner for church schemes, but could obtain a forecast of the High Commissioner’s intentions so far as they affect church interests’.48

46 47 48 44 45

The Methodist, 25 November 1899, p. 1. The Methodist, 25 November 1899, p. 1. The Methodist, 1 September 1900, p. 8. The Methodist, 1 March 1902, pp. 1–2. The Methodist, 12 July 1902, p. 2.

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In conclusion, Australian Methodists treasured the part they played in the British Empire seeing themselves as helping to fulfil the destiny of the British imperial project. The proceedings of the British Wesleyan Conference were observed with great interest and vigorously commented upon in Australian Methodist newspapers. Methodist church leaders diligently sought to strengthen ties with the British Conference and participated in jubilees, anniversaries and commemorative celebrations of all kinds, eager to play their part in festivities that ritualised imperial progress and strength. At the same time they wished their British colleagues to understand better the uniqueness of the colonial setting and the special contribution that the younger Methodism of the Antipodes stood ready to make. Imperial honours, such as those conferred upon Sir Samuel Way, were welcomed as a sign of Methodism’s growing prestige. Given this context, it is not surprising to see Methodists respond to the call to war in South Africa (and later in the Great War of 1914–18) with a sense of obligation towards the empire and a readiness to contribute to its perceived global mission.

Chapter 8

Methodist Reunion in Australasia Ian Breward

In 1876, the Victorian Wesleyan conference briefly considered whether it was desirable that there should be a united Methodist Church in Australia. That wish was not achieved until 1902, for strong rivalries existed between the four Methodist groups – Primitive Methodists, Bible Christians, United Free Methodists and Wesleyans. They shared the doctrinal bases established by John Wesley, sang the hymns composed by his brother Charles, emphasised personal experience of God in Christ and sought to embody scriptural holiness. They shared the energy of class meetings, the passion for evangelism by local preachers and had much in common in worship. They valued Sunday Schools and other ways of involving young people. In governance, they shared the structure of Conferences, District Synods and local Quarterly Meetings of circuits. They were committed to growth in their colony and to shaping its values and legislation, working with other Protestants where public issues affected Christian concerns. Denominational boundaries were weakened by expansion of settlement and slow growth of ordained ministry to new areas. Expansion into newly settled areas often led to rival congregations being set up very close to one another, when the population rationally justified only one circuit instead of two or three. The cost of such rivalry was one of the main factors that led to growing support for reunion, for most Methodists recognised that there were not significant theological differences which justified division. The divisions which occurred during the nineteenth century were mostly due to English Wesleyan unwillingness to give due place to lay concerns, when these diverged from the convictions of their ministerial leadership. Sometimes competition could lead to sharp mutual criticisms. For reunion to become possible, the social and religious climate needed to change, models of reunion needed to be developed, committed leaders needed to emerge and a majority of members had to come to desire reunion, given the constitutions of the conferences. The ‘Minor’ Methodists The Primitive Methodists grew from those expelled by the 1810 Wesleyan Conference for holding camp meetings, which were felt by the leadership to be

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potentially divisive. Led by Hugh Bourne and William Clowes, the Primitive Methodists were passionate about evangelism. They believed that Wesleyans had become too respectable and had lost their evangelistic energy. Their growth was strongest in the North and the Midlands. Their first ministers were sent to Australia and New Zealand in the 1840s. Their congregations were most numerous in some Sydney working-class suburbs and in the mining areas of the Hunter Valley, where they outnumbered Wesleyans. Worship was enthusiastic and their hymnal differed somewhat from that of the Wesleyans. They lacked the leadership to create a NSW-wide movement, though some of their local preachers were influential, such as Stephen Goold, who was Mayor of Sydney in 1874 as well as a parliamentarian. Interchange of ministers between colonies was common, as was migration of members between colonies on either side of the Tasman. In Victoria, the first Primitive Methodist class meeting was held in Fitzroy on 14 January 1849. A service one week later was disrupted by stone throwing and the banging of kettles, though the police, the following week, ensured order. The first chapel was erected in La Trobe Street, opening in March 1850, shortly after the arrival of John Ride, the first minister. The discovery of gold was disruptive, but unity was restored in 1853, following the arrival of Michael Clarke. Services were also held in Geelong, where George Watts preached in the morning and his wife in the evening. A District Meeting began in 1858, with headquarters opened in 1864 in Lygon Street, Carlton, where there were already other Methodist churches, followed by a book depot in 1874. A denominational paper was begun in 1864 and expansion into new areas ensured that the denomination was second to the Wesleyans by the 1890s. They elected two laymen for every ministerial member of their conference and permitted laymen to be President of Conference, as well as sharing in the stationing of ministers. The Bible Christians originated in Cornwall and Devon in 1815 when local preachers, such as William O’Bryan, were disciplined for disregarding circuit rules on evangelistic preaching. They began in New Zealand in 1841 and in South Australia in 1853, led by James Way and James Rowe. They then expanded into Victoria, especially in the goldfields, becoming a District in 1860. The first Conference met in early 1887, with six Districts. Laymen had wider authority in its business than among the Wesleyans. They were also welcoming to women preachers and evangelists. The United Free Methodists arrived in Melbourne in 1851 and the ministry of Joseph Townend was supplemented by Thomas Bayley in 1862. He helped the group to expand strongly, with 59 chapels established by 1881, though they rejected any state aid. In 1892 separate conferences were set up in Victoria, NSW and Queensland. They were the most democratic of the denominations and were almost congregational in their polity, though Wesleyans had also been influenced by colonial democracy and had begun to modify features of

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their polity, which had earlier led to schisms in Britain. Lay participation in governance grew steadily. The Methodist New Connexion, originating in 1797, began in Adelaide in 1862, led by James Maughan. Another minister, Clement Linley, arrived in Victoria in 1865, but they struggled to survive, let alone grow into a self-supporting community. The Adelaide congregation united with the Bible Christians and the Melbourne group with Wesleyans, both in 1888, once it became clear that the British Conference was unable to support the Australian mission. Moving towards Union Occasional pleas for more cooperation in South Australia and Victoria had little effect in any of the denominations. When George Daniel moved a motion at the Victoria and Tasmania Wesleyan Conference in favour of reunion in 1876 he did not even get a seconder, but the climate had begun to change by 1881 when the first Methodist Ecumenical Conference in London raised issues of partnership that led to complete Canadian reunion in 1884. A smaller union had already occurred in Ireland in 1877. Both were very successful. The Victoria and Tasmania Conference in 1881 resolved ‘to take such steps as in its wisdom it may think proper to bring about such a union’. The General Conference in the same year declared its readiness ‘to consider any well-devised scheme that may come before it for effecting a union with those churches’.1 In 1884 the Victorians appointed representatives to confer with other churches and draw up a Basis of Union. That was achieved and it was sent on to the General Conference of 1885 in Christchurch, New Zealand. Increasing awareness of the cost of setting up and maintaining separate charges in new areas was an important factor in opening up the desirability of co-operation to avoid needless duplication and the cost of maintaining several struggling circuits, instead of one that was able to support itself and carry out a successful ministry to its communities. Some rural districts and mining areas were experiencing serious population decline. In South Australia, for example, Wirraburra, which had a population of 500, had three struggling Methodist churches. In Victoria there were 103 churches in 35 shire towns. Though it was easier to support rival circuits in the capital cities and country centres, thoughtful observers argued that funds for Home Missions could be spent more economically if rivalry was eliminated. In addition, it was argued that one Methodist church would be better able to be heard on important public issues. Only the Wesleyans had significant overseas missions. The Bible 1 Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church, Minutes of the General Conference, 1881, pp. 29, 40.

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Christians had one missionary in China, whom they supported through their British Conference. As early as 1880, the Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians in South Australia had raised the possibility of uniting, without any practical outcome, for the 1887 Basis did not win the necessary two-thirds majority. Some members of the smaller churches found Wesleyan attitudes patronising and their attacks on other ministries distasteful. In Adelaide, the Methodist New Connexion and the Bible Christians had churches within 200 metres of one another. The New Connexion building had seating for 600 but only 80 members, with a debt of £2,000. In May 1888 the congregations united, when the New Connexion Conference in Britain refused any further subsidy. After combining, the congregation grew steadily and became one of the major congregations after the 1902 reunion. Though there was some talk of union of Primitive Methodist and Bible Christian Conferences, it was increasingly clear that Wesleyan participation would give much more significant results. They had double the membership of the combined smaller groups, more recognition in the community, better-educated and better-paid ministers, as well as lower levels of debt and superior Conference funds. They had conceded many of the points which had led to British divisions. On the other hand, they were an articulate group opposed to union with the smaller denominations. They included Jabez Stephenson in South Australia, and William Williams and William Blamires in Victoria. Denominational partnership among Protestant evangelicals was growing in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and that pushed thoughtful Methodists to ask why they should remain separate, when they had so much in common doctrinally, liturgically and organisationally. Melbourne saw a meeting of representatives of the four churches in Wesley Church on 29 September 1883, chaired by Dr Edwin Watkin, which produced a Basis of Union. They were agreed that, considering their doctrinal unity and substantial similarities in polity, needless competition should cease, with the resultant savings in money and ministry. They believed that a united church could more effectively provide ministry to country districts and better evangelise the cities. The Basis which they produced set out the constitution of the General Conference, its powers and the fundamentals which could not be changed. It then dealt with the powers of annual conferences and the questions which should annually be answered. Then followed an outline of the roles played by District Synods and Quarterly Meetings. Attention was paid to the issues of supernumerary and other funds, as well as the possibility of surplus ministers. The consultation believed that they had proposed an equitable settlement and given circuits a larger share in dealing with matters concerning their interests. They underlined how the meetings had been marked by fraternal cordiality and the absence of dissent about all aspects of the Basis. They hoped that it would commend itself to the reason and conscience of the ministers and members of the several churches. The Basis was

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sent down to Quarterly Meetings by the 1887 Victorian Conference, but there was not sufficient support to take matters further, so the Conference decided to take no further steps. Interest among a minority remained high. An inter-church conference was held in Brunswick in 1887. Speeches by leaders at the symposium were published. Dr Watkin argued that reunion was in harmony with the spirit of the age. It was not a combination of weak churches, but rather the binding of strong churches to form one Methodist Church, ‘which would do a greater work for God and man than is being done by our separate vigorous church organisations’.2 Difficulties stemmed from polity and finance, not from doctrine. The steady progress of democracy had made points of difference steadily less significant. He believed that the 1883 Basis avoided both ministerial and lay autocracy. Thomas Copeland, a Primitive Methodist, argued that unity with variety, combined with enthusiastic evangelism, were the chief features God required in a united church. He was convinced that a united Methodist Church would be able to provide Gospel Halls for urban workers, as well as providing ample numbers of evangelists to open new missions. Though he saw no insuperable financial problems, he wanted a better appeal process for members on trial for error, societies to be able to elect to Quarterly Meetings and permission given for laymen to have a part in stationing. The Bible Christian spokesman, Frederick Lockwood, recognised that opposition helped to clarify issues which needed exploration. He rejected the idea that financial difficulties meant that the proposal could not be of God, as some opponents asserted. Parity of stipends could be achieved by gradual phasing in, minor Methodist ministers could buy into the Wesleyan supernumerary fund on an agreed actuarial rate, debts would be settled by sale of properties and centralising financial support would deal with problems of integrating conference funds. Any surplus of ministers could be dealt with by reducing the number of probationers temporarily. Prayer for the hand of God to guide consideration of issues was essential. John Barton from the United Free Methodists had no substantial comments to add. In 1891, a group of laymen from the South Australian minor churches, committed to reunion, held a series of meetings at Crystal Brook and appealed for support to Quarterly Meetings. In November 1891, the South Australian Bible Christian Conference passed a further proposal in favour of reunion and set up a committee to negotiate with other conferences. The Wesleyan Conference there set up a similar negotiating committee, with a brief also to consult on public questions. In NSW, Conference interest was low, but in October 1891, the District Synod in Goulburn asked the Wesleyan Conference to set up a committee to confer with other Methodist churches. In Victoria, another joint meeting was held on 29 November 1892 in Melbourne. Several

2

Federal Council, Methodist Union (Brunswick, Vic., 1887), p. 1.

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hours of discussion led to a series of favourable resolutions on reunion. Wesleyans remained somewhat divided on particular issues, but a majority felt convinced that the glory of God and the extension of Christ’s kingdom would be promoted by the organic union of the Methodist churches in Victoria and Tasmania. The Basis of Union produced was submitted to Quarterly Meetings in September 1892 for report to the 1893 Conference. All Conferences were asked to appoint a council to draw up a Basis and report to the 1893 Conference. In 1893 all the South Australian Conferences adopted the Basis which had been drawn up in Victoria. Similar support was shown in a total of 14 Conferences, though NSW was lukewarm, judging by the response of synods and Quarterly Meetings. The 1894 NSW Conference decided that for the moment union was inopportune, but suggested that the Federal Council should foster fraternal spirit, promote exchange of pulpits, prevent overlapping and work up to a spirit which would lead to a satisfactory and permanent union. Renewal of Union Proposals The 1890s saw renewed activity, necessitated in part by the dramatic impact of the Depression on the finances of the churches. Another Ecumenical Conference in the United States also stimulated Australians and New Zealanders who attended, such as Drs Fitchett and Morley. Presbyterians were also moving towards unity on both sides of the Tasman. Discussions on federation of the Australian colonies into a Commonwealth also challenged churches to become more unified, in order to make adequate contributions to their new nation. The Southern Cross was a strong advocate of reunion. An important account entitled Methodist Reunion in Canada was written by William James, a South Australian Bible Christian leader from Goodwood. Published in 1892, it underlined the need to prevent unholy rivalry and waste. Methodists shared many common features and that was underlined by the success of union in Canada, which showed that difficulties urged in Australasia could be constructively overcome. ‘If the leaders of the different bodies meet in a loving spirit and with a genuine desire for union, many of the apparent difficulties will be found to be more imaginary than real, and a solution will be found for every difficulty.’3 James was convinced by Canadian results that union would bring a higher standard of piety, strengthen connexional sentiment, increase circulation of Methodist papers and improve support for educational institutions. There would also be more concentrated support for home and overseas missions. ‘May 3 W. James, Methodist Union in Canada: An Object Lesson for Australasian Methodism (Adelaide: Wesleyan Methodist Book Depot, 1892), p. 43.

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the twentieth century dawn upon a united Australasian Methodism, taking its full share in the evangelisation of the world.’4 His pleas had some effect, for all the colony’s conferences passed pro-union resolutions in 1892. The 1894 General Conference in Adelaide reaffirmed its support for union on the 1892 Basis. Each conference was authorised to carry out union within its own bounds, with any or all other Methodists at the earliest possible opportunity and to frame regulations in accord with those in the Constitution outlined in the Basis. Dr Fitchett wrote an ‘Open Letter’ to the readers of the Southern Cross, lauding the fruits of reunion. ‘Does anyone doubt that, if this were happily accomplished, it would give new energy to every form of Christian work amongst us, and clothe with new authority the voice of our Church on all public questions?’5 The conferences in New Zealand were the first to achieve this, uniting in 1896, with the exception of the Primitive Methodists who refused to compromise the structure of their conference and the eligibility of laymen for all offices. They did not unite until 1913, when the New Zealand Conference was separated from the Australian General Conference. Encountering Objections to Union There were sharp disagreements at this General Conference, especially over finance. Mr G. Chesswell of Maryborough, Victoria, underlined the need to look at union proposals from a commercial standpoint. In his opinion, the union proposals could not survive such scrutiny. The Wesleyan people were really not willing to make the necessary concessions. The standard of the ministry should not be lowered. The matter of the trusts seemed to him to offer a difficulty that was almost insuperable. Who would undertake the responsibility of the trusts in connection with the new churches. They had better go on as they were, wish their friends godspeed, and hope to meet them all in heaven at last.6

William Williams gave a detailed account of the objections to union. Again he focused particularly on finance, for the Depression had hit many congregations hard. Many members were not interested. As a rule they did not care two straws about the subject. Nor were other churches so different. They were years and

James, Methodist Union in Canada, p. 44. Southern Cross, 22 June 1894, pp. 490–91. 6 South Australian Advertiser, 18 May 1894, p. 7. 4

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years away from reunion. ‘The people must come together before a satisfactory union could be effected.’7 Dr Watkin rebutted such suggestions and insisted that the present divisions were a scandal, with the original reasons for division no longer relevant. Australian Methodism was becoming steadily more liberal and he wanted Methodism to be the most democratic church in the world. Even more important was that Methodist Union was in accord with Jesus’ prayer in the upper room for unity among his disciples. Such claims did not convince Dr Richard Sellors of NSW. Union would change the Constitution, people did not know enough about the implications of union. Union would not add a single member to the Church of Christ and it would also weaken the pastoral office of the ministry. He wanted longer to discuss these issues, but was greeted with laughter. The Rev. Frederick Watsford of Victoria, a senior minister, pled for union and making some sacrifices, for he longed to see union before he died. The Rev. Robert Casely from South Australia did not think union was practicable unless the churches were at white heat. Uniting with only a small majority would be unsatisfactory. Though most saw no doctrinal issues involved, that was not the case with the Rev. Jabez Stephenson from South Australia, who asked how they could accept ministers who rejected the inspiration of the Scriptures and undermined the doctrine of the atonement. This was a veiled reference to some South Australian Primitive Methodists in Adelaide. He refused to speak of union, when it was really absorption by the Wesleyans. ‘It was beneath their dignity to waste time discussing a thing that would be rejected by the minor Methodist bodies. If the members of these bodies were self-respecting men they would certainly not be absorbed.’8 He even went so far as to call the advocates of union ‘enemies of God’s Cause’, a remark he was forced to withdraw. The following day, he gave a further explanation, saying that he had meant to say that all were doing a great work for God and were in danger of being diverted from it by discussions on union. Stephenson rejected the doctrine of bigness, which underlay some pleas for union, and insisted that until they could forget their denominational labels in overpowering enthusiasm, they should stay as they were. The debate continued the following day, involving a total of 32 speeches, many of them lengthy. Fitchett’s motion for accepting the 1892 Basis of Union was carried 101 to 14, but the motion for a Federal Council, instead of reunion, was lost by 96 to 34. Ironically, the Councils later approved by the Conference for each state became an indispensable aid in reunion. An editorial in the South Australian Register noted the existence of a significant group who were in favour of waiting. Concessions would be needed from both sides.



7 8

South Australian Advertiser, 18 May 1894, p. 7. South Australian Advertiser, 18 May 1894, p. 11.

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Far be it from us to say that the obstacles in the way of a root-and-branch amalgamation are insurmountable. We are satisfied that they can be overcome, but so far from dissolving into thin air when looked full in the face, the more closely they are examined the more evident it becomes that they are substantial, and can only disappear under the influence of a patiently prosecuted policy of compromise and conciliation.9

The paper’s full report on the speeches in the debate conveyed the Conference atmosphere tellingly. There were also claims that the minor churches had accepted ministerial candidates who had been rejected by the Wesleyans. That was shown to be inaccurate. Clearing the Way for Union The Federal Council, set up in 1894, presented a report on progress to all conferences in 1896. Eight meetings had been held, ‘all marked by great earnestness and a high standard of brotherly feeling’.10 Well-attended public meetings had been held in Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo during 1895, but the NSW Conference had been equally divided, 81 to 81. Circuit changes were not discussed, because that should not occur until they had opportunity to contribute to discussions. They expressed their gratitude to Sir Samuel Way, a leading South Australian jurist, for his advice on the nature of the parliamentary acts needed to validate union and deal with trust issues. Expenses of Council meetings were divided pro rata between the participating churches. All the British Conferences gave their permission for the Australasian branches to unite by the end of 1895. Well-attended demonstrations were held in the colonial capitals and other centres during the year. The 1896 South Australian Wesleyan Conference, in receiving the report of the Federal Council, traversed afresh some of the arguments for and against. Jabez Stephenson insisted that there must be a vote of members. When the proper conditions existed – conditions which would guarantee security and safety in the movement, assure protection from disruption and painful, disastrous friction in the Church, and which would guarantee that they would be able to go on doing the Master’s work better and more effectively than the churches could do separately – his hand would be held up for union. Until he was satisfied, he was determined to stick to his principles. ‘Amalgamation meant the surrendering of the Wesleyan Church, and anyone who would do that would take upon himself a great responsibility.’11 But after an amendment was moved by Henry Burgess, South Australian Register, 19 May 1894, pp. 4–7. Launceston Examiner, 21 February 1896, p. 3. 11 South Australian Register, 6 March 1896, p. 7.

9

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a consultation was held, which resulted in Stephenson seconding Burgess’ motion. He felt that ‘a policy of give and take had been observed, and there was nothing of a sham character about it’.12 It passed unanimously making certain that union would proceed if the appropriate proportion of votes were in favour. The Doxology was sung. As soon as a date for the inauguration of union was fixed, the Council was asked to set out the method of consummation and interim arrangements. The initial date of 1900 was altered to 1 January 1902. It was suggested that, if voting was favourable and there was a two-thirds vote in support from each conference, a Special Conference should be held in conjunction with the Wesleyan General Conference to deal with any outstanding matters. A five-year implementation period was proposed. Proceeds of property sales by the united conference should go to debt repayment, or to circuit debts, purchase of new properties or the Union Thanksgiving Fund, if there was a surplus. A joint examination committee was to be set up, to ensure common standards for ministerial candidates. The Council also issued a circular to be read in all Victorian and Tasmanian circuits on the first Sunday in May 1898. It contains valuable insights into unionist views. ‘One Methodist church ought to be more effective in its work and witness for Christ than our separate Church organisations have been.’13 They challenged all Methodists not to relax their effort, reduce their liberality or restrain their prayers in the years before union was completed. More spiritual power was needed to ensure growth both from within and from without, for modern Methodism had a mission to infidels, the intemperate and the indifferent and those who did not cross the threshold of Methodist sanctuaries. An intimate connection existed between financial liberality and spiritual prosperity. The Council believed that if shared activities until 1902 were carried out, showing that they were one Methodist family, the next four years would be a period of great prosperity. Union of Wesleyans and Primitive Methodists had already taken place in Queensland in 1895. In South Australia, union had originally been set for the beginning of 1899, but had to be delayed a year, so that the Primitive Methodists could have financial agreement from their British Conference. The final document was signed by the presidents on 14 August 1899. A new model deed was produced, a combined newspaper commenced, bookshops were combined, as were various funds. Redundant churches were gradually sold off and circuit boundaries re-adjusted. The Wesleyans had made some minor concessions, such as admitting laymen to the Stationing Committee, but allowing final decision to the Ministerial Session.

South Australian Register, 6 March 1896, p. 7. Federal Council, Methodist Union, p. 13.

12 13

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The Victoria and Tasmania Conference of 1895 had invited the other Methodist churches to join its Federal Council. Its President, Dr William Fitchett of MLC, one of the leading advocates of union, argued that: The mother church of Wesleyan Methodism has in substance conceded everything that some of her children once demanded, and left because it was refused. We are today one in theology, one in type and genius, and are parted by quite invisible differences. And so we are going to unite as one grand Methodist church, one united and splendid brotherhood in Christ.14

A large public gathering was held in Wesley Church, Melbourne, on 19 June, chaired by Sir Samuel Way, a leading South Australian Bible Christian, who spoke enthusiastically in favour of union. Dr Fitchett, the Victorian President, moved a motion in favour of union, which was passed unanimously. The Federal Council organised similar meetings in other colonies. The plan for union presented to conferences was comprehensive and practical.15 The 1896 Wesleyan Conference of Victoria and Tasmania approved the recommendations of the Federal Council, for there had been a substantial vote in favour of reunion. There was still strong opposition from ministers such as William Williams, Henry Bath and William Blamires. They criticised the composition of the council and its failure to deal adequately with financial and legal issues. Consequently, they did not agree with Fitchett’s vision. ‘On the whole subject there is a new and vivid sense of Divine leadership, and the debate on union has lifted all parties to a higher level of brotherhood, and to a yet keener longing to know God’s will and see that will done.’16 There was agreement, however, that there should be a day of prayer for Divine guidance on the union question. Fitchett wrote later that, ‘It may well be that some new page in the wonderful book of Methodist history is being opened by God’s own hand, and on that page may be inscribed records more shining and glorious than even anything in the past has yielded.’17 Despite strong support for union, the 1897 Victoria and Tasmania Conference did not receive the required two-thirds majority. The vote was 158 to 98. Attempts to find common ground were unsuccessful. At the 1898 Conference, opponents of union withdrew behind the bar, so that there was a unanimous vote of 178 in favour. After the vote, William Williams said, ‘Now that the Church had accepted the policy of union he would, with all the energy

16 17 14 15

The Mercury, 18 March 1895, p. 4. Launceston Examiner, 21 February 1896, p. 3. Southern Cross, 13 March 1896, p. 253. Southern Cross, 2 October 1896, p. 949.

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at his command, help to make that policy a success.’18 Other opponents also took the same position. There was a long debate in the NSW Wesleyan Conference, which eventually agreed, 88 to 74, to ask congregations, Quarterly Meetings and District Synods to vote on organic union and report to their 1897 Conference. In 1900, NSW agreed to reunion in 1902. The union meetings were held in Newcastle. Other denominations welcomed the achievement. Bishop Stanton of Newcastle, for example, said that, We are bound to welcome any movement that seems to make for unity and close up the distinctions which have become unnecessary. I wish, therefore, every success to the movement for Methodist unity and desire that it may be the forerunner of a larger movement than perhaps we can even dream of for the reunion of Christendom for which the Lord Jesus laid down his life.19

The results of the referenda in every colony were convincingly in favour of union. The South Australian Register gave a summary of the relevant statistics: 45,425 were in favour, 6,446 opposed and 8,629 were neutral.20 Dr Fitchett stressed that, ‘A divided church will never conquer the world for Christ. And the Church which is willing to make the greatest sacrifice for the sake of union and brotherhood is certainly the Church which will do most to hasten the coming of Christ’s Kingdom.’21 He optimistically believed that, ‘If it can rekindle the zeal of its golden youth, and thrill with the spiritual power, which is the secret of its amazing youth, it may put its stamp on the history of Australia as deeply as Wesley stamped his wise and saintly face on the history of England.’22 Methodist Union Achieved The official union celebrations in Melbourne are described in The Spectator for February and March 1902.23 Some 5,000 people attended and said a fervent ‘Amen’ to ‘Father’ Quick’s noble prayer for the united church. Similar largely attended events took place in Newcastle and Adelaide, each underlining the South Australian Register, 6 March 1896, p. 7. Southern Cross, 17 January 1902, p. 63. 20 South Australian Register, 22 February 1897, pp. 6–8. 21 Southern Cross, 10 January 1902, p. 43. 22 Southern Cross, 10 January 1902, p. 43. 23 See also W.E. Gillard, ‘The Methodist Union of 1902’, Proceedings of the Uniting Church Historical Society 8, no. 2 (2001): 18–23; R. Howe, ‘The Development of Methodist Union in Nineteenth-Century Victoria’, Proceedings of the Uniting Church Historical Society 9, no. 1 (2002): 16–19. 18 19

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hopes felt for the fruits of reunion, so powerfully expressed in the years leading up to the final achievement. The years before the First World War underlined the impact of the shared energies resulting from reunion, in membership growth, expansion of home and foreign missions, the consolidation of circuits, work among children and youth, strengthened conference finances and an enhanced sense of the past and future of Methodism.

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Chapter 9

Methodism and the Crises of Nationhood, 1903–1955 Samantha Frappell

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Australian Methodists had cause to be quietly confident. The 1901 census had revealed that Methodists constituted 13.36 per cent of the population, the third largest denomination in the country, with the majority of Methodists residing in Victoria and NSW.1 In 1902, the newly formed Methodist Conference of Australasia had united five different branches of Methodism. Methodist Church records indicated that Methodists were the most regular churchgoers of all the Protestant denominations, with 53.4 per cent of nominal Methodists attending church services.2 There were over 750 Methodist ministers in Australia during the opening decades of the twentieth century, a figure which compared favourably with other denominations: the Catholic Church struggled with only 800 or so priests for a nominal flock twice that of the Methodists, and the comparably sized Presbyterian Church made do with around 450 ministers.3 Methodists in the Early Twentieth Century (1903–1914) Methodists were prominent among Australia’s Christian leaders of the early twentieth century. James E. Carruthers (1848–1932), editor of the NSW church journal The Methodist, was a noted speaker and author. He wrote several articles for the Sydney Morning Herald, was President of the NSW Methodist 1 Bureau of Census and Statistics, Census of the Commonwealth of Australia, Melbourne, 1901. 2 Ninth General Conference of Wesleyan Methodist Churches, Sydney, 1901, p. 25 (note: this figure is pre-unification, and for Wesleyan Methodists only); D. Wright and E.G. Clancy. The Methodists: A History of Methodism in New South Wales (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993), p. 69. 3 Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of General Conference, 1904, p. 25 and 1913, pp. 25, 36; M. McKernan, Australian Churches at War: Attitudes and Activities of the Major Churches, 1914–1918 (Sydney and Canberra: Catholic Theological Faculty and Australian War Memorial, 1980), p. 19.

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Conference in 1895 and 1913 and President-General of the Methodist Conference of Australasia from 1917 to 1920. In Melbourne, William H. Fitchett (1841–1928) was a distinguished journalist, writing in the Methodist and secular press. He was the first president of the General Conference of the Methodist Church of Australasia in 1902 and first president of the Victoria and Tasmania Conference in 1904–1907. Fitchett was one of the few Methodist leaders of the period with a university education, graduating BA from Melbourne University in 1875. He was an active agent in encouraging the Methodist Church to invest in girls’ education, helping to found MLC in 1882. His Deeds that Won the Empire (1897) sold over 250,000 copies throughout the British Empire.4 Perhaps more inspiring was the number of converts joining the Methodist Church in the early years of the twentieth century and the accompanying hope that a Christian revival was ‘imminent’. During the period 1902–14 there was a series of large-scale American-led evangelistic missions to Australia, beginning with the mission of evangelist Reuben A. Torrey and gospel singer and hymn writer Charles Alexander in 1902, and concluding with the mission of evangelist J. Wilbur Chapman, again accompanied by Alexander, in 1912. Australian missioners were also active, setting up tent missions in population centres across the country. This enthusiasm for revival was the evangelical aspect of the late nineteenth century’s wave of social reformism, which contended that many of the ills that beset an increasingly urban, secular and industrialised society could be overcome if only people would return to the ‘old’ values endorsed by Christianity and, indeed, embrace Christianity itself. Evangelism was not the only cause of increase. British immigration also played a role in boosting Methodist numbers in Australia. Concerns about the declining birth rate and fears of growing Japanese influence in the Pacific following the Russo-Japanese war (1904–1905) encouraged support for more immigration in the Australian community. Between 1907 and 1914 some 290,000 migrants arrived in Australia.5 In Sydney, the CMM was active in providing assistance to immigrants, establishing depots at the wharves to help newcomers find employment and housing. There were also hopes of winning the poor to the Methodist cause. The CMM in Sydney had been established in 1884 as a response to declining innercity churches whose middle-class patrons had left the cities for suburbia in the face of rapid industrialisation.6 The cities of the late nineteenth and early Fitchett, Deeds that Won the Empire (London: Smith, Elder, 1897). Ministry of Home Affairs, Yearbook of the Commonwealth of Australia, 1907– 1914 (Melbourne, [1915?]); Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Immigration: Federation to Century’s End (Canberra: DIAC, 2001). 6 For a detailed account of the Mission, see Don Wright, Mantle of Christ: A History of the Sydney Central Methodist Mission. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1984. 4

5

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twentieth centuries were now the locale of noxious factories, warehouses and working-class slums, presenting a new challenge for inner-city parishes. The Sydney example was quickly followed in other states and towns in Australia, with the establishment of the Wesley Mission, Melbourne, in 1893, the Adelaide Central Mission in 1901 and the Central Methodist Mission, Brisbane, in 1906. Through the Missions, the Methodist Church took on an active role caring for the poor and disadvantaged of the inner-city slums. Wesley Mission, Melbourne, opened a boys’ home and training farm, known as ‘Tally Ho’, in 1905. In 1907 Sydney’s CMM set up ‘Hope Haven’ for single mothers and homeless women and two men’s shelters. Methodist women played a vital role in the work of the Missions, through lay-sister organisations, such as Sydney’s Sisters of the People (established 1890) and Brisbane’s Sisters of the Mission (established 1907). The Sisters’ work included caring for poor or orphaned children, visiting the poor and distributing food, clothing and health care to women and children in need.7 In return, the Methodist Church hoped its work would be rewarded with numerous conversions among its inner-city charges. The enthusiasm for social work and evangelism belied a certain uneasiness among Methodists that all was not well. By 1911, nominal Methodism had increased by 43,705 persons, representing almost 8 per cent growth since 1901.8 This increase, however, had not kept pace with the Australian population, which had grown by 18.05 per cent in the same period. Furthermore, the other main Protestant churches had experienced more substantial growth, with a 12.4 per cent increase in the Church of England and a 23.7 per cent increase in the Presbyterian Church, the latter pushing the Methodists from their position as third to fourth largest denomination in Australia, with only 12.6 per cent of the population now nominating themselves as ‘Methodist’. There were other problems, too. In 1913, the General Conference noted with concern that the number of Sunday School teachers had decreased since 1902, as had the number of Sunday School scholars and the number of young people belonging to the Methodist Christian Endeavour societies.9 Figures for Methodist church attendance also indicated a drop between 1901 and 1913.10 While some 7 See, for example, Laura Francis, Journal, 1890–91, manuscript MLMSS 5279, held at Mitchell Library, Sydney. 8 Bureau of Census and Statistics, Census of the Commonwealth of Australia, Melbourne, 1901 and 1911. 9 Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of General Conference, 1913, pp. 250, 85. 10 Church attendances fell from 523,878 (Wesleyan Methodist figures, 1901) to 469,769 (Australasian Conference figures, 1913). See Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church, Minutes of New South Wales Conference, 1901, p. 25 (figure cited excludes New Zealand and Pacific Island and other pre-union Methodist Church attendees); Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of General Conference, 1913, p. 36 (figure cited excludes Pacific Island attendees).

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historians have assumed that the First World War was the beginning of a downward trend in church membership in the Australian community,11 the downturn in the number of Methodist Sunday School teachers and scholars, church attendees and Christian Endeavour members by 1913 indicates the existence of a decline that preceded any ‘crisis of faith’ prompted by the Great War. Church building was not keeping pace with the population growth in the suburbs either, where many middle-class Methodists had relocated.12 The concern to retain middle-class churchgoers was also reflected in the growing recognition among senior Methodists that Methodist ministers’ education was seriously inadequate, a situation that needed to be remedied urgently. Few Methodist ministers possessed even an intermediate level of school education, let alone a university degree. Another cause for disquiet was the movement of Catholics into senior positions in the ALP.13 Methodists had been instrumental in the beginnings of the ALP, representing over a quarter of founding members. By the early twentieth century, the growing Catholic influence and concerns that the ALP would no longer promote Methodist social reform causes, such as temperance, saw a gradual withdrawal of Methodist support.14 In addition, increasing numbers of Methodists were entering the middle class, leaving Catholics as the majority of the ALP’s working-class support base.15 Anti-Catholicism was strong among Methodists. The formation of the curiously named Australian Protestant Defence Association (APDA) in 1903 by Presbyterian minister the Rev. Dill Macky underlined the sense that Protestant influence within the Australian community was somehow under attack. It would seem that many certainly felt this was so – within two years the APDA had 22,000 members in NSW alone.16 Prominent Methodist members of the APDA included the Rev. William W. Rutledge (its vice-president), former minister and local preacher William Robson, Sunday School superintendent Thomas Jessep and politician Albert Bruntnell. The sectarian animosity was to worsen significantly in the coming decades. See, for example, R.D. Linder, The Long Tragedy: Australian Evangelicals and the Great War (Adelaide: Openbook, 2000); D. Wright, Alan Walker: Conscience of the Nation (Adelaide: Openbook, 1997), p. 26. 12 Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, pp. 68–9. 13 M. Hogan, The Sectarian Strand: Religion in Australian History (Ringwood: Penguin Books, 1987), p. 175. 14 Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, p. 109; R.D. Linder, ‘The Methodist Love Affair with the Australian Labor Party’, Lucas 23 and 24 (1997–98): 35–61, at pp. 42–5. 15 W.W. Phillips, ‘The Social Composition of the Religious Denominations in Late Nineteenth-Century Australia’, Church Heritage 4, no. 2 (1985): 77–94; Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, pp. 66–7, 78, 81; H. Carey, Believing in Australia (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1996), p. 38. 16 Hogan, Sectarian Strand, p. 150. 11

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The latter part of 1914 was spent preparing for the upcoming Centenary of Methodism (1915), being 100 years since Samuel Leigh had arrived in Australia as a Methodist missionary. A Thanksgiving fund was announced, which aimed to raise £50,000 for the Church. NSW Conference President Frederick Colwell and William G. Taylor travelled 6,840 km all over NSW, speaking at 138 meetings to prepare Methodists for the centenary and to kick-start the NSW contributions to the Thanksgiving fund.17 The centenary itself was an auspicious affair for Australian Methodists. Centenary thanksgiving services held in Melbourne’s Wesley Church were attended by the Governor-General Ronald Munro Ferguson and the President of the Methodist Conference, George Brown, with American Bishop Elijah Hoss of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South as main speaker. In Sydney, the Town Hall was adopted to mark Centenary Day, with a reported 1,800 people attending to hear William H. Fitchett as guest speaker. Celebratory services and rallies were held outside of the major cities, too. The Methodists of Warrnambool, Victoria, were treated to a huge centenary cake that was displayed in the shop window of one ‘H. Smith’ for a week, prior to its consumption at the end of the centenary rally in the Warrnambool school hall.18 By the start of the centenary celebrations, the Thanksgiving fund target of £50,000 was still £15,000 short. The shortage was blamed on the outbreak of war and on the numerous war-related patriotic funds.19 Methodists and the First World War When the First World War erupted, few argued that Australia’s involvement in the war was in any way unchristian. George Brown, president of the General Conference of the Methodist Church, issued a pastoral letter declaring that war was only unchristian on the part of those who provoked it. Since Britain had been ‘forced’ into the war, it was right and proper that Methodists should join the fight to defend the empire.20 Methodists, along with other Christians of the period, commonly viewed war as an unfortunate but necessary part of 17 Australasian Methodist Conference, Australian Methodist Centenary Commemoration: Statement and Appeal (London: Epworth Press, 1915); W.G. Taylor, The Life Story of an Australian Evangelist (London: Epworth Press, 1921), p. 320. 18 The Argus, 14 August 1915, p. 15; Sydney Morning Herald, 29 May 1915, p. 8; Taylor, Life Story of an Australian Evangelist, p. 322; Warrnambool Standard, 14 August 1915, p. 2. 19 Taylor, Life Story of an Australian Evangelist, p. 323. 20 A.D. Hunt and R.P. Thomas, For God, King and Country: A Study of the Attitudes of the Methodist and Catholic Press in South Australia to the Great War 1914–1918 (Salisbury, Adelaide: Salisbury College of Advanced Education, 1979), p. 2; Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, pp. 102–3, 130; McKernan, Australian Churches at War, p. 26. See also Brisbane Courier, 31 October 1914, p. 5; The Methodist, 22 May 1915 and 15 January 1916.

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God’s plan, which would ultimately encourage the reform and repentance of an immoral society. Furthermore, war was believed to enable the development of the noble virtues of heroism, loyalty, honour and patriotism. Indeed, by December 1914, J.E. Carruthers believed that the war had already produced a good outcome, having averted ‘civil war’ between the classes in England, as all became patriotically focused on defending their nation.21 Carruthers also expressed his hope that the war would hasten the reunification of Christendom, after centuries of discord between the denominations.22 On the Sunday following the outbreak of war, Methodists held prayer services and joined other Protestants in prayer, entreating God to allow a speedy end to the war and for the empire to continue as an instrument of evangelism. In spite of their support for the war, Methodist ministers were not as active as other denominations in recruitment activities, at least at first. Michael McKernan has suggested that this may have been because of their concerns about morality within army training camps, where drinking, smoking and swearing were believed to be commonplace.23 Indeed, the NSW Methodist Conference had vigorously debated the 1909 Defence Act’s introduction of compulsory military training for males aged 12–26. A motion tabled by William H. Beale and seconded by William G. Taylor called for the 1913 Conference to record its opposition to the compulsory clauses of the Defence Act on the grounds that military training of boys undermined their ‘character’, violated their personal liberty, invaded the sphere of parental rights and was injurious to national morality. Beale and Taylor were concerned moreover that the drill-ground and training camps were places of ‘imminent peril’ for boys, where young middle-class Methodist lads would be forced to associate with ‘undesirable types’.24 Their fears were not shared by other Methodist leaders, who argued that factories and workshops were far worse places in terms of bad influences than the drill-ground. Furthermore, they opined, many boys were in rebellion against their parents and other authority figures and would benefit from a spell of military training which would ‘teach them obedience’.25 The Rev. F. Colwell begged that Conference ‘not make itself so utterly ridiculous as to pass [Beale’s] motion’.26 In the event, the vote was split, 43 for and 43 against. NSW President J.E. Carruthers’ casting vote saw the motion defeated. Overall, the main issue for Methodists was the preservation of a Christian morality centred on abstinence Sydney Morning Herald, 25 December 1914, p. 4. Sydney Morning Herald, 25 December 1914, p. 4. 23 McKernan, Australian Churches at War, p. 86. 24 The Advertiser (Adelaide), 13 March 1913, p. 10; see also The Methodist, 3 February 1917, p. 5; Linder, Long Tragedy, p. 75. 25 The Methodist, 3 February 1917, p. 5. 26 The Methodist, 3 February 1917, p. 5. 21 22

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from smoking, drinking, swearing and gambling, rather than a Christian-based opposition to the militarism of youth.27 This is not to suggest that there was no opposition to war and militarism from the Methodist Church at all. The Rev. B. Linden Webb, of Hay, NSW, preached three pacifist sermons in 1915 and published his sermons in a pamphlet, The Religious Significance of the War.28 Several Methodists, including the aforementioned Beale, were members of local branches of the London Peace Society (founded by feminist Rose Scott in 1909) and of similar anti-war organisations in capital cities across Australia. But outright opposition to the war was peripheral to Methodist discourse. In fact, 80 Methodist ministers actually joined the armed forces.29 While the NSW and South Australian Conferences did not question the propriety of Christian ministers taking up arms, concerns were voiced at the Victorian Conference over three Methodist ministers’ request to join the army. Opponents maintained that to leave the ministry was to turn one’s back on the highest calling a person could receive. Others argued that it would be good for the Church’s profile in the community to have clergymen fighting with the troops. This argument helped sway the conference and approval for the three ministers to suspend their clerical calling was given.30 The Methodist Church’s interest in its community profile and its concern to promote a loyal, masculine image, supportive of ‘the men at the front’ (and, indeed, the boys on the drill-ground) is significant, indicating a movement away from its profeminist associations of the previous decades. As it was, the Methodist Church was steadily losing male adherents, with a male-to-female ratio of 99.65 to 100 in 1901, falling to 96.94 to 100 by 1911,31 and their more masculinist attitude may have represented an attempt to recover men lost to the Church. If some Methodist ministers joined the ranks, others opted to stay within their calling and become army chaplains. Fifty-four Methodist ministers served as army chaplains during the First World War.32 Chaplains served in their post for 12 months or less. Many chaplains were reportedly shocked by the amount of drinking, gambling and swearing among Australian soldiers, confirming Methodists’ worst fears of army life. Yet some came to see that Australian soldiers – in spite of their vices and lack of religious convictions – were nonetheless noble and unselfish, displaying Christian virtues, if not professing Christian faith. This raised some perplexing questions among Methodists, such as whether an ‘unsaved’ soldier would nevertheless be ‘saved’ by his noble, self The Advertiser, 13 March 1913, p. 10. B.L. Webb, The Religious Significance of the War (Sydney: n.p., 1915); Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, p. 133. 29 Linder, Long Tragedy, pp. 105, 148. 30 McKernan, Australian Churches at War, p. 96. 31 Carey, Believing in Australia, p. 120. 32 McKernan, Australian Churches at War, p. 40. 27 28

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sacrificial actions.33 In addition, the experience of mixing with non-Methodists (particularly Catholic servicemen) and forming friendships with Catholic and Anglican chaplains was a transformative one, which Methodist chaplains hoped to transplant back to their communities in Australia, ending destructive sectarian divisions and revitalising hopes for Christian unity.34 Back on the home front, however, sectarianism remained as entrenched as ever. Methodists’ anti-Catholic fervour came to a head in 1916–17 over the issue of conscription. Labor Prime Minister Billy Hughes held a referendum in 1916 to seek consent for the government to conscript men for overseas service to help the British Empire. The referendum was narrowly defeated. Hughes left the ALP and established a new Nationalist Party, holding a second referendum in 1917. The second referendum was also defeated. Methodist leaders, along with other Protestants, had campaigned for ‘Yes’ to conscription, encouraging Methodists to consider their duty to God, empire and the men at the front when casting their vote. While the Catholic press had been in favour of conscription in 1916, Catholic leaders had resisted the temptation to provide an official position. In the aftermath of the 1916 Easter Rebellion in Ireland, however, Catholic opinion shifted noticeably. By the time of the 1917 referendum, Catholic sympathies were decidedly with the ‘No’ campaign, led by Melbourne’s outspoken Catholic Archbishop, Daniel Mannix. The failure of the conscription campaigns was interpreted by many Methodists as evidence of disloyalty among Australia’s Catholic community. Methodists believed that Catholic loyalties lay with the Pope and the Irish cause, placing them at odds with Britain and the empire, and, therefore, in the Methodist mind at least, at odds with Australia.35 Soldiers and chaplains alike returned to a bitterly divided Australian society. For some servicemen, the war had strengthened their faith, or left their faith relatively intact, such that they were able to return to their religious community and resume their pre-war church commitments. Others were lost to the churches, disillusioned with sectarianism, frustrated with the continuation of a theology that had not confronted the war’s chasm of loss, misery and destruction, and disturbed by their war experience.36 Over a quarter of the Methodist clergy who had joined the army never returned to the ministry; four Methodist chaplains withdrew from the ministry, as did 15 of the 23 surviving theology students who had left their studies to serve in the war.37 While it is not known how many returned servicemen left the Methodist Church after the First World War, the The Methodist, 9 June 1917, p. 5; 23 June 1917, p. 10. McKernan, Australian Churches at War, p. 139. 35 Hogan, Sectarian Strand, pp. 177, 188; P. O’Farrell, The Catholic Church and Community: An Australian History, 3rd rev. edn (Sydney: UNSW Press, 1992), pp. 324–34. 36 McKernan, Australian Churches at War, pp. 99, 129, 139. 37 McKernan, Australian Churches at War, p. 98. 33 34

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1921 census reveals that the downward trend in the number of men nominating themselves as Methodist continued, with only 94.15 Methodist men for every hundred Methodist women.38 Methodists and the Interwar Years (1919–1939) Hopes that the war would bring a moral and spiritual revival to Australia were to be sadly disappointed. The Methodist Church’s representation in the Australian community had contracted, too, with the 1921 census revealing only 11.64 per cent of the population claiming Methodism as its religious denomination, a figure that fell further to 10.32 per cent in 1933.39 There was frustration among some Methodists that a lack of funds and a failure to adequately support new church communities in the suburbs meant that they were not keeping up even where there was membership growth.40 In spite of these setbacks, the interwar period was nonetheless marked by attempts to build Christian unity with other Protestant churches, the expansion of Methodist social services and innovative use of the new advertising media of film and radio. There were also continued efforts to rebuild Methodist church membership. The war, which had seen Christians killing Christians in the name of patriotism, had intensified desires for Christian unity. In 1919 Methodists voted to consider the possibility of union with other Protestant churches. The following year, a Basis of Union document was submitted to the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches. Although a majority of those who voted were in favour of union, only 73 per cent of eligible Methodists, 46 per cent of eligible Presbyterians and 51 per cent of eligible Congregationalists had participated in the vote. Without a large enough representation from each of the churches, union could not proceed.41 Christian unity would have to wait. The poor were always there, and to this end the Methodist Church opened and upgraded a number of benevolent institutions in the interwar period. In Melbourne, the Methodist Babies’ Home opened in 1928 in South Yarra, while in Adelaide, the Kate Cocks Memorial Babies’ Home opened in 1937. The babies’ homes were set up to accommodate the babies of unmarried mothers and babies from the inner-city slums who had been deemed ‘neglected’ by the Children’s Court. The Methodist Church also opened new children’s homes for orphans and the children of ‘unsuitable mothers’, including the Perth Methodist Carey, Believing in Australia, p. 120. Bureau of Census and Statistics, Census of the Commonwealth of Australia, Melbourne, 1921; Ministry of State for Home and Territories, Census of the Commonwealth of Australia, Melbourne, 1933. 40 Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, p. 148. 41 Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, pp. 156–8. 38 39

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Children’s Home (1922), the Margaret Marr Memorial Home for Boys (1924) in Wynnum, Queensland, and the Perth Methodist Boys’ Home (1929). Meanwhile, Sydney’s Dalmar Children’s Home (1893) moved to a new site at Carlingford in 1927. In accordance with attitudes towards children and the way institutions operated in the early twentieth century, Methodist staff could be unfeeling and overly strict.42 Aged care was a new area for Methodist social services in the 1920s and 1930s with the opening of the W.G. Taylor Village at Narrabeen, Sydney, for men and Sunset Lodge in Sydney as a home for aged women, both in 1928. In Adelaide, ‘Rest Haven’ for elderly women was opened in 1935. The Church’s foray into aged care was a recognition that ageing was a particular area of need. Australians, particularly women, were living longer, with life expectancy for women rising from 56 in 1909 to 63 by 1934.43 The Methodist Church began making use of film to promote its social service work. The newsreel film South Melbourne Methodist Mission News (1924) shows the work of the mission among the poor and needy of Melbourne. The children in the films are shown learning prayers and helping clean their lunch tables. Films such as these were designed to help raise funds for the inner-city mission, showing that its work was producing hard-working Methodist children.44 The interwar period also saw an innovative use of radio. Pleasant Sunday Afternoon (PSA), an after-church activity held at Methodist churches, featured music and literature. PSA meetings were broadcast for the first time on radio station 2FC in 1929. While the Methodist Church continued to make use of more traditional methods to promote its goals, such as evangelism campaigns,45 the use of modern media represents an attempt to come to grips with a rapidly changing world. There were also efforts to modernise the Methodist ministry. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Queen’s College, Melbourne, established in 1888, was the only Methodist theological college in Australia.46 It was not until 1914 that Leigh College opened for ministerial candidates in NSW. Following the war, See, for example, The Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Abuse of Children in Queensland Institutions, 1998–99 (Brisbane, 1999); Sydney Morning Herald, 1 September 2004. 43 Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Historical Population Statistics, Canberra, 2008. 44 South Melbourne Methodist Mission News, South Melbourne Methodist Mission, Melbourne, c. 1924 (National Film and Sound Archive, 574153). 45 See, for example, W. Phillips, ‘Gipsy Smith in Australia in the 1920s’, in Reviving Australia, ed. M. Hutchinson, E. Campion and S. Piggin (Sydney: Centre for the Study of Australian Christianity, 1994), pp. 185–99. 46 G.M. Smith, ‘Transplanting Tradition: The History of Kingswood College’ (MPhil thesis, Murdoch University, 2009), pp. 30–31. I would like to express my thanks to Alison Longworth for locating this source. 42

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however, there was an acute shortage of candidates in NSW, with only four men offering themselves for the ministry in 1921 and 12 in 1929. The year 1930 saw a peak of 29 candidates, falling again to 16 by 1938. This had not daunted the NSW Methodist Conference, which opened a chapel for the students in 1927 and spent £25,000 on a new building for student accommodation in 1928.47 The Western Australian Methodist Conference opened a Methodist Theological Hall in the Central Methodist Mission buildings in 1912, but also struggled to find candidates.48 In 1923, the outgoing President of the Western Australian Methodist Conference, the Rev. G. McLaren, called for more men to offer themselves for the Methodist ministry, acknowledging that although the ministry offered little in terms of material remuneration, it did offer ‘ample scope for chivalry, sacrifice and service which brought its own reward’.49 The establishment of Methodist ministerial colleges had been a long time coming, as indeed were Methodist residential colleges at Australian universities. With the exception of Queen’s College, which served as a theological and residential college, Methodist residential colleges were not established until 1913 at the University of Queensland (King’s College) and 1917 at the University of Sydney (Wesley College). The decision to found these colleges indicates the growing recognition of increasing levels of education in the Australian community, particularly among Methodists themselves, where literacy rates had improved from 84.86 per cent in 1911 to 85.49 per cent by 1921 (cf. Australian literacy rates of 85.1 per cent in 1911 and 85.18 per cent in 1921), indicating that Methodists were gradually improving their levels of education, from a below average standing to one slightly surpassing that of the Australian community.50 Youth was another area that became important in the interwar years, particularly in light of the pre-war decline in Sunday School attendance and Christian Endeavour membership. The decline of older youth involvement in the Church was of particular concern, indicated by the renaming of the Methodist Sunday School department as the ‘Young People’s Department’ in 1918, reflecting the Church’s commitment to widen its appeal to older youth. One of the most successful of the new groups for youth was the Methodist Order of Knights (MOK). The MOK was invented by 18-year-old NSW Sunday School teacher Alec Bray in 1915. Based on a combination of Christian ideals and Arthurian legend, the MOK quickly became popular among young boys aged 10 to 14. It was officially recognised as a Methodist youth organisation by the Australasian Methodist Conference in 1929, complete with uniforms, regalia, Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, p. 42. The Institute of Theology building was opened in Perth in 1927. 49 West Australian, 28 February 1923, p. 10. 50 Bureau of Census and Statistics, Census of the Commonwealth of Australia, Melbourne, 1901, 1911, 1921. 47 48

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secret handshakes and passwords.51 The Order of Knights soon spread beyond NSW to other states and territories. By 1935, there were 226 active ‘courts’ in NSW alone, with 5,421 members. A similar organisation was established for girls (though with less Arthurian pomp), known as Methodist Girls’ Comradeship (MGC).52 As Christian Endeavour membership continued to fall, the new youth groups proved increasingly popular, numbering 988 societies and 43,996 members in 1932, and 1,018 societies and 41,772 members by 1941.53 Another important focus for the Methodist Church was men, particularly working-class men. There were increasing concerns that working-class men were turning to socialism as a possible solution for society’s ills. This presented a particular challenge to the Methodist Church, which had long championed the notion that Christianity held the answers to social ills. In the past, these solutions had hinged on Christian conversion, temperance and opposition to gambling, but in the interwar years Methodist social engineering began to take on a sharper economic and political edge. In 1916 the Rev. Frederick T. Walker had launched the Men’s Own Movement in Sydney in an attempt to reach labourers in the inner city and to try to provide Christian solutions to industrial problems, based on class reconciliation and arbitration rather than socialism. The Movement held public meetings in the Domain each Sunday, set up meetings between employers and union representatives and conducted lunchtime visits on work sites.54 It also distributed its own monthly newspaper, New Man, throughout the industrial cities of NSW. Methodist attempts to engage and, indeed, help working-class men continued into the years of the Great Depression. The Depression hit Australia particularly hard. In 1932 the official unemployment rate peaked at 29 per cent. Methodist responses concentrated on finding or providing work for unemployed men, in the belief that work gave a person dignity and was a more ‘manly’ alternative to receiving the unemployment sustenance payment. In Adelaide, the Rev. Samuel Forsyth of the CMM launched an appeal to raise £5,000 to establish the nondenominational ‘Kuipto Industrial Colony’, a training farm where unemployed men could find work producing food. The Adelaide Mission also purchased 51 G.W. Potter, ‘The Methodist Order of Knights and the Methodist Girls’ Comradeship: Formation of the Orders: Growth, Decline and Legacy in South Australia’, unpublished, Morphett Vale, 1997. 52 Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, p. 161. 53 Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of General Conference, 1932, p. 43; and 1941, p. 44 (note: figure for number of societies in 1941 based on 1935 figure, due to inadequate returns in 1941). 54 F.T. Walker, The Golden Heart of Labour: The Story of the Men’s Own Movement (Sydney: Methodist Book Depot, 1919); T. Laffan, ‘“Not a Dictatorship of the Proletariat but a Comradeship of All”: Methodism and the Newcastle Labour Movement’, Labour History 85 (2003): 217–24; Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, p. 175.

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a fishing boat for unemployed men to work as fishermen.55 In Brisbane, the District Circuit wrote to country circuits asking them if any of the laypeople in their circuits had work to offer unemployed men. In Sydney, the Brotherhood Relief Committee was established to procure donations and find odd jobs that unemployed men could do, with payment for such provided by the Committee.56 As the Depression wore on, attempts by the Church to find work for the unemployed became increasingly difficult. The inner-city missions became key distribution points for philanthropic aid. In 1930, Brisbane’s CMM was providing 85 hot meals a day; at the end of 1931 this number had risen to more than 340.57 By 1939, there was still 10 per cent unemployment in Australia. Real relief from the economic troubles would come with the outbreak of another world war. Methodism in the 1940s and 1950s The outbreak of war in 1939 was not greeted with the same enthusiasm and hope for revival as the Great War had been. While some Methodists decried the war as evidence of God’s displeasure with Australian sinfulness,58 on the whole, the Methodist response to a second world war was far more tempered, expressing hope that the war should end soon and a mindfulness of the real costs of modern warfare. By the end of 1942, when it appeared that the immediate danger to Australia had passed, Methodists began to focus their attentions on the future. After two world wars and a devastating economic depression, Methodists were among those who looked forward to a more peaceful, happier and gentler post-war world. For socially progressive Methodists, such as the members of the Public Questions Committee, an alternative form of societal organisation was needed – a ‘Christian social order’, no less, such that the excesses of laissezfaire capitalism and the conflict and anti-religion associated with communism might be avoided.59 In this they were influenced by the aims of Federal Labor’s plans for post-war reconstruction and by broader Christian socialist thinking on social reform.60 I. Bailey, Mission Story (Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1987). Wright and Clancy, The Methodists, pp. 178–9. 57 B. Costar, ‘Christianity in Crisis: Queensland Churches during the Great Depression’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland 13, no. 6 (1988): 201–14. 58 Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of New South Wales Conference, 1940, p. 79. 59 See, for example, ‘Report of the Public Questions Committee’, Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of General Conference, 1945, p. 92; R. Sutton, Capitalism, Socialism and the Church (Sydney: Epworth Press, 1942), p. 12. 60 S. Frappell, ‘Building Jerusalem: Post-war Reconstruction and the Churches in NSW’ (PhD thesis, University of Sydney, 1996), pp. 17–48. 55

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Other Methodists argued that it was not society that needed reforming, but the individual. For them, an expanded programme of evangelism campaigns, temperance advocacy and a focus on encouraging youth into the church would deliver a better world. As NSW minister the Rev. Sam McKibbin contended, it was not ‘blue prints for Utopia’ but ‘spiritual revival’ that was needed.61 In 1948, the Methodist Church launched a four-year Commonwealth Crusade for Christ, in which Methodist laypeople were instructed to find ‘lapsed’ or nominal Methodists and encourage them to become actively involved in their local church.62 In this way, it was hoped that there would soon be 20,000 new Sunday School scholars and a 50 per cent increase in church attendance.63 Social reformist Methodists had not been opposed to evangelism as an approach to Christian post-war reconstruction, but hoped that evangelism could be part of a broader Christian campaign of reform, rather than a distinct and separate activity.64 Their opportunity came in 1953 with the launch of the Mission to the Nation, led by the Rev. Alan Walker. Walker aimed not only to evangelise, but also to promote the Church as an institution that cared about people as individuals and wanted a more just society.65 Although the Mission was very successful in attracting widespread community interest in various aspects of its campaign, it was closed down in 1957, with Conference citing its dismay that the Mission had failed to recover the ‘absentee members’ of the Church.66 Ultimately, both the Crusade for Christ and the Mission to the Nation proved disappointing, resulting in a less-than-hoped-for number of conversions and a financial deficit.67 Don Wright has suggested that the failure of these postwar lay-based evangelism programmes was an outcome of the centralisation of Methodist organisation since 1902. With the impetus for evangelism coming from Conference, rather than the circuits themselves, the circuits were less than enthusiastic.68 This explanation, however, overlooks the fact that other Protestant denominations were facing similar problems with what church leaders saw as ‘lay apathy’ towards evangelism.69 Furthermore, rapid urban Sydney Morning Herald, 31 December 1945, p. 4. Crusade for Christ, How Many Methodists Are Here? How to Make a Community Survey (Adelaide: Crusade for Christ, 1949), p. 6. 63 J.W. Burton, The Crusade for Christ: Four Studies for Use in Youth Movements (Enfield: Youth Publications Department, 1949), pp. 20–21. 64 Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of General Conference, 1945, p. 92. 65 A. Walker, The Sun (Sydney), 16 July 1952, p. 4; The Methodist, 13 September 1952, p. 2. 66 Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of New South Wales Conference, 1957, p. 213; 61 62

see also Wright, Alan Walker, pp. 79–118.

67 See, for example, Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of New South Wales Conference, 1952, p. 171. 68 Wright, Alan Walker, p. 25. 69 Frappell, ‘Building Jerusalem’, pp. 273–5.

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expansion, post-war financial difficulties, declining rural populations and falling numbers of clergy directly affected the ability of the local church to participate in lay-evangelism programmes.70 The first half of the twentieth century had proved to be a period of varying fortunes for the Methodist Church. The longed-for revival had not eventuated, and a downward trend in church membership and attendance had not been arrested. The optimism of the first decade had been buffeted by war, economic depression and social change, leaving behind a sense of uncertainty and nervousness. Certainly, there had been much that was innovative and significant – such as the expansion of the work of the inner-city missions, the Methodist Order of Knights and Girls’ Comradeship, the Men’s Own Movement and the Mission to the Nation. But by the 1950s, Methodists, in common with other Christian churches, faced an increasingly uphill struggle to present the church as a relevant institution in the lives of most Australians.

Frappell, ‘Building Jerusalem’, pp. 275–96.

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Chapter 10

Methodism and the Challenge of ‘the Sixties’ Jennifer Clark Australia stands with unparalleled prosperity stretching before it into the new decade. Undoubtedly the new age needs a new spiritual dynamic. Ted Noffs, The Methodist, 16 January 1960

The Christian Church, in order to keep pace with the changing scene, must itself be a very flexible organisation. H.L. Hawkins, The Methodist, 9 July 1960

There was something about 1960. ‘This after all is not merely the beginning of a year’, explained Ray Watson, Chairman of the Methodist Lay Activities Council, ‘it is the beginning of a decade.’ But there was much more to it even than that. ‘On all sides’, he continued, ‘we are being reminded of expansion – material and human – of scientific achievement, population explosion and increasing prosperity.’1 The year 1960 represented the emergence of a bright future from the recent strangleholds of economic depression and war. In the United States, 1960 received added articulation with the election of the young John F. Kennedy to the presidency. Without an equivalent defining act Australians drew on broad signs of progress to confirm that great change was imminent. They were not wrong, but could not, of course, foresee all the directions such change would take. As much as there was great hope in the 1960s there was also great turmoil. Every Australian had to respond to what became the 1960s phenomenon. Methodists did so with a ‘spiritual dynamic’.2 In 1985 Methodist minister and historian Arnold D. Hunt looked back at South Australian Methodism in the 1960s and rightly identified a church situated at a theological crossroads. He called the 1960s ‘a disturbing decade’ and cited a long list of evidence including:



1 2

R. Watson, ‘A Layman Looks at 1960’, The Methodist, 23 January 1960, p. 1. T.D. Noffs, ‘Call to the Ministry’, The Methodist, 16 January 1960, p. 1.

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Hunt was not alone in identifying rumbling disquiet and struggle within the Church. British historian Callum G. Brown referred to ‘the modern collapse of Christian culture and practice’ as ‘one of the greatest of historical changes’. ‘At its heart’, he explained, ‘lay a crisis in the 1960s.’4 The American historian Sidney E. Ahlstrom identified a number of events that, superimposed onto issues that were ‘slowly maturing’, resulted in a change that was ‘sudden, traumatic, and disruptive’. Perhaps the period represented the ‘Death of God’ or the ‘Great Moral Revolution’.5 In any case, Ahlstrom identified ‘new cosmic signs’ of great change and what he called ‘the criss-cross crisis of the 1960’s’.6 Closer to home, David Hilliard described the 1960s as ‘a religious watershed’ because it also saw the emergence of new religious movements, and Roger C. Thompson declared the 1960s the beginning of post-Christian Australia.7 The Methodist Church in 1960, like other denominations in Australia and overseas, in particular the Roman Catholic Church as a result of the Second Vatican Council, was about to hit turbulent waters. Challenges to the locus of authority, questions over theological and social relevance, and new demands on the collective conscience buffeted all churches. Although the Methodist Church had a strongly conservative core, a long history of social engagement meant that it was perhaps better placed than most churches to manage change and ride out the social, political and theological storms. 3 A.D. Hunt, This Side of Heaven: A History of Methodism in South Australia (Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1985), p. 385. 4 C.G. Brown, ‘What was the Religious Crisis of the 1960s?’, Journal of Religious History 34, no. 4 (2010): 468–79, at p. 468. 5 S.E. Ahlstrom, ‘The Radical Turn in Theology and Ethics: Why it Occurred in the 1960s’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 387, no. 1 ( January 1970): 1–13, at p. 3. 6 Ahlstrom, ‘Radical Turn’, pp. 1, 3, 4. 7 D. Hilliard, ‘The Religious Crisis of the 1960s: The Experience of the Australian Churches’, Journal of Religious History 21, no. 2 (1997): 209–27, at p. 209; R.C. Thompson, Religion in Australia: A History (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 113.

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Questioning the Direction and Purpose of the Church ‘What is God asking of us at such a time as this?’ asked British-born minister, presbyter of the Church of South India and Scholarship Secretary of the World Council of Churches, Harry O. Morton, at the National Conference of the Australian Student Christian Movement in Adelaide in January 1960.8 Morton identified a ready list of challenges that marked modern society both in Australia and abroad. He began with nuclear energy, population growth, shortening food supplies, the gap between rich and poor, and ended by announcing that the last great challenge was ‘the struggle to realise all that is summed up in the idea of a responsible society, both internationally and nationally’.9 Morton referred here to George MacLeod, the founder of the Iona Community, and his concept of the ‘interdependent community’.10 A similar idea is at the forefront of Martin Luther King’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’, in which he provided a guide to ethical protest and promoted ‘the interrelatedness of all communities and states’.11 Like King, Morton saw the Church as having a duty to contribute to public education and political debate. ‘The renewal of political life in your country and mine’, he said ‘depends on the growth of a new social conscience, arising out of a new kind of Church life which is concerned with the whole of life.’12 During the late 1950s through to the mid-1970s, when demographic, economic and cultural change seemed great enough to constitute a revolution, Methodists were faced with how to respond to the challenges such change represented. In 1960 Morton anticipated the answer to the problem: ‘The interdependent family of God is the pattern God is giving His Church for this time, because this is the pattern He is seeking to give all the world.’13 Morton was not alone in questioning the direction and purpose of post-war Christian practice. A raft of theological debate about Christianity in a secular age appeared in the late 1950s and the 1960s to disturb theological certainty and challenge individual Methodist ministers and laypeople alike.14 John Robinson’s H.O. Morton, ‘Contemporary Pulpit: The Way to the City’, The Methodist, 23 April 1960, p. 5; Harry O. Morton, ‘Obituary’, The Times (London), 8 December 1988. 9 Morton, ‘Contemporary Pulpit’, p. 5. 10 George MacLeod was a Church of Scotland minister, founder of the Iona Community and an advocate of social justice and ecumenism who undertook a 10-week speaking tour (140 meetings) of Australia in 1948 and again in 1972. R. Ferguson, George MacLeod: Founder of the Iona Community (London: Collins, 1990), pp. 217, 377. 11 Martin Luther King, ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’, at http:/www.africa.upenn.edu/ Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html, accessed 24 October 2010. 12 Morton, ‘Contemporary Pulpit’, p. 5. 13 Morton, ‘Contemporary Pulpit’, p. 5. 14 See, among others, ‘“Religionless Christianity”, Becoming a Betrayal of Christianity’, Western Methodist, February 1968, p. 1; ‘Theology in the Sixties: Do We Need Theology and 8

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Honest to God, published in 1963, and the Letters and Papers from Prison of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, written in Nazi Germany before his execution in 1945 and published in 1956, were perhaps the most famous and influential. Bonhoeffer’s concept of ‘religionless Christianity’ and of Christ as the ‘Lord of the world’ were echoed in Robinson’s discussion of humanity’s response to Christianity in a new liberal and secular age as the ‘recasting’ of God.15 Harvey Cox was another influential author who pushed for a new view of Christian purpose. In his 1965 work The Secular City he took a theological view of secularisation and urbanisation and argued for a theology of social change. The church is first of all ‘a responding community’, he said, ‘a people whose task it is to discern the action of God in the world and to join in His work’.16 The views of Scottish theologian P.T. Forsyth, who died in 1921, were also published in 1962.17 A favourite of the radical Methodist minister Ted Noffs, Forsyth justified social regeneration as the ultimate Christian act.18 His view reinforced the notion that Christianity had to be relevant and meaningful in a world that was no longer prepared to wait for rewards in heaven. Alan Walker, Superintendent of the CMM in Sydney, proposed a ‘whole gospel’ approach and challenged the Church not to ‘allow the State – as it almost has done in America through the historic Supreme Court rulings on segregation – to become the conscience of the Church rather than the Church being the conscience of the State’.19 Melbourne-born evangelist and onetime Professor of Theology at Queen’s College, Melbourne University, Colin W. Williams was yet another theologian who explored the relationship between the Church and the world. ‘[T]he time has come’, wrote Williams in Where in the World?, ‘to allow the Church to take shape around the needs of the world.’20 Theologians? What are the Theologians Saying to Us?’, The Spectator, 16 October 1968, p. 3; H.D’A. Wood, ‘What is this Secular Theology?’, The Methodist, 19 October 1968, p. 2. 15 D. Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. E. Bethge, 3rd edn (London: SCM Press, 1967), pp. 153, 154; J.T. Robinson, Honest to God (London: SCM Press, 1963), p. 7. 16 H. Cox, The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965), p. 117. 17 In addition to Cox, see the following list, largely compiled by Arnold Hunt: M. Gibbs and T.R. Morton, God’s Frozen People (London: Fontana, 1964); Paul van Buren, The Secular Meaning of the Gospel (London: SCM Press, 1963); Roger Lloyd, The Ferment in the Church (London: SCM Press, 1964); Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966); P. Berton, The Comfortable Pew (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1965); P.T. Forsyth, The Church, the Gospel and Society (London: Independent Press, 1962, from lectures given in 1905). 18 T. Noffs, The Gates of Hell (Sydney: Wayside Chapel of the Cross, 1965), p. 17. 19 A. Walker, The Whole Gospel for the Whole World (London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1958), p. 26. 20 C.W. Williams, Where in the World? Changing Forms of the Church’s Witness (London: Epworth Press, 1963), p. 75.

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During the long 1960s those ideas that challenged the Church to reassess its social role fed dissent and dissatisfaction with traditional conservative ideas of Christianity. Those who separated their spiritual and secular lives were affronted by the blatant calls to connect the Church with the world and those for whom the call to social service was strong often sought more satisfying opportunities in places other than the ministry.21 If the Church was to find relevance in a changing world, then it needed to change with it. In 1960 the Methodist Church, through the Rev. Alan Walker and the CMM in the heart of Sydney, was presented with an opportunity to explore the interdependent family of God in a public way. The issue was racial equality and the precipitating event was the Sharpeville Massacre. On 21 March 1960, 5,000 black South Africans staged a protest against Apartheid. Although the protest was promoted as non-violent by the organiser, Robert Sobukwe, and the Pan Africanist Congress, by the end of the day more than 60 lay dead and perhaps 180 were wounded.22 Alan Walker was well aware of growing racial selfconsciousness and the role the Church could play. On a preaching tour of the United States he challenged Southern segregationists and, after Sharpeville, he used the Sydney ‘Lyceum Platform’ as a forum to raise public awareness about racial discrimination.23 In his book A New Mind for a New Age, published the same year, Walker addressed the end of colonialism and announced that ‘Coloured man is demanding equality’.24 The public response to Sharpeville was polite rather than passionate within the Menzies Liberal Government but Walker’s Lyceum Platform provided the people of Sydney with an opportunity to register their distaste for Apartheid in particular, and racial discrimination in general.25 It was a small step but indicative of the way in which Alan Walker found himself front and centre in the debates that would drive change in the 1960s. Although Walker may have pushed for racial equality, the Church did not necessarily follow him on all fronts. It was easier to proclaim equality before K. Dempsey, Conflict and Decline: Ministers and Laymen in an Australian Country Town (Sydney: Methuen, 1983), p. 55. The number of men beginning ministry in NSW steadily declined from 18 in 1961 to one in 1969. Compiled from Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of New South Wales Conference, 1970, Appendix D, Ministers and Probationers. 22 J. Clark, Aborigines and Activism: Race, Aborigines and the Coming of the Sixties to Australia (Crawley: University of Western Australia Press, 2008), p. 16; A. Reeves, Shooting at Sharpeville: The Agony of South Africa (London: Victor Gollancz, 1960), p. 64. 23 Correspondence on the ‘Lyceum Platform’ from Alan Walker, in possession of the author; Advertisement, ‘South Africa Protest Meeting’, The Methodist, 9 April 1960, p. 13. 24 Anon., ‘A New Mind for a New Age’, The Methodist, 17 September 1960, p. 3; A. Walker, A New Mind for a New Age (London: Epworth Press, 1960). 25 A similar event was held in Melbourne. 21

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God and to call for an end to discriminatory immigration policy than it was to alter the paternalism of church missions to the Aborigines.26 Methodism and Aboriginal Rights Throughout the 1960s the Methodist Church was heavily involved in Aboriginal missions. In 1963 the Yolngu of Yirrkala Methodist Mission in Arnhem Land resisted the Commonwealth Government’s decision to excise land for bauxite mining. John Jago, Convenor of the Commission on Aboriginal Affairs in Victoria, called on both Church and government to update their policies regarding Aboriginal rights. Jago saw that the Church’s concept of mission to Aborigines remained paternalistic and did not take sufficient account of the new thrust for personal autonomy and racial equality so clearly emergent in events in the United States and South Africa.27 Methodist missionary Edgar Wells was in Yirrkala. He saw the disquiet of the Yolngu at the prospect of bauxite mining on what they clearly understood as their land. He sent a telegram to Cecil Gribble, General Secretary of the Board of the Methodist Overseas Mission (MOM), and Alan Walker, among others, to tell them of the untenable situation of the Yolngu.28 But Gribble sided with the government in the mining debate, seeing it as part of the process of assimilation. ‘It is not politically feasible to divert this stream from touching the Arnhem Land people’, wrote Gribble, ‘nor would it be justifiable if we really intend assimilation. But we are concerned at the prospect of the buffeting they [Aborigines] will get.’29 Wells was intimately involved in sending the bark petition to Canberra, the first petition ever presented in an Indigenous language, although he tried to keep his distance from the physical process even to the extent of insisting his wife type, package and post the petition, rather than do it himself.30 The issue for Wells and John Jago was largely one of consultation but they also appreciated, perhaps more than most, the depth of Yolngu culture. 26 Methodist Social Service Department, ‘The Church in the Life of the World’, The Methodist, 17 November 1962, p. 5; Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of General Conference, 1963, pp. 98, 99. 27 J. Jago, ‘New Deal for Australia’s Aboriginal People’, leaflet published by Commission on Aboriginal Affairs of the Methodist Church of Australasia, Victoria and Tasmania Conference, December 1963. Barry Christophers Papers, MS 7992, Box 1, National Library of Australia, Canberra. 28 E. Wells, Reward and Punishment in Arnhem Land, 1962–1963 (Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1982), p. 42. 29 Editorial, Missionary Review, April 1963, p. 3. 30 E. Wells, ‘The Bark Petition: “Tis Mystery All”’, Proceedings of the Uniting Church Historical Society (Victoria) 3, no. 2 (1996): 11–23, at p. 22.

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‘There cannot be a compensation for the disturbances that rob the mind of its anchors’, Wells wrote in The Methodist.31 They thought it was important to listen to the Indigenous voice but these were isolated calls within the Church. Gribble preferred that comments on Aborigines came through the Board of the MOM and urged outspoken members of the Church to trust in ‘the wisdom, experience and the insight of the Board’.32 Increasingly throughout the 1960s calls were made for previously wayward and marginalised voices to be heard in contradistinction to the voice of accepted authoritative knowledge embodied in parents, police, government and the Church, or indeed, specific parts of it. The Methodist Church was forced to listen to these alternative voices in 1963. Edgar Wells was subsequently removed from missionary work. Pauline Pickford, Honorary Secretary of the Victorian Council for Aboriginal Rights, called this action ‘dismissal’ but Gribble wrote to Paul Hasluck, Minister for Territories, saying that the Board had been disturbed for some time by Wells’ views which were ‘not consistent with the general policy of the mission Board and the church’.33 Wells’ involvement in the outcomes for the Yolngu was so nationally significant that John Harris, who wrote about Christian contact with the Aborigines, described Wells as the one ‘whose lone championing of the rights of the Yirrkala people to their own land launched the Australian church into the land rights debate’ and that ‘the modern land rights movement and the involvement of the church can be said to have begun with the Methodists in the 1960s’.34 Methodists at the time were not so forthcoming in acknowledging Wells’ significance or the impact of the bark petition, but in 1972 the General Conference announced that Cecil Gribble’s retirement ‘coincides with the end of an era’ for Aboriginal missions.35 They were not wrong. Edgar Wells and Alan Walker had much in common, not least of which was their outspokenness. But the social agenda they advocated and delivered put pressure on the Methodist Church to respond to new directions.

31 E. Wells, ‘The Yirrkala Methodist Mission to the Australian Aborigines’, The Methodist, 9 February 1963, p. 5. 32 C.F. Gribble to John Jago, 26 March 1963, Collection 3076, Box 1, Aboriginal Affairs, Uniting Church Archives, Melbourne, Victoria. 33 Pauline Pickford to Gribble, Council for Aboriginal Rights (Victoria) Papers, MS 12913 Box 3/5, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne; Gribble to Hasluck, 12 December 1963, Select Committee on Grievances of Yirrkala Aborigines, Arnhem Land Reserve, Northern Territory, National Archives of Australia: A452/1 1963/6390. 34 J. Harris, One Blood: 200 Years of Aboriginal Encounter with Christianity (Sutherland, NSW: Albatross Books, 1990), pp. 800, 801. 35 Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of General Conference, 1972, p. 37.

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Alan Walker and Urban Evangelism By March 1960, Alan Walker had just completed two years as Superintendent of the CMM in Sydney.36 The handover from F.W. Rayward for the prize Methodist appointment was fortuitous. The historian of the Mission, Don Wright, concluded that Rayward was ‘right to go in 1958, for, in a sense, he belonged to an age that was passing’.37 Alan Walker’s background in evangelism – he came to the role of Superintendent on the back of his three years’ preaching the Mission to the Nation from 1953 to 1955 – greatly influenced his idea of how the CMM should be run, and positioned him well to set the Mission on an increasingly outward trajectory that complemented what was happening elsewhere in inner-city ministry. Urban ministry during the 1960s captured the spirit of ecumenism and social action – for example, in the Church of All Nations in Carlton, Melbourne, services were translated across half a dozen languages.38 Alan Walker saw the CMM as an opportunity for concentrated urban evangelism, and this would take a variety of turns as the 1960s unfolded. The opening of Lifeline in 1962 was one such important direction; the Teenage Cabaret was another.39 Both addressed emerging problems for Australia and the Church, and both helped to blur the lines between the secular and the sacred worlds. Lifeline was established as a response to the growing problems of urban poverty, alcohol and, increasingly, drug abuse, relationship turmoil, family breakdown, loneliness and social alienation. None of these problems was new but during the 1960s and into the early 1970s poverty was rediscovered and alienation reached epidemic proportions.40 Lifeline was well placed to respond to the growing social problems that were laid bare in a world of plenty. Alan Walker saw Lifeline as an opportunity to put evangelism into practice. Trainee counsellors saw themselves as doing God’s work, but the process of acceptance into the programme as a counsellor was more rigorous than simple self-selection. The combination of service and witness was paramount to the philosophy of Lifeline and central to the idea of lay ministry because Lifeline was an extension 36 D. Wright, Alan Walker: Conscience of the Nation (Adelaide: Openbook, 1997), p. 149. 37 D. Wright, Mantle of Christ: A History of the Sydney Central Methodist Mission (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1984), p. 167. 38 Church of All Nations, A Uniting Church in Carlton, ‘About’, at http://carlton-uca. org/news/about-2/, accessed 28 December 2012. 39 The current name ‘Lifeline’ was originally written as ‘Life-Line’. ‘Planning for “LifeLine” Movement Begins’, The Methodist, 9 June 1962, p. 9. 40 Commission of Enquiry into Poverty (Ronald F. Henderson, Chair, Poverty in Australia: first main report, Canberra, AGPS, 1975).

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of Christian commitment.41 All new members of the Lifeline team committed to regular prayer, Church attendance and Bible study, as well as training in counselling and witnessing. Service, study and fellowship were specifically named as the three support planks of the Young Lifeliner.42 Lifeline may have had an outward social relief function, but equally strong was its commitment to spiritual regeneration. Behind much of the urban despair that Walker hoped to alleviate was what he called the ‘great unmet spiritual needs in a modern society’.43 For Walker, Lifeline was the answer to the ‘emotional and psychological poverty’ of modern life.44 To this end, Walker maintained his insistence that Lifeline was an act of Christian witness and not secular social welfare.45 Attempting to Reach the Youth Culture Lifeline targeted the alienation of an urban population, but more broadly during the 1960s, alienation became a recurring theme. It took the American film The Graduate in 1967 to popularise and, perhaps, glamorise the alienation of youth, but in the meantime Australian Methodists were concerned that so many young people seemed to be outside the reach of the Church and therefore outside the reach of moral control. The post-war baby boom produced large numbers of young people who demanded a rapid response from the churches. On the one hand, this meant that Sunday Schools were strong especially during the early 1960s, and parents who themselves were not churchgoers would still bring their children to Sunday School for religious instruction, but in relation to the number of children enrolled in day schools, Sunday School attendance was declining.46 Overall membership of the Methodist Church was declining as well. Between the census collection of 1966 and 1971 the number of Methodists who identified themselves as such fell by over 125,000.47 For a large number of young people, connections with the Church were negative and isolated. ‘The most disturbing feature of today’s youth is emptiness’, Alan Walker wrote. He described young people as ‘virtually detribalised white people’ with ‘no “Christian memories”’ who were in need of moral guidance.48 Methodists Wright, Mantle of Christ, p. 215; Wright, Alan Walker, p. 160. ‘Great Youth Surge’, The Methodist, 8 June 1963, p. 9. 43 A. Walker, ‘Life-Line’, The Methodist, 15 December 1962, p. 6. 44 Walker, ‘Life-Line’, p. 6. 45 Wright, Mantle of Christ, p. 215. 46 J. Cotterell, ‘Can the Sunday School Survive?’, Methodist Times, 6 October 1966, p. 8. 47 Commonwealth Government, Official Yearbook of Australia (Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1974). 48 A. Walker, ‘Australia and its Youth’, The Methodist, 20 January 1962, p. 1. 41 42

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regularly lamented the growth of sexual licence among young people and their apparent access to contraception.49 They deplored that increased secular knowledge and access to secular entertainments could only be met with ‘an hour a week of Sunday School’.50 They struggled to advocate abstinence in the face of increasingly liberal approaches to the sale of alcohol; South Australia was the last state to end the ‘six o’clock swill’, with extended drinking hours in 1967.51 Collectively, Methodists fought a losing battle against the rising tide of the ‘new morality’.52 Church-run sports clubs, coffee houses and espresso bar outreach all tried to capture the elusive teenage soul. Although Methodist churches across the country introduced experimental evening services with modern music and creative formats, the most radical answer to the ministry for disengaged young people came from Brisbane in the form of the Teenage Cabaret.53 Its founding advocate, Arthur Preston, called the Teenage Cabaret ‘the most adventurous expression of our concern for those outside the Christian Fellowship’.54 Arthur Preston was distressed that so many young people seemed to have lost their way and yet it was impossible to encourage them to come to church. They were hardened to the ways of the Church and resentful of instruction from ministers. Preston conceived the idea of a cabaret for teenagers. He spent some £10,000 refurbishing the church hall in Brisbane’s West End Mission, including fitting out a snack bar and providing amplification for the bands. Arthur Preston called his idea ‘entertainment for a purpose’.55 There was always music and live shows, scheduled time for ‘jiving’, but, ultimately, this was ‘evangelism by infiltration’.56 Committed Methodist youth were part of the Cabaret activities, praying beforehand, and during the event talking with the ‘toughs’ who were there. At the end of the night 10 minutes were allocated to devotions. The Teenage Cabaret format spread to Sydney, where it was run by Deaconess Noreen Towers, as well as to Newcastle, Adelaide and the Gold Coast. Walker, ‘Australia and its Youth’, p. 1. Cotterell, ‘Can the Sunday School Survive?’, p. 8. 51 S. Frappell, ‘Methodists and the Campaigns for Six O’Clock Hotel Closing in New South Wales’, Aldersgate Papers 10 (September 2012): 30–49. 52 I.G. Mavor, ‘Situation Ethics – the New Morality’, Methodist Times, 19 January 1967, p. 15; A. Wilkinson, ‘Sunday School “Crisis” Calls for Revolutionary Changes’, The Spectator, 19 May 1965, p. 6 (reprinted from Presbyterian Life). 53 The Spectator, 7 August 1963, p. 6. 54 A. Preston, We Offer Christ (Brisbane: W.R. Smith and Paterson, n.d), p. 39. Arthur Preston was appointed to CMM, Melbourne in 1968, introducing a new era after Sir Irving Benson but he could not duplicate his Brisbane successes in his new position. See B.T. Brown, Men with a Mission: Sir Irving Benson and Arthur Preston at the Central Methodist Mission, Melbourne (Melbourne: Uniting Church Historical Society, 1989). 55 Brown, Men with a Mission, p. 40. 56 Brown, Men with a Mission, p. 41. 49 50

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The Melbourne equivalent was the ‘Rock-a-Teria’.57 The West End Cabaret drew 300 on opening night; in Sydney the figure was closer to 500 and those who could not fit in the hall were turned away.58 Alan Walker called it a ‘halfway house – halfway between the street corner and the church’.59 The Australian Women’s Weekly reported it was good value for the four shillings entrance fee.60 When Arthur Preston or Alan Walker spoke about the Teenage Cabaret, they did so recognising that they needed to change their own practices in order to reach young people. The key issue was not to tell a different religious message so much as to modernise its means of delivery. They saw music as the key. Not only did they engage well-known artists for nominal fees, but the youth choir arranged the words of hymns to sound more upbeat – ‘Pass Me Not, O Gentle Saviour’ was sung to the tune of ‘Sink the Bismarck’, and ‘I’ve Found a Friend’ to ‘Running Bear’.61 The organisers were very conscious of speaking the language of youth, tapping into their music and providing a spiritual experience relevant to them as well – what they called getting ‘the Beatitudes into the Beatniks’.62 The Teenage Cabaret marked a new direction for the Methodist Church, especially in the inner-city missions, that was afterwards supported by the widespread coffee shop movement both in the cities and in country areas. At the Sunshine Methodist Mission in Victoria, for example, a drop-in coffee shop ran seven days a week and a disco attracted more than 300 young people from the western suburbs of Melbourne.63 Both initiatives recognised the teenager as a separate cohort – between 1955 and 1970 there was an 80 per cent increase in the number of young people aged 15 to 19.64 Ted Noffs and the Wayside Chapel One of the leaders of the Teenage Cabaret was Ted Noffs, Assistant Minister at the Sydney CMM. Noffs began his ministry in Wilcannia in the far west of ‘Rock-a-Teria’, The Spectator, 26 June 1963, p. 3. Noreen Towers was well known for her work with homeless men in the 1960s. 58 ‘Teenage Cabaret Huge Success’, The Methodist, 13 August 1960, p. 13; W.B. Kelley, ‘Broadview Cabaret’, South Australian Methodist, 27 July 1962, p. 8. Two years later the Methodist Times reported that ‘Many Roman Catholics attended’, Methodist Times, 18 January 1962, p. 12. 59 ‘Teenage Cabaret Huge Success’, The Methodist, 13 August 1960, p. 13. 60 Teenagers’ Weekly supplement, 14 September 1960, p. 5. 61 W. Munday, ‘Building Church on Rock (and Roll)’, Australian Women’s Weekly, 14 September 1960, p. 40; Teenagers’ Weekly supplement, p. 4. 62 W.D. O’Reilly, ‘Beatitudes and Beatniks’, The Methodist, 20 August 1960, p. 2. 63 Correspondence in possession of author from Barry Brown (Sunshine Methodist Mission 1969–73), 10 December 2011. 64 C. J. Wright, ‘The Dis-ease and Care of the Teenager’, The Methodist, 8 June 1963, p. 1. 57

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NSW, followed by a period of study and ministry in Chicago. By 1962 he was already advocating a new approach to urban ministry, and in January 1964 he moved to Kings Cross, the heart of inner-city Sydney, described as the ‘most wicked square mile in Australia’.65 Noffs took charge of two flats in Hughes Street with a congregation of 12 and expanded it to include a white chapel with youth activities, seniors groups and a Sunday School, plus the Upper Room coffee shop, a drug referral centre, drug addiction research foundation, theatre, art gallery and a poetry magazine – Cross Beat.66 The Wayside Chapel was an experiment. Noffs saw his ministry as providing a haven for the distracted and disaffected, what he called the ‘religiously dispossessed’.67 It was somewhere they could talk about life and death and where they could find help and reassurance. At the Wayside Chapel there was little distinction between the secular and the sacred. There was less emphasis on denominational practice and more on Christianity in action.68 Noffs took his lead from the experiences of his three years in Chicago, but he also justified his approach by relating his Christianity to the demands of the day. He talked openly of regenerating the Church, of reaching out to people fallen by the wayside of society who were consumed by alcohol, drugs or social alienation. Not unlike others in the 1960s, Noffs talked about remaking the world, but for him it was with the exposed Christ as his guide rather than the Church. In that sense Noffs identified with his congregation who rejected traditionally organised authority and sought a deeper authority from within. For Noffs this was an opportunity: ‘In every age of spiritual renewal and discovery God pushes His remnant out into the world, unprotected, insecure and alone.’69 While Noffs saw Methodism at the Wayside Chapel in a servant role, earning ‘the right to speak all over again’, traditional Methodists were not always impressed.70 They were sceptical about the liberal practices of the Wayside Chapel and they criticised the humanism of Ted Noffs as being at odds with the traditional doctrines of the Methodist Church. In 1975 John Hall, a fellow Methodist minister, brought charges of

65 T. Noffs, ‘Methodism Must Face Inner-City Challenge’, The Methodist, 15 December 1962, pp. 10–11; T. Noffs, The Wayside Chapel: A Radical Christian Experiment in Today’s World (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1969), p. 12. 66 Noffs, Gates of Hell, p. 9; Wayside Chapel Newsletter, 30 July 1969, Mitchell Library, Sydney; The Wayside Chapel of the Cross, Report No 1 – Winter 1964, Mitchell Library, Sydney; D. Wright and E.G. Clancy, The Methodists: A History of Methodism in New South Wales (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993), p. 203; Noffs, The Wayside Chapel, p. 35. 67 Noffs, The Wayside Chapel, p. 69. 68 Noffs, The Wayside Chapel, pp. 45, 50. 69 Wayside Chapel Report, No. 2, August 1964, p. 3. 70 Wayside Chapel Report, No. 2, August 1964, p. 4.

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heresy against Noffs to the NSW Methodist Conference.71 Although he was acquitted, the accusations brought to a head the way in which responding to the considerable challenges of society in the 1960s also challenged the expectations and limitations of organised religion. Noffs knew he was taking Methodism in Kings Cross to the outer reaches. ‘For we are now moving beyond religion’, he wrote, ‘in much the same way as a space rocket reaches the limits of the earth’s atmosphere and escapes to the challenging and frightening territory beyond.’ He went on to describe the Wayside Chapel experience as ‘the story of one escape from traditional institutional fetters of Christianity’.72 Speaking into the Confusions of an Atomic Age Methodism in the 1960s is very much a story of walking a fine line between the secular and the sacred. Ted Noffs’ charge of humanism and Alan Walker’s determination to keep Christian control of Lifeline highlight the diverse difficulties and tensions. Where did the role of the Church begin and end in a period of encroaching secularisation and religious ambivalence? Alan Walker, for one, was never afraid to answer this question. His I Challenge the Minister television programme on Channel 9 was evidence of that – at its height, it drew an audience of 500,000 – but he was equally criticised for his use of the Church as a political platform.73 In the 1960s, it was very easy to be political and by doing so to raise the ire of conservatives within the Church. Arnold Hunt knew why. Most preachers condemned sin generally. That was platitudinous and acceptable, but Walker named identifiable social and political practices such as nuclear testing, capital punishment, poker machines and racial discrimination as sins.74 That was far more controversial. There was some support from the President of the Conference, Norman G. Pardey, who told a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon audience in the Lyceum Theatre, ‘The first responsibility of the Christian Church is to speak to the world that is in the midst of the problems and confusions of an atomic age.’75 These challenges forced Methodists to draw relationships between the gospel they preached and the world in which they lived. They did so using the principles of stewardship, justice, personal responsibility and the relationship between church and state.76 This last issue lay dormant until the For a full discussion of the heresy episode, see T. Jarratt, Ted Noffs: Man of the Cross (Sydney: Macmillan, 1997), pp. 287–300. 72 Noffs, The Wayside Chapel, p. 9. 73 Wright, Alan Walker, pp. 153, 163. 74 A. Hunt, ‘The Dangers of Being Specific’, The Methodist, 23 November 1963, p. 11. 75 N.G. Pardey, ‘The Church’s Programme in 1964’, The Methodist, 18 January 1964, p. 1. 76 J. Westerman, ‘The Church and Social Action’, The Methodist, 4 July 1964, p. 6. 71

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Menzies Government reignited the debate in 1964 with the direct allocation of £5 million to independent schools to build science laboratories. Science in the 1960s was changing at a rapid pace, and educators realised that for children to keep abreast of these developments and to be fit to respond to them in the future a new form of education was necessary. This meant a new curriculum, new texts, new approaches and new laboratories. Many schools across Australia, especially girls’ schools, were not equipped to teach the new science without a massive injection of funds and facilities. Menzies’ response met with consternation from Alan Walker and others: ‘Direct aid to Church schools by grants for science buildings is a new and perilous departure in Church-State relations’, he argued.77 The broader political problem was only exacerbated by sectarianism. ‘The Roman Catholic Church is now to receive “favoured church” treatment in Australia’, Walker claimed.78 Methodists and the Vietnam War Methodists worked hard to justify what they did and to reach out in new directions. They studied the teenagers’ world. They examined racial inequality within and outside of the Church. They responded to the anonymity of the modern urban lifestyle. At no time was the Methodist position more difficult and dire than during the Vietnam War. Some Methodists actively supported conscientious objectors and demanded Australian withdrawal from Vietnam and an end to conscription. Methodists struggled with the concept of killing in war in general, and killing in the Vietnam War in particular. They struggled, too, with the knowledge that many conscripted young men would go to their deaths in Vietnam. Most notable during the heightened tensions surrounding involvement in Vietnam was the way in which Methodists readily engaged in public debate. Particularly in the pages of Methodist newspapers they questioned what was expected of a lawabiding citizen. Where did obligation end and conscience begin? If one was to render to Caesar that which was Caesar’s, what was Caesar morally allowed to claim? Did it include the giving of life itself ? In 1965 the Methodist Conference resolved to record ‘anxiety and dismay’ in response to events in Vietnam and urged the government to seek a negotiated peace. Prime Minister Menzies replied by letter, later printed in The Methodist. Menzies reiterated the government’s position to secure an independent South

A. Walker, ‘Church and State in Australia’, The Methodist, 27 June 1964, p. 11. Walker, ‘Church and State in Australia’, p. 11. C. Hamer, ‘A Plea for Support for State Aid’, The Methodist, 11 July 1964, p. 11. 77

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Vietnam before any settlement could be contemplated.79 Three months later, Alan Walker addressed an audience of 2,000 at a ‘No Conscripts for Vietnam’ rally, saying that ‘If I were of military age, I would have no alternative but to be a conscientious objector and, if refused exemption, would choose gaol rather than be part of this evil war.’80 Some six weeks later, the Methodist General Conference met in Perth and again discussed its response to the Vietnam War. The delegates could only agree to disagree, resolving that Conference recognises that the issues in Vietnam are many and complex and that there can be no easy solution that will adequately resolve all issues involved. We further recognise that there are sincere differences among us in our understanding of the situation and in our acceptance of Australia’s involvement as a nation.81

What was unambiguous, however, was the conviction of Conference that conscription of Australian service personnel to Vietnam was ‘immoral’ because 1. It is unjust – 2. It denies freedom of conscience: 3. The method of selection of conscripts is based on mere chance.82

Methodists in the pews were as divided on Vietnam as those at Conference. Their inherent conservatism meant that many church members endorsed Australian involvement in Vietnam: this was confirmed by a 1966 Gallup poll.83 Of surveyed Methodists, 41.3 per cent thought Australian conscripts should be sent to Vietnam compared with 49.8 per cent who thought they should stay in Australia.84 Moreover, politicising the Sunday service in the cause of consciousness-raising was not always appreciated. In May 1966, when the local Methodist minister in Uralla, north-western NSW, brought a blackboard into the church and tried to begin a discussion on the Vietnam issue he was met with a hostile reception. The Minister prayed: ‘Stop us from hiding behind other people’s knowledge and give us the courage to stand up for what is right.’

‘Prime Minister’s Reply on Vietnam’, The Methodist, 29 January 1966, p. 2. ‘I would choose jail…’, The Methodist, 9 April 1966, p. 13. 81 ‘Resolutions and Statements of Policy on Questions’, Methodist Church of Australasia, Minutes of General Conference, 1966, p. 217. 82 ‘Resolutions and Statements of Policy on Questions’, p. 218. 83 Letters, Western Methodist, August 1966, p. 5. 84 Australian Gallup Polls, Survey 184, 16 July 1966. Australian Social Science Data Archive, Australian National University, at http://www.assda.edu.au/index.html, accessed 19 December 2012. 79 80

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A leading laywoman was not impressed: ‘This is God’s house and we should be hearing the gospel. This isn’t the gospel’, she complained.85 Surviving through Adaptation The Methodist Church survived the crisis of the 1960s because it was adaptable. Marked by strong and colourful leadership across the country, the Church was forced to the forefront of advocating a radical social reform agenda in welfare and rights for Aborigines, underpinned and supported by the radical new international theology. At the same time, it maintained a traditional sabbatarianism, clung on to temperance as a cultural creed and resisted the liberalisation of alcohol laws, opposed the granting of state aid to church schools and promoted a conservative approach to personal morality. In terms of public worship, Methodists were leaders in promoting innovative youth services, new music and Christian outreach. They vigorously pursued evangelism using methods that were adapted to the new age, and responded to the challenges of new theological ideas and social currents. Most notable of all, Methodists managed to straddle the line between secular and sacred. When the Methodist Church was under most pressure in the 1960s it showed itself to be resilient and robust. But falling numbers still took their toll and even those within the Church recognised that its influence in society was waning.86 Battered by the ‘intellectualism, humanism and individualism’ of the 1960s that ultimately challenged the authority of Christianity itself, Methodism chose a way forward in the idealism of ecumenism.87 In 1977, only two years after the Fraser Government was elected, which marks a convenient chronological end point for the 1960s phenomenon in Australia, Methodists joined with Presbyterians and Congregationalists to form the new Uniting Church in Australia which would continue to straddle the sacred and secular divide in a manner much like Methodism before it.

Dempsey, Conflict and Decline, pp. 54, 55. Uralla was called ‘Barool’ in Dempsey’s book. 86 B.L. Howe, ‘The Church in Modern Society’, The Spectator, 30 October 1963, p. 6. 87 A. James, ‘The Liturgical Movement and the Methodist Church’, South Australian Methodist, 2 November 1962, p. 4. 85

Part II Themes

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Chapter 11

Australian Methodist Religious Experience Glen O’Brien

Australian Methodist religious experience has its roots in German Pietism, English Puritanism, the Anglican ‘holy living’ tradition and the manner in which those tributary streams converged in the eighteenth-century evangelical awakening. John Wesley’s religious experience was shaped not only by these sources but also by the spirituality of the ante-Nicene church and ascetic mysticism. Though he was in some ways more Catholic than Protestant in his outlook, it was Martin Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith as mediated through Wesley’s contact with Moravians in both London and the colony of Georgia that would lead to a profound revolution in his life. After 13 years as an Anglican priest, disappointed in his own efforts to achieve perfection, his evangelical conversion of 24 May 1738 brought with it a deep sense of the assurance of his salvation. After this experience of ‘the new birth’, his life took on a very different complexion. From being a failed rector and a failed missionary, unlucky in love and unsuccessful in religious aspirations, he became arguably the most remarkable religious figure of the eighteenth century. Through his organisational genius, tireless open-air preaching, spiritual counsel and benevolent dictatorship over ‘the people called Methodist’, he set a pattern for Protestant religious life that would come to characterise the following century and continues to shape evangelical piety down to the present time. The Religion of the Heart Wesley’s conversion experience emphasises that at the heart of Christian experience is not uncertainty, guilt and shame but a joyful sense of God’s acceptance. To know in one’s heart that God is a loving Father who has truly forgiven one’s sins is a very liberating thing indeed, bringing with it a sense of filial acceptance. Some historians, most notably perhaps E.P. Thompson in his influential The Making of the English Working Class, have given the impression that eighteenth-century Methodism was a rather gloomy affair of sexually repressed people, riddled with anxiety; tortured souls looking for deliverance

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from this suffering existence whose ‘Sabbath orgasms of feeling’ made more possible their exploitation as a labour force.1 The voices found in the diaries, letters and contemporary accounts provide us with a very different picture. Certainly there were some oddballs and Methodists exhibited their share of religious mania, but overall they give the impression of being the happy children of a God of love, assured of acceptance and set free from guilt to live for the good of their neighbours. In a sense Wesley’s own experience became a kind of template of Methodist religious experience. A person would hear the Gospel of God’s love in Christ, universally available to all, and begin to experience the conviction that his or her sins were an affront to the holiness of God. This would lead to repentance, understood not only as a sorrow for sin but a determined effort to amend one’s life. The attempt would prove futile, as sin’s hold would be experienced as simply too great to be broken by human religious effort, no matter how heroic that effort might be. What was needed was ‘faith’, not faith as intellectual assent to a set of propositions, but faith as fiducia – faith as trust. It is at this point that the profoundly personal and experiential nature of Methodist religious experience is brought into focus. It was not enough to know that Jesus was the Saviour; I must know that he is my Saviour; that he died for me, took away my sin and accepted me into his favour. Eighteenth-century Methodism was the religion of the firstperson personal pronoun. Once the repentant sinner had been ‘born again’, he or she could expect to receive an ‘assurance’ or ‘witness of the Spirit’ bringing a deep certainty of adoption into God’s family. Salvation did not stop there, however. Along with justification (being put right with God) came sanctification (being made like God). The believer was expected to make every effort, assisted always by the grace of God, to make salvation more certain, by living a holy life. A second experience known as ‘entire sanctification’ or ‘Christian perfection’, at which time the believer’s heart would be cleansed from its inward disposition towards sin and filled with love for God and neighbour, was also to be anticipated. Though Wesley explicitly denied that he possessed this ‘second blessing’, he passionately urged it upon others and took at face value the testimony of many who did claim it. This pattern of repentance, faith, assurance and holiness encapsulates the four most important aspects of eighteenth-century Methodist experience. Its biblical basis is found in the New Testament, especially in Paul’s letters (Galatians and Romans, in particular) and in the First Epistle of John, which, with its focus on love, seemed to have been a special favourite of John Wesley’s. Historically these 1 E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London: Pelican, 1968), p. 428. For a more recent examination of the role of the emotions in early Methodism viewed through the lens of gender studies, see P. Mack, Heart Religion in the British Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

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themes are broadly traceable in Augustine’s doctrines of sin and grace, Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith and the Puritan and Moravian doctrines of the new birth and sanctification. (Though ‘perfectionism’ was mostly rejected outside of Methodism, and at times within it, the importance of holiness understood as ‘progressive sanctification’, remained intact.) With many variations these three themes came to characterise the religious life of transatlantic Evangelicalism and were transmitted to the southern hemisphere through the hugely successful missionary enterprise of the nineteenth century. Methodist Means John Wesley’s Oxford classmate George Whitefield was by all accounts the greatest orator among the eighteenth-century Methodists. Through his contact with the New England Congregationalist Jonathan Edwards he contributed to the dissemination of the new Evangelicalism in British America. As great a preacher as he was, Whitefield by his own admission lacked the organisational ability of Wesley, choosing not to identify himself too closely with the machinery of any particular religious society, preferring instead the freedom of itinerancy.2 Yet it was the special genius of Methodism that it added to Whitefield’s innovation of open-air preaching a connectional system of small group meetings for preserving and nurturing its converts. In this way, the fruit of what was often, in its initial stages, a very emotional and direct experience could be preserved in a long-term accountability-based community. The chief means established were band meetings, class meetings, love feasts and watch-night/covenant services, all encapsulated within the United Society of Methodists. Since these are covered in Chapter 12 on Methodist worship they will not be described in detail here. It is worth noting, however, that this communal structure functioned as the machinery of early Methodist religious experience and that the class meeting was its most important feature. One did not have to be a believer in the full sense in order to participate in a class.3 The only necessary qualifications were ‘a desire to flee from the wrath to come and to be saved from your sins’. So the class meetings were mixed groups of established believers and ‘penitents’ – the type of person one might today refer to as a ‘seeker’. The class leader would routinely ask a set of very confronting questions about what sins members had committed that week, what temptations H.S. Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 201–6. 3 Not a ‘class’ for instruction; the word is drawn from the Latin classis for division, as in ‘classification’. A class meeting was a particular number of Methodists gathered together from the larger Society. 2

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they had faced, how they had fared under such temptation and whether they now needed to undergo repentance. This made for a kind of spiritual hothouse atmosphere not for the religiously faint-hearted. Though undoubtedly many people were instantaneously converted through the instrumentality of a field preacher, the majority of conversions took place in the context of the class meeting and after a period averaging two to three years. The formation of class meetings was the first thing that members of the Methodist diaspora did when they found themselves in such far-flung locations as New York, Philadelphia or NSW. The decline of classes in the Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church as well as among the minor Methodists by the 1890s left Australian Methodism without what was perhaps the most distinguishing feature of its ecclesial life. Methodist Revivals One very efficient means of propagating evangelical religious experience was the ‘camp meeting’ or ‘revival’ – a protracted series of meetings, initially in rural settings but later transplanted to the urban context, designed to elicit as many conversions in as short a time as possible. In the British context a certain amount of ambivalence towards revivalism had been exhibited by Wesleyans. This was not primarily because of the revivalists’ aim of making converts and deepening the spiritual lives of believers; it was the fact that such activity was off the circuit plan, and thus not subject to Conference control, that led to their being viewed as an undesirable import. A number of the minor Methodist bodies had their origins in revivalism. Hugh Bourne and William Clowes, inspired by American camp meeting revivalist Lorenzo Dow, found themselves on the outer rim because of their commitment to the camp meetings at Mow Cop in Staffordshire, which led to the formation of the Primitive Methodist Church. The Bible Christian Church also emerged out of irregular revival meetings. Notwithstanding the uncertainty about the camp meeting format, all Methodists were hungry for revival throughout the nineteenth century. Certainly in America, revivals were part and parcel of the machinery of Methodism and a key to its success on the frontier. The supernaturalism of these events and the strangeness of the phenomena that accompanied them were more akin to what we have come to expect of a Pentecostal meeting. The shakes, the jerks, shouting fits, fainting fits and other highly emotionally charged phenomena were characteristic of Methodist gatherings on the American frontier, in spite of the misgivings of John Wesley’s more sedate representatives, such as Thomas Rankin. Francis Asbury, on the other hand, though he was himself too down to earth to be given to such flights of ecstasy, understood that this was what the

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people of the frontier wanted, it made converts and it helped Methodism grow.4 Why interfere with such an effective means of propagating the movement, even if it did clash with one’s own personal preferences? Revivals were eagerly reported in Methodist newspapers and throughout the nineteenth-century Methodist world ‘there was a perennial call for revival, revival, and still more revival’.5 Australian Methodists were no exception. The first recorded revival in NSW was in Sydney in 1835, followed by others among emancipists at Windsor and Castlereagh in 1840–41, with corresponding increases in church membership figures.6 In January 1835 William Schofield rode from his Windsor circuit to Sydney to attend a love feast presided over by Joseph Orton. Schofield ‘made a few remarks upon the importance of waiting upon the Lord in holy expectation of receiving the accomplishment of his promises’ and testified to a strong sense that the meeting should not end at the usual time while the power of the Lord was so strong upon the meeting. Orton agreed, and the meeting continued till midnight, before which time, in Schofield’s words, ‘Brother Simpson and I were wholly sanctified.’7 This incident illustrates the free-flowing nature of Methodist gatherings during this period, before being replaced by more formal structured services. Throughout the rest of the century a good deal of organisational energy was put into revivals as part of the machinery of Methodist expansion. There were significant revivals among Cornish copper miners in South Australia at Burra (1858, 1862) and Moonta (1875). David Hilliard has shown how Methodist leaders in South Australia hoped and prayed for a repeat of the Wesleyan revival of the eighteenth century and how unprecedented growth rates in the 1880s gave them cause for such confidence, even if, as it turned out, these rates of growth were never to be repeated.8 One loss connected with the success of revivalism was the discontinuance of the Anglican Morning Prayer and Holy Communion services, though these were still employed by Wesleyans in some larger city churches. J. Wigger, American Saint: Francis Asbury and the Methodists (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 5 G.S. Wakefield, Methodist Devotion: The Spiritual Life in the Methodist Tradition 1791–1945 (London: Epworth Press, 1966), p. 60. 6 R.B. Walker, ‘The Growth and Typology of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in New South Wales, 1812–1901’, Journal of Religious History, 6, no. 4 (1971): 331–47, at p. 333. 7 Schofield to Secretaries, 1 May 1835, cited in J. D. Bollen, ‘A Time of Small Things: The Methodist Mission in New South Wales, 1815–1836’, Journal of Religious History, 7, no. 3 ( June 1973): 225–47, at p. 231; A. Tyrrell, A Sphere of Benevolence: The Life of Joseph Orton, Wesleyan Methodist Missionary (1795–1842) (Melbourne: State Library of Victoria, 1993), p. 87. 8 D. Hillard, Popular Revivalism in South Australia from the 1870s to the 1920s, 2nd edn (Adelaide: Uniting Church Historical Society, South Australia, 2005), pp. 1, 6. 4

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Though Australasian Methodism was very much a part of ‘Greater Britain’, and visiting revivalists such as Henry Varley and Thomas Cook were British, there were also some links with American Methodist revivalism. Perhaps the most significant in the nineteenth century was the evangelist William ‘California’ Taylor (1821–1902). Taylor was an evangelist in the same style as Charles Grandison Finney, utilising many of the (in)famous ‘revival measures’ recorded in Finney’s Lectures on Revivals of Religion, which had drawn so much criticism from Finney’s ‘old-school’ Calvinist colleagues in America, and simultaneously proven so successful in winning converts.9 Taylor and members of the congregation would counsel and pray for penitents at the ‘altar’ (usually the Communion rail) until they ‘found peace’, testified to having gained remission of sins and were then enrolled in a Wesleyan class for ongoing nurture. Taylor also expected the children of good Wesleyan parents to find this experience of the new birth, and the pastoral address of the 1864 Australasian Wesleyan Conference reported many such conversions.10 All in all, Taylor claimed responsibility for bringing over 11,000 souls to Christ during his first Australasian tour.11 Growth in Victorian Methodism was significant during Taylor’s sojourn in Australia, though more extensive research would be needed before any causal link could be asserted. Membership grew from 6 per cent between 1860 and 1862 to 34 per cent in the years 1863–65. NSW also may have benefited from Taylor’s itinerating. There was a 22 per cent increase in membership there between 1864 and 1865, after a static period of non-growth in the previous three years. Daniel Draper, who had been an early advocate of Taylor’s work in Victoria, came later to have reservations about the genuineness of the conversions, and concluded that in the end no permanent good was effected by Taylor’s ministry.12 On the other hand, Smith and Blamires, contemporaries of Taylor, strongly defended his work, rendering a favourable verdict with the hindsight of 20 years, over which time they would have had adequate opportunity to record any significant fall-out rate. They estimated that 16 colonial ministers working in the 1880s were Taylor converts.13 Economic history can shed some light on revivals. Timothy L. Smith, in his classic work Revivalism and Social Reform in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America, K.J. Hardman, Charles Grandison Finney, 1792–1875: Revivalist and Reformer (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1987), pp. 372–423. 10 Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church, Minutes of Conference, 1864, p. 43. 11 William Taylor, Story of My Life (New York: Hunt & Eaton, 1985), pp. 277–8, 320. 12 J.C. Symons, Life of the Reverend Daniel James Draper (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1870), p. 267. 13 W.C. Smith and J.R. Blamires, The Early Story of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Victoria (Melbourne: Wesleyan Book Depot, 1886), ch. 8. 9

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saw economic stability as favourable to revivals and boom as detrimental.14 In his study of the ‘Burned-Over District’ of Western New York, W.R. Cross determined that a moderate but not severe depression favoured revivals, and that the revival cycle was inverse to the business cycle.15 This may be confirmed in NSW and South Australian Methodism where there was an increase in membership and successful revivals between 1856 and 1870 in the face of drought, unemployment and falling wage rates. The more prosperous years of the 1870s when both colonies experienced an economic boom saw a decrease in membership and fewer revivals. In turn the crop failures, drought and rising unemployment of the 1880s saw a corresponding increase in members being received on trial in both NSW and South Australia.16 A commitment to social welfare and social reform had some impact on the lessening of enthusiasm for revivals, but it was the salvation of individual souls which remained central to Methodism’s task. Methodists were as much concerned for and active in social reform as other Protestants of the period, but they clung perhaps more resolutely than any others to the insistence that it was an explicitly Christian reform that was required, spearheaded by personal conversion, understood as the only valid catalyst for social change. Entire Sanctification The doctrine and experience of ‘Christian perfection’ or ‘entire sanctification’ remained an important part of Australian Methodist spirituality from the Church’s struggling colonial beginnings through to its growth and consolidation in the late nineteenth century.17 An expression of Methodist confidence in enabling grace, the doctrine drew its optimism and pragmatism from Enlightenment ideas of progress, and was at the same time a religious expression of Romanticism with its stress on an intensely personal experience of transformation.18 14 T.L. Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Abingdon Press, 1957), p. 63. 15 W.R. Cross, The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800–1850 (New York: Harper & Row, 1950), p. 75. 16 Walker, ‘Growth and Typology’, pp. 337–8. 17 Some of the material in this section is drawn from G. O’Brien, ‘Christian Perfection and Australian Methodism’, in Immense, Unfathomed, Unconfined: The Grace of God in Creation, Church, and Community. Essays in Honour of Norman Young, ed. Sean Winter (Melbourne: Uniting Academic Press, 2013), pp. 223–38. 18 D. Bebbington, Holiness in Nineteenth Century England (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000), pp. 51–72, 60–61, 68–72.

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Testimonies to an experience of entire sanctification were frequently heard among Australian Methodists of the nineteenth century. Certainly the doctrine was reinforced at a later stage by representatives of the American Holiness movement, but its true trajectory is in a straight line from John Wesley to the earliest preachers in the colony of NSW. William Schofield recorded in his journal on 26 November 1825, ‘the Lord took full possession of my heart by cleansing it from all sin … and in the same precise moment I was divinely assured that I was sanctified throughout body, soul and spirit’.19 In 1865 ‘California’ Taylor testified to entire sanctification saying that he had received it 20 years prior and had openly testified to it 17 years before.20 In NSW, William G. Taylor, John Watsford, J.S. Austin and J.A. Bowring all preached perfection and some testified to a present enjoyment of the experience.21 John Cowley Coles, who visited and prayed with Ned Kelly at the Melbourne Gaol while the latter awaited execution, included in his memoirs a chapter on ‘The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification by Faith’.22 It is doubtful, however, that entire sanctification was ever the everyday concern of colonial Methodists. Rather it seems to have featured prominently in certain revivals at irregular intervals. A revival in 1835 saw many testify to ‘the blessing’ and a Holiness Association was formed in Sydney in 1885, which met monthly after an initial meeting drew a crowd of 1,200 people. York Street was the headquarters of Holiness concern in Sydney but its influence spread as far abroad as Wagga Wagga, the Hunter Valley and Kempsey.23 According to R.B. Walker, ‘Open profession of Christian perfection was apt to arouse feelings of repulsion and rejection among mere sinners, who perceived serious flaws in the possessors of perfect love. Most Wesleyans were content to believe in the doctrine and not to enjoy it and claim it for themselves.’24 Some degree of interest in the doctrine and experience of sanctification did, however, continue well into the twentieth century. Even such a ‘Methodist moderniser’ as Edward Sugden, Master of Queen’s College, Melbourne, was a keen exponent of entire sanctification as a central doctrine of Methodism, though he, like others in the early twentieth century, attempted a reformulation of the doctrine on the basis of newer insights. In 1928 Sugden was able to include ‘entire sanctification’ as one of ‘the doctrines emphasised by John Wesley’ at a Weekly Advocate, 20 July 1878, p. 128, cited in Walker, ‘Growth and Typology’, p. 343. W. Taylor, How to be Saved and How to Save the World (Adelaide: A. Waddy, 1866), pp. 353–61, cited in Walker, ‘Growth and Typology’, p. 343. 21 Walker, ‘Growth and Typology’, p. 343. 22 J.C. Coles, The Life and Christian Experience of John Cowley Coles (London: Marshall Brothers; Melbourne: M.L. Hutchinson, 1893). 23 D. Wright and E.G. Clancy, The Methodists: A History of Methodism in New South Wales (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993), pp. 78–9. 24 Walker, ‘Growth and Typology’, p. 343. 19

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lunchtime address given to ministers entitled Our Doctrines.25 In his annotated edition of Wesley’s Sermons he supported the doctrine on biblical, logical and psychological grounds, insisting that ‘we have in the New Testament, an ideal set before us, to which we can more and more approximate, until we are perfected in love, but which is not at once attained when we are born again’.26 The most important theological treatment of the doctrine of Christian perfection in the first half of the twentieth century was Robert Newton Flew’s The Idea of Perfection in Christian Theology, first published in 1934 and offering a comprehensive redevelopment of the doctrine in modern terms.27 Interestingly, one of the sources Flew relied upon was Sugden’s treatment in his edition of Wesley’s sermons. The fact that Flew, the English Methodist, drew on the writings of the Master of Queen’s College and was read and appreciated by Australian Methodists is a reminder of the close community that existed in the Methodism of ‘Greater Britain’, where waves of influence could extend from the metropole to the dominions and back again. This phenomenon of mutual exchange had a parallel in the economic sphere as the dominions saw great prosperity and through the mass exchange of export, trade and ideas with the mother country, the wider British world was strengthened.28 By the 1940s an emphasis on entire sanctification had all but disappeared from Australian Methodism except for a very small number of notable enthusiasts such as Walter Betts and Gilbert MacLaren. Many of those nurtured by the Holiness tradition in Methodism became part of the newly emerging Pentecostal movement, and a number of Wesleyan-Holiness churches with North American origins entered Australia in the post-war period.29 Though mid-century British Methodists such as William Sangster and R. Newton Flew made significant contributions to the doctrine of Christian perfection which were valued by Australian Methodists, the expectation of a distinct ‘blessing’ of entire sanctification marked by a clear testimony all but disappeared from The Spectator 54, no. 13, 28 March 1928, p. 299. E.H. Sugden, Wesley’s Standard Sermons, vol. 1 (London: Epworth Press, 1921), p. 286; G. O’Brien, ‘Reading Wesley’s Sermons in Edwardian Melbourne’, in The Master, ed. R. Howe (Melbourne: Uniting Academic Press, 2009), pp. 109–24, esp. pp. 118–19. 27 R.N. Flew, The Idea of Perfection in Christian Theology: An Historical Study of the Christian Ideal for the Present Life (London: Oxford University Press, 1934). 28 J. Belich, Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the AngloWorld, 1783–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 29 G. O’Brien, ‘North American Wesleyan-Holiness Churches in Australia’ (PhD thesis, La Trobe University, 2005); G. O’Brien, ‘Anti-Americanism and Wesleyan-Holiness Churches in Australia’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 61, no. 2 (April 2010): 314–43; G. O’Brien, ‘Joining the Evangelical Club: The Movement of the Wesleyan-Holiness Churches in Australia along the Church-Sect Continuum’, Journal of Religious History 32, no. 3 (Sept 2008): 320–44. 25

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the Australian Methodist landscape, becoming a matter of purely academic and historic interest. Nonetheless, perfectionism should be seen as a distinguishing feature of early Australian Methodism, apart from which its spirituality was hard to distinguish from other Protestant denominations.30 A Shift in Emphasis The 1901 census reported 504,101 self-described Methodists, comprising 13.3 per cent of the population. It is difficult to get an accurate picture of the numerical strength of Methodism, however, since there is a discrepancy between adherence and attendance, as well as a distinction among Methodists between formal members and more casual adherents. In 1907 a decline in church membership was registered for the first time and this decline would continue unchecked through most of the century, though there was quite dramatic growth between 1945 and the end of the 1960s.31 Tracing statistical change may be seen as a simple matter of tracking numbers; attempting to identify possible causes of spiritual change is a complex and difficult business and one should be cautious of setting out simplistic schemes. Those who harbour the dream that a return to revivalism is the way forward for today’s moribund Church may point to the loss of confidence in the older style spirituality as a cause of the present dilemma. Others, convinced that the methods of the past cannot simply be applied to the challenges of the present, look to other measures of spiritual health. The loss of the class meeting during this period is sometimes cited as a reason for a corresponding loss of spiritual fervour but it is more likely to be the case that the reverse was true – the overall decline in the spiritual fervour of Methodists led to a loss of interest in the spiritual hot-house atmosphere of the class meeting. In any case, by 1890 participation in class meetings had fallen to somewhere around a quarter to a third of members.32 The General Conference of 1891 replaced the class meeting as a test of membership with attendance at a monthly congregational meeting. In 1904 even this minimum requirement was dropped. Whatever the direct result of this may have been on Methodist piety it was certainly the end of the class meeting’s function as perhaps the most distinctive ecclesial feature of Methodism. Involvement in interdenominational Christian Endeavour groups came to replace the older classes; by 1900 one-third of Wesleyans were members of Christian Endeavour groups.

Walker, ‘Growth and Typology’, p. 344. I. Breward, ‘Methodists’, in The Encyclopedia of Religion in Australia, ed. James Jupp (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 404–15, at p. 413. 32 Walker, ‘Growth and Typology’, pp. 431–42. 30 31

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Renate Howe has traced a movement in the demographic of nineteenthcentury Wesleyan Methodism in Victoria from skilled artisan to small business owner which had an effect in lowering the religious heat of Methodists. This occupational mobility resulted in a change of religious attitudes rather than religious affiliation. Few of the Wesleyans who had ‘improved’ themselves joined either the Anglican or Presbyterian churches, but found themselves less enthusiastic about, and with less time for, Methodist Pietism. Many avoided the excesses of spiritual fervour associated with the class meeting … [Such] occupational mobility aided the decline of pietistic religion among the Wesleyans.33

The loss of the class meeting necessarily meant the loss of class leaders, which contributed to a more clergy-led church, with less work for the laity, though the local preacher tradition remained quite strong. The newer more critical approach to the study of the Bible led to a loss of religious certainty and to division between liberals and conservatives. By 1901 Methodism had been ‘rounded into the common pattern of Protestant nonconformity … its pietism had become more sophisticated; its individualism was now tempered by the social gospel; and its perfectionism and revivalism were now peripheral rather than central to its vigorous life’.34 The model of conversion shifted from crisis to process as more and more people simply ‘grew up Methodist’ rather than experiencing a dramatic conversion as had been the case in the earlier period. William C.H. Brenton, in a testimony given at the 1928 Victorian Conference, illustrates this well. ‘I have known no great moment of conversion [but] I was intensified by a period in Cliff College.’35 The admission of having known ‘no great moment of conversion’ is typical of the published testimonies which appeared in The Spectator during this period. For Edwin Gordon Harris it was ‘the earliest influences of [his] home [which] made for a real belief in Christ’. Ralph G. Hunt could speak only of ‘a deepened sense of call to be an ambassador for Jesus’. ‘There was a call for Home Missionaries’, recalled Philip H. James, ‘and the thought came insistently to me: “Why should I not offer?”’ Arthur G. Jewell’s testimony is certainly no ‘Damascus Road experience’ when he professes, ‘I am the product of the quiet routine work of our Methodist Church.’ Similarly, Herbert W.R. Malseed is able to say, ‘My Christian experience is a story of progression through the various departments of our Sunday School and Church.’ George A. Osmond makes the origin of his sense of calling clear: ‘I had the privilege of being brought up in a 33 R. Howe, ‘Social Composition of the Wesleyan Church in Victoria during the Nineteenth Century’, Journal of Religious History 4, no. 3 ( June 1967): 206–17. 34 Walker, ‘Growth and Typology’, p. 347. 35 The Spectator 54, no. 13, 28 March 1928, p. 296.

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Christian home. My call to preach came rather through the need for men, than by a direct call of the Spirit.’36 Hugh Gilmore, an influential though perhaps not typical Primitive Methodist leader, spoke in the 1890s of conversion as ‘a continual process going on and on’ rather than ‘one definite spiritual condition to which we attain by one great exercise of faith in one supreme moment’.37 The English Methodist W. Russell Maltby, concerned at the lack of definiteness in Methodist testimony, lamented the ‘poor exchange’ where the ‘ladder let down from heaven, whose foot was on the earth and top in the skies’ had been replaced by ‘an escalator with its foot in the Sunday School and its top in Church membership’.38 Writing of the British Methodism of the 1930s, Gordon S. Wakefield recalled that ‘although the necessity of “evangelical conversion” was implied in the tradition … the majority of the members were rather squeamish about it, dubious about public appeals, frightened of emotionalism’.39 This trend continued well into the twentieth century. Kenneth Dempsey’s research on rural Methodists in an anonymous rural community (now known to be Uralla) in northern NSW in 1966 showed that lay Methodists of that period understood the role of the Church in ‘fundamentally moralistic terms’. Fewer than a dozen (of the 109 people interviewed) ascribed to the Church a theological role. The bulk thought of it as a useful agency for teaching the young ‘the importance of such things as kindness, courtesy, frugality and honesty, and the virtues of participation in family life’.40 Much of the revivalist fervour of nineteenth-century Methodism may be seen as finding ongoing expression in Pentecostalism, birthed as it was from a Methodist matrix. The Pentecostal pioneer Janet ‘Mummy’ Lancaster, born in Williamstown, Victoria, was a Methodist who, in 1908, experienced ‘speaking in tongues’. She opened the Good News Hall in North Melbourne in 1909, which became the centre of the Pentecostal Mission she would lead until her death in 1934. Lancaster wrote an editorial in 1930 in which she displayed her Methodist origins and sought legitimisation of her cause in statements on Pentecost made by prominent Methodist clergymen. She quoted headlines from The Spectator and speeches given at the Methodist centenary celebrations. The Rev. T.C. Rentoul admitted the Church’s ‘impotence and failure with a sense The Spectator 54, no. 13, 28 March 1928, p. 296. All of the testimonies given here are drawn from this source. 37 H. Gilmore, Sermons by the Late Hugh Gilmore, 1889–1891 (Adelaide: n.p., 1892). 38 The Spectator 54, no. 17, 25 April 1928, p. 402. 39 Wakefield, Methodist Devotion, p.14. 40 K.C. Dempsey, ‘Minister–Lay Relationships in a Methodist Country Community’, St Mark’s Review 65 (August 1971): 10–20, at p. 16; K.C. Dempsey, Conflict and Decline; Ministers and Laymen in a Australian Town (Sydney: Methuen, 1983). 36

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of shame, readily allowing that education had increased the power of analysis, which deadens the tendency to emotion’.41 Lancaster bemoaned ‘the fellowship so familiar and so vital to the Methodism of an earlier day [as] almost nonexistent’ and saw a revival of Pentecostal manifestations as the answer to the problem.42 The Methodist Church did not welcome the new Pentecostal message and the 1935 Conference directed Methodist minister Arch Newton and local preacher Gordon Bowling ‘to withdraw their Pentecostal influence or withdraw themselves from the Methodist ministry’.43 Bowling left, to become a minister in the Apostolic Church, but Newton stayed. The second earliest Australian Pentecostal ministry, the Southern Evangelical Mission, was also established by a former Methodist, the home missioner Robert Horne. He had been involved with the Keswick movement and began his own independent work in the Melbourne suburb of Caulfield in 1911.44 The charismatic movement of the 1960s and 1970s saw Pentecostal phenomena such as ‘speaking in tongues’, faith healing and an emphasis on miracles enter mainstream denominational circles, including Methodism. Charismatic fellowships within mainline churches exhibited many of the traits of earlier Methodist piety, with a stress on prayer, repentance, conversion and subsequent experiences of spiritual intensification and an interest in ‘signs and wonders’. As significant a Methodist as Alan Walker, while liberal and progressive in his social outlook and political activism, was profoundly evangelical in religious experience. Drawn to aspects of the Charismatic movement he was also profoundly aware of the revivalist tradition of his own Methodist heritage. Ian Breward is correct in pointing out that while the Charismatic movement was ‘in some respects a recall to the conversionist foundations of Methodism … in other ways it was subversive of Connexionalism and classic Methodist identity’.45 The average Australian Methodist churchgoer of the twentieth century settled for a life of moral and civic uprightness, and the more activist Methodist was drawn to social engagement rather than the kind of intense personal devotion that had characterised Methodism’s earlier period. 41 B. Chant, Heart of Fire: The Story of Australian Pentecostalism (Adelaide: Tabor, 1984), p. 286. See also B. Chant, The Spirit of Pentecost: The Origins and Development of the Pentecostal Movement in Australia 1870–1939 (Wilmore, KY: Emeth Press, 2011). 42 Chant, Heart of Fire, p. 287. 43 Chant, Heart of Fire, p. 174. 44 P.J. Hughes, The Pentecostals in Australia (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1996), p. 6; D. and G. Smith, A River is Flowing: The History of the Assemblies of God in Australia (St Agnes, SA: Commonwealth Conference Assemblies of God in Australia, 1987), p. 23. 45 Breward, ‘Methodism’, p. 414.

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Chapter 12

Worship and Music in Australian Methodism D’Arcy Wood

The character of Australian Methodist worship was derived from Britain. The earliest Methodist arrivals, and the earliest Methodist clergy, were English. The influence of American Methodism was much less.1 Visits by American evangelists, such as John Wilbur Chapman, added to Methodist enthusiasm, and doubtless influenced the tone and content of the preaching of local evangelists, but forms of worship were of a distinctly British stamp. The hymn books and service books of Australian Methodists were imported from Britain right through to the 1970s. The Dual Legacy of John Wesley John Wesley was a priest, evangelist, educator and organiser. It was he who determined the doctrine and the structure of the Methodist movement. As to worship, two strands were combined in Wesley: the Prayer Book tradition of the Church of England and the ‘free’ worship of the Puritans and Moravians. In Wesley the two were combined ‘without any sense of inconsistency’, but, as we shall see, his followers often had difficulty holding them together.2 The influence of the first strand is shown in his continuance as an Anglican priest until his death and his urging of the Methodists to attend their parish church to receive Holy Communion. (In the course of the eighteenth century fewer and fewer Methodists did this, however.) The influence of the second is seen in his extensive use of extempore prayer – a practice followed by Methodists around the world – and his willingness to adapt the Book of Common Prayer by publication of his own ‘abridgements’, both for American Methodists and for The Ministerial Index, which records names, places of birth and years of death of all Methodist ministers who died in Australia from 1855 to 1961, shows that 608 were born in England, 83 in Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the Channel Islands, one in Canada and none in the United States. See Methodist Ministerial Index for Australasia, ed. C.K. Daws, 9th edn (Melbourne: Spectator, 1962), pp. 188–207. 2 D.M. Chapman, Born in Song: Methodist Worship in Britain (Warrington: Church in the Market Place, 2006), p. 14. 1

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the British societies. The American Methodist scholar Karen Westerfield Tucker says that Wesley’s expectation was that Methodist worship would be ‘organized, coherent, simple’.3 To this could be added ‘scriptural’ and ‘evangelistic’. One practical outcome of this dual heritage was the tendency, in both Britain and Australia, for the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion to follow a liturgical order (even if truncated), derived from the Book of Common Prayer, but non-sacramental services to follow a variety of forms according to the preference of local congregations, ministers and local preachers. In the development of Methodism in Australia, Wesley’s emphasis on the sacraments and on liturgical worship generally tended to decline but was never entirely submerged. By the middle of the twentieth century, due to increasing ecumenical interactions, as well as the international liturgical movement which gathered pace during that century, Methodism recovered some of the emphases of Wesley’s theology and his liturgical practice. The dominant feature of Australian Methodist worship in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, under the influence of Wesley, was the sermon. The interior design of churches indicates this, as does the amount of time devoted to the sermon in a typical Methodist service. The education of prospective ministers also illustrates the point, a great deal of time being spent on biblical studies and homiletics but very little on worship. In his careful summary of Methodist worship in NSW from 1902–77, Raymond Wesley Hartley comments on ‘the almost total lack of training of ministers in liturgical matters through most of [that] period’.4 The priority was to ‘save souls’, that is, to present the claims of Jesus Christ as Saviour of the world, and to urge sinners to repentance and faith. By the middle of the twentieth century congregations came to expect shorter sermons, but in earlier times sermons often lasted 40 or 50 minutes, or even longer. My forebear the Rev. Theophilus Taylor, appointed to the Ballarat Goldfields in the 1850s, records in his journal having preached on one occasion for 109 minutes, although he comments this was ‘too long’.5 How his hearers coped with the sermon is not recorded. The sermon would usually be near the end of the service and was therefore the climactic event. Other parts of the service were of lesser importance: according to Hunt ‘it was not unusual for the term “the preliminaries” to be applied to what took place in the service prior to the sermon’.6 In the 1960s I heard the same term used by ministers in Victoria. K.B. Westerfield Tucker, ed., The Sunday Service of the Methodists: Twentieth-Century Worship in Worldwide Methodism (Nashville, TN: Abingdon/Kingswood, 1996), p. 30. 4 R.W. Hartley, ‘The Eucharist in New South Wales Methodism from Methodist Union (1902) to the Uniting Church (1977)’, Church Heritage 1, no. 4 (1980): 305–34, at p. 313. 5 The handwritten journal, unpublished, is in the La Trobe Library, Melbourne. 6 A.D. Hunt, This Side of Heaven: A History of Methodism in South Australia (Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1985), p. 150. Similarly, Brian Wibberley of the Primitive Methodist Church reported in 1898: ‘The sermon is usually the strong point, and the other 3

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Local Preachers It was characteristic of Methodism to spread the Gospel far and wide, hence the proliferation of Methodist churches, often quite simple and small buildings, across the Australian countryside. Although ordained preachers would travel great distances (on horseback, later with pony and trap and later still by car) it was impossible for them to conduct a service in every Methodist church, so local (unordained) preachers were a vital part of Methodist worship. John Wesley himself made extensive use of local (as distinct from ‘itinerant’ or fulltime) preachers and this tradition was followed wherever Methodism spread around the world. Hartley reports of Methodism in NSW at the beginning of the twentieth century that ‘the typical service was twice as likely to be conducted by a local preacher as by a minister’.7 Although all ordained preachers were men until the 1960s, Barry Brown has traced the history of women preachers in both Britain and Australia. He shows that acceptance of women in Methodist pulpits was quite uneven. As in other professions, if a woman demonstrated outstanding gifts, more clearly than most of her male colleagues, she would have a much better chance of being ‘acceptable’.8 The Norms of Sunday Worship Extempore prayer, for both ordained and lay preachers, was the norm for Sunday worship. The ability to pray extemporaneously was a sine qua non. Commenting on the late nineteenth century in South Australia, Hunt says that ‘no Methodist preacher in the 1880s would have dared to read a prayer’.9 However, there are signs that, in the earliest Methodist services, there was more of a balance, in the John Wesley tradition. An example is the report by the Rev. Joseph Orton, one of the Methodist pioneers, of a service in Melbourne held on 24 April 1836. At 11 o’clock the people of the settlement were assembled for Divine service. This was on Batman’s Hill, and on the premises of Mr John Batman. The liturgy was read by Mr

exercises are spoken of as “the preliminaries”’, South Australian Primitive Methodist, October 1898, p. 477. 7 R.W. Hartley, ‘Non-Eucharistic Methodist Worship in New South Wales, 1902–1977’, Church Heritage 2, no. 3 (1982): 212–54, at p. 212. This calculation was made by the editor of The Methodist in 1903, see endnote in Hartley, ‘Non-Eucharistic Methodist Worship’, p. 245. 8 See Chapter 14 in this volume by Anne O’Brien. See also Barry Brown, ‘Women Preachers in the Methodist Tradition: British and Australian Contexts’, Proceedings of the Uniting Church Historical Society of Victoria and Tasmania 19, no. 1 (2012): 19–55. 9 Hunt, This Side of Heaven, p. 150.

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Orton, the responses were led by James Simpson, Esq. The tunes were raised by Dr Thompson, afterwards of Geelong.10

The mention of ‘the liturgy’ and ‘the responses’ suggests the use of parts of the Book of Common Prayer or else one of the ‘abridgements’ that Wesley made of the services in that book. Extempore prayer would no doubt have been added, as was Wesley’s custom. There were two services on that day in 1836, with sermons at both. In the afternoon the majority of the congregation were reported to be Aborigines, who ‘seemed particularly interested by the singing’.11 What was the form of worship in these preaching services? Hartley gives this summary for the beginning of the twentieth century in NSW: Hymn/Prayer/ First Lesson/Hymn/Second Lesson/Offering/Hymn/Sermon/Hymn/Prayer/ Benediction.12 This was by no means universal, but was probably typical. The growing importance of choirs at this time led to the insertion of introit, anthem and perhaps a solo or psalm. Viewing the Hartley summary from a twenty-firstcentury perspective, three things stand out. The positioning of the sermon as climax of the service we have already noted. Second is the prominence of hymns. Third is the small number of prayers. This last is explained by the fact that the first-listed prayer was usually rather long – in fact it was often called the ‘long prayer’, and would encompass praise, confession and intercession. It could be 10 or 15 minutes in length. Hunt reports, ‘Sometimes the “long prayer” was criticised for its length and formless character. An anonymous correspondent in the Methodist Journal in 1878 described the prayer as often “interminable” and “sermonising pure and simple”.’13 Those who could hold the attention of the congregation, and who perhaps had a more extensive vocabulary at their command, were referred to as ‘mighty in prayer’ or as having ‘the gift of prayer’.14 Criticisms of ‘interminable’ praying, as well as the influence of ecumenical experience and of liturgical developments in all denominations, led to changes in the ordering of worship by the midtwentieth century. Hartley gives the following as a ‘typical’ order in the 1950s and 1960s in NSW: Introit [often the Doxology or the hymn ‘Jesus, stand among us’]/Prayer of Invocation [short]/Hymn/Psalm [read alternately verse by verse]/Gloria Patri/Prayer [usually including confession and adoration]/Lord’s Prayer [often chanted during the 1950s but less commonly later]/Lesson [from the Old Testament]/Children’s Address [morning

W.L. Blamires and J.B. Smith, The Early Story of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Victoria (Melbourne: Wesleyan Book Depot, 1886), p. 14. 11 Blamires and Smith, Early Story of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, p. 14. 12 Hartley, ‘Non-Eucharistic Methodist Worship’, pp. 218f. 13 Hunt, This Side of Heaven, p. 150. 14 Hunt, This Side of Heaven, p. 150. 10

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only]/Anthem [if there was a children’s choir]/Hymn [children often left at this point, sometimes with a ‘benediction’]/Lesson [from the New Testament]/Anthem [if adult choir]/Announcements/Offering/Prayer [to ‘dedicate’ the offering]/Prayer [intercession and thanksgiving]/Hymn/Sermon/Hymn/Blessing [often a three-fold Amen was sung]/Vesper [a hymn verse, usually only in the evening].15

A comparison between this period and the earlier example shows elaboration of what is, in both cases, basically a preaching service. But the role of the choir, especially in larger churches, together with the recognition of children by means of a ‘children’s address’ and also a greater variety in the prayers are evident in the later period. What of the ‘lessons’? These were Scripture passages chosen by the preacher and were usually the basis of the sermon. The tendency of preachers to return again and again to favourite Scripture passages was sometimes evident, and the use of a lectionary only slowly gained favour as the twentieth century progressed. Although a lectionary for Sundays was sometimes printed in the Conference Minutes, most preachers probably ignored this. When the Church of South India was formed in 1947 and that church published a two-year Sunday lectionary, some preachers followed this, but it was not until the Second Vatican Council and the advent of the Uniting Church that the widespread use of a three-year cycle of readings became established. Alongside the evangelistic purpose of worship, there was a growing emphasis on ‘discipleship’ and ‘nurture’. Sermons of an expository and inspirational character gained prominence. English scholar Raymond George comments on the development in Britain of a distinction between morning and evening worship, the former being a ‘fuller’ order of service, with emphasis on exposition and teaching, and the evening emphasising evangelism, sometimes with a focus on young people.16 A similar thing happened in Australia.17 Until the middle of the twentieth century, Sunday services were regarded in the community as important events, so summaries of sermons, and sometimes reports on the music, would often appear in the local or metropolitan secular press. Holy Communion Holy Communion was celebrated monthly in most of the larger churches (sometimes alternating between morning and evening, that is, once every two Hartley, ‘Non-Eucharistic Methodist Worship’, pp. 237f. A.R. George, ‘From The Sunday Service to “The Sunday Service”: Sunday Morning Worship in British Methodism’, in Westerfield Tucker, Sunday Service, pp. 31–52, at p. 47. 17 Hartley, ‘Non-Eucharistic Methodist Worship’, p. 224. 15 16

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months at each) but less often in rural congregations in which local preachers took most of the services.18 The Communion service was usually appended to the preaching service, and some attendees would leave the church – even being dismissed with a blessing – before the Communion service began. The editor of the NSW Methodist in 1918 could write: The sacrament has for a long time failed of having its true place assigned to it in the order of Sunday services. Usually it is a somewhat hurried celebration at the close of a Sunday morning service, or an appendage, when minister and people are weary, to the Sunday evening service.19

Communion was received either sitting in the pew or while kneeling at a Communion rail. Hartley detects a change in practice: ‘Coming forward to the rail and kneeling, the method inherited from the Anglican Church, had been common during the nineteenth century. Beginning before the turn of the century, and becoming increasingly common until the 1930s, the method of distribution was to give communion in the seats.’20 There may be a difference between NSW and Victoria on this point, as in Victoria larger churches were equipped with a rail and communicants would normally come forward. Some smaller churches had a rail and some did not. Communion vessels varied from place to place. A small metal chalice was common, but some churches had large chalices, inscribed with a Scripture verse or with the name of the congregation. During the twentieth century small individual cups replaced the chalice, although the chalice might still be placed on the Holy Table as a symbol. Hartley remarks – not limited to NSW – that: the use of the chalice [usually called a “common cup”] was general during the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth. In 1913 the ‘use of individual cups’ was urged by the General Conference of the (now united) Methodist Church, and by 1920 their use had become more general.21

Concerning wine as against grape juice, Hartley reports: ‘Before the change to individual glasses was begun, a change from port to non-alcoholic grape juice was almost complete. The 1895 Wesleyan Laws had recommended “the use of unfermented wine”.’22 Hunt reports in a similar vein of South Australia:

20 21 22 18 19

Hartley, ‘Eucharist in New South Wales Methodism’, p. 306. Hartley, ‘Eucharist in New South Wales Methodism’, p. 308. Hartley, ‘Eucharist in New South Wales Methodism’, p. 317. Hartley, ‘Eucharist in New South Wales Methodism’, p. 322. Hartley, ‘Eucharist in New South Wales Methodism’, p. 322.

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Wine was never used by the Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians, and in its place grape juice was given to the people. The Wesleyans did not recommend the use of the latter until the Conference of 1883. There was some opposition to the change, and it was several years before the use of a substitute for wine became common. In the 1890s individual communion cups began to replace the common chalice. The big Wesleyan churches led the way; the others followed because, as the Primitive Methodist editor said in 1898, ‘all drinking out of one cup is unclean and dangerous to health’.23

The liturgies for Holy Communion were ‘authorised’ by Conferences from time to time. They differed little from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. The British Methodist Book of Offices of 1936 came into general use in Australia, and many congregations purchased pocket-sized booklets that enabled the people to join in the responses. Because Communion was often ‘hurried’, the two Communion liturgies of 1936 were generally shortened, for example intercessory prayer would already have been offered as part of the ‘normal’ preaching service. There was occasional argument over truncation of services of Holy Communion. As noted above, education of ministers in liturgical practice was slight. But it should be said, Methodists generally observed the sacrament with great reverence. For most of them, experience of the presence of God was more important than liturgical correctness.24 Baptism Baptismal fonts were mostly simple and easily movable. In larger churches a heavier font of more elaborate design, often donated by a church family, was sometimes to be found. Immersion of the candidate (as preferred by John Wesley) or pouring of water over the head were both quite rare; instead, a small amount of water would be cupped in the hand of the minister and placed on the head. As the liturgical movement of the twentieth century gathered pace in Australia, this practice was criticised as the ‘damp finger’ method of baptising, and ministers were encouraged to use a more ‘generous’ amount of water. Some did and some did not. The order of service for baptism as ‘authorised’ by General Conference was mostly used, and the service would take place within the morning preaching service. The more private or ‘family’ occasion for baptism, as in many Roman Catholic parishes, was not practised in Methodism, apart from emergency

Hunt, This Side of Heaven, pp. 151f. D. Chapman comments similarly about the primacy of experience in British Methodism, see Born in Song, p. 5. 23

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baptisms in hospitals. As with Holy Communion, the authorised service was often truncated. Arguments about Worship This truncation of liturgy was not entirely in the interests of saving time. There was also an aversion to ‘read prayer’, often equated with ‘liturgy’. Hartley records reactions against the NSW Conference president, who in 1905 advocated an order of service with psalms, Te Deum, Jubilate, the Ten Commandments and creeds. One correspondent said: ‘The ordinary Methodist does not need a long programme of flowery preliminaries before being told he is a sinner and needs salvation!’25 It should be noted, however, that advocates of a more liturgicallyshaped service, who also pressed their point, were not urging exactly the same form of service in every place. They were concerned to counteract ‘lack of reverence’ and lack of preparation.26 Half a century later, in Victoria this time, similar arguments were put forward. The occasion was the formation of a Church Worship Society. The advocates, led by the Rev. Dr Harold Wood, sought the endorsement of the Conference so that the term ‘Methodist’ could be used in the title of the society. In 1949 he introduced a motion that stated the objects of the society: 1. To reaffirm the faith which inspired the Evangelical Revival and the hymns of the Wesleys – the faith revealed in the Holy Scriptures and formulated in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. 2. To encourage in the Methodist Church a full, orderly and reverent corporate worship. 3. To foster among Methodist people the private and corporate disciplines of the Christian life. 4. To work for the unity of all Christian people.27 There was lengthy discussion in Conference, and, in good Protestant style, the issue was referred to the Standing Committee. The debate spilled over from Conference to the pages of the widely read paper The Spectator. Wood responded at considerable length to criticisms on 18 January 1950, decrying ‘casualness’ and ‘sitting bolt upright at prayer’, claiming that ‘disorderly heartiness is not a true Methodist characteristic at all’.28 In the same issue the Rev. Fred Cleverdon 27 28 25 26

Hartley, ‘Non-Eucharistic Methodist Worship’, p. 214. Hartley, ‘Non-Eucharistic Methodist Worship’, p. 214. The Spectator, Melbourne, 18 January 1950. The Spectator, Melbourne, 18 January 1950.

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responded, also at considerable length. He feared ‘a sectional rift within the Church’, claiming that ‘The temptation will be to depend on the set order and not on vital communion with God Himself.’ Changes in the internal design of churches also left him unimpressed, as the ‘relegation of the pulpit (the ministry of the Word) to a secondary place … will rob Methodism of its distinctiveness’.29 When the Conference again debated the issue in March 1950, the vote on recognising the Church Worship Society was 80 in favour and 79 against. The President-General then moved ‘the previous question’ (a device to shelve the issue) and this was carried.30 Buildings for Worship The mention of design brings on the question of architecture, on which subject much could be written, but not here. Methodist churches and ‘preaching places’ (which became congregations in most cases) proliferated across the Australian countryside in the nineteenth century. Most were of simple design, with a central aisle and a central pulpit. A small vestry usually served several purposes: storage, flower arranging, counting the weekly offering and other activities. In the prosperous years of the late nineteenth century large churches appeared in the more affluent suburbs and in the strongly Methodist towns such as Ballarat and Bendigo. A few churches were very large, such as Albert Street in central Brisbane, Oxley Road, Auburn, in suburban Melbourne, and Kent Town in inner Adelaide. In Albert Street, as in Wesley Church, Melbourne, and Wesley, Hobart, a three- or four-sided gallery accommodated some hundreds of worshippers in addition to those on ground level. The patterned-brick style of English Methodist churches was imitated in larger centres, often with a small tower. A large square tower topped Oxley Road, Auburn, a church of cathedral-like proportions. Noel Jackling has hypothesised that this church was based on the famous New Old South Church in Boston, and his photos, with other evidence, give some weight to this suggestion.31 Hunt gives his opinion of South Australian churches thus: ‘The plainness of many Methodist buildings was partly due to lack of money, but above all to a theology that regarded symbolism as incompatible with a truly spiritual worship. The Spectator, Melbourne, 18 January 1950. A somewhat similar discussion is recorded in the South Australian Primitive Methodist in October 1898 and January 1899. The Rev. Brian Wibberley urged the introduction of optional liturgical orders of service, on two grounds, one ‘social’ (today we would say ‘participatory’) and the other aesthetic. He was supported by ‘W.H.H.’ (probably Walter H. Hanton) but opposed by ‘S.G.’ (probably Samuel Gray). 31 N. Jackling, ‘Auburn Uniting Church and the Boston Tea Party’, Proceedings of the Uniting Church Historical Society of Victoria and Tasmania 19, no. 1 (2012): 78–81. 29 30

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Bareness was a virtue as well as being cheap.’32 After the Second World War, says Hunt, a changing theology of worship led to ‘the pulpit (being) displaced from its central position in favour of a communion table, and the presence of a cross, either on the wall or the table, was accepted in most places without protest’.33 Protests may have been few in South Australia, but in Eastern states there were rumblings in some congregations before crosses were installed. In 1927 a correspondent to the NSW Methodist complained of ‘Romish customs’.34 A cross, it was said, might lead the way for candles and images to be introduced. Hartley comments: ‘Lecterns and prayer desks were unknown … In most churches the table was placed immediately in front of the pulpit, and in some cases the table was a ledge or shelf attached to the pulpit.’35 Three Methodist ‘Specials’ What, then, was distinctively Methodist about the kind of service we have outlined? The emphasis on congregational music was certainly one feature. Another was the ‘covenant service’, celebrated annually in many churches.36 Introduced first by John Wesley in 1755, following a Puritan model, this was an opportunity for recommitment and, in the course of time, both in Britain and Australia, came to be held at New Year or soon after. The text of this service was remarkable: very demanding of the worshipper and with ringing rhetoric. At the conclusion of the service, in Wesleyan churches especially, Holy Communion was celebrated. By the middle of the twentieth century, the fact that renewal of baptismal vows was absent from the liturgical text caused revisions to be made, as in the Uniting Church’s covenant service of 1988.37 Another Methodist service was the ‘watch-night’, which has parallels with vigil services in other Christian traditions. The watch-night was a time of preaching, prayer and praise for ‘the greater part of the night’.38 By the time Methodism arrived in Australia this service was used almost invariably at New Year, a sort of spiritual equivalent of the secular ‘seeing in’ of the New Year. It was sometimes a preliminary to the Covenant-plus-Communion service, the Covenant commencing around midnight. Hunt, This Side of Heaven, p. 148. Hunt, This Side of Heaven, p. 149. 34 Hartley, ‘Eucharist in New South Wales Methodism’, p. 320. 35 Hartley, ‘Eucharist in New South Wales Methodism’, p. 316. 36 D. Tripp, ‘Covenant Service’, in A Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship, ed. J.G. Davies (London: SCM Press, 1972), pp. 154–5. Tripp also wrote a fuller study, The Renewal of the Covenant in the Methodist Tradition (London: Epworth Press, 1969). 37 Uniting in Worship: Leader’s Book (Melbourne: Uniting Church Press, 1988). 38 Tripp, ‘Watch-Night’, in Davies, ed., Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship, p. 383. 32 33

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Yet another Methodist celebration of note was the love feast. In the early Christian Church a festive meal was associated with the Eucharist, but was also held separately from the sacrament. Known by the Greek word for love (agape), this meal was common from New Testament times, but by the eighth century had virtually died out. The agape was revived by German Pietists in the eighteenth century, and in 1738 John Wesley introduced the Moravian version for British Methodist use. It was, at first, observed monthly, with prayer and testimonies as well as eating and fellowship, but it became less frequent by the nineteenth century, being held annually in most British congregations. In nineteenth- and twentieth-century Australia, the ‘fellowship tea’ or ‘church tea’ seems to have replaced it; the singing of hymns was common at these teas, but testimony and prayer seem to have faded. By the middle of the twentieth century the agape had something of a revival on the international scene, being observed especially on ecumenical occasions.39 Methodist Music ‘Methodism was born in song.’ This oft-repeated statement opens the Preface to the British Methodist Hymn Book of 1933. Music and singing were central to the Evangelical Revival of the eighteenth century and have been characteristic of Methodists ever since. David Hempton, in his survey of worldwide Methodism, says that ‘it has long been recognised that the most distinctive, characteristic and ubiquitous feature of the Methodist message, indeed of the entire Methodist revival, was its transmission by means of hymns and hymn-singing’.40 Many of the hymns sung by the Methodists were of course written by Charles Wesley, but the huge increase in hymn-writing after 1950, sometimes called the ‘hymn explosion’, meant that the frequency of singing of the Wesley hymns (including the translations from the German by John Wesley) decreased. The use of the word ‘transmission’ by Hempton is significant, as John Wesley saw the singing of hymns not only as an act of worship by the singer and the congregation but also as a means of learning and transmitting the doctrines of Christianity. In his Preface to the 1780 Collection, he described the hymnal as ‘a little body of experimental and practical divinity’.41 In the eighteenth century the word ‘experimental’ was more or less equivalent to the modern word ‘experiential’. So F. Baker, ‘Love Feast’, in Davies, ed., Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship, pp. 247–50. D. Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), p. 68. 41 Wesley’s Preface is reproduced in many hymnals, including The Methodist Hymn-Book with tunes, for use in Australia and New Zealand (London: Methodist Conference Office, 1933), p. iii. 39

40

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the hymns were about both doctrine and experience, and they were designed for the personal and corporate worship of God. What of Australian Methodism specifically? The first point to make is that, until the mid-twentieth century, the music was mostly derived from the mother church in Britain. There was some American influence across the years, but, apart from the hymns of Ira Sankey, from the 1870s, and Alexander’s Hymns no. 3 in the first part of the twentieth century, this influence became significant only in the final years leading to the advent of the Uniting Church. The hymnals in the Australian church were published in Britain. This applies to the Wesleyans, the Primitive Methodists and the Bible Christians. The British Wesleyan hymnals of 1877 and 1904 were standard equipment in congregations throughout Australia, and when the several branches of Methodism in Britain united they soon produced the hymnal of 1933, which was quickly adopted in Australia. This was a quite massive collection of 984 hymns plus various supplements, including the ‘Australasian and New Zealand Supplement’ which comprised a further 51 hymns. It was common for faithful Methodists to walk to church carrying two books, the Bible and the Methodist Hymn Book. This hymn book might be a wordsonly edition, but if the bearer was keen on singing it could well be the edition with full music score. This habit of singing in harmony was aided by the fact that the harmonies were for the most part fairly simple; simpler, for example, than the German chorales. Singing in harmony declined rapidly, however, in the second half of the twentieth century and is not often to be found today. It is difficult to estimate the hymn repertoire of the typical Methodist congregation. It has been suggested that many congregations had a repertoire of less than a hundred hymns, but I doubt that. I suspect that small rural congregations might sing only 100 to 150 hymns, but that larger congregations would sing in excess of 200. These hymns were mostly chosen by the preacher of the day, whether that person be ordained or lay. This is in contrast to denominations in which the choice of hymns is left to the local musician. The influence of Methodist theologians and musicians on the ecumenical book The Australian Hymn Book, published in 1977 and used throughout Australia for over 20 years, is very evident. The committee was chaired by Harold Wood, a Methodist. Brian Fletcher has described in detail the work of the Australian Hymn Book Committee from 1968 onwards.42 Harmony is, of course, typical of choral singing. All the larger Methodist congregations in Australia had a choir, and even churches of only a few dozen members sometimes had a choir. Indeed, in the earliest months of Methodist worship in Melbourne a choir was evidently formed.43 The role of the choir was, 42 B.H. Fletcher, Sing a New Song: Australian Hymnody and the Renewal of the Church since the 1960s (Canberra: Barton Books, 2011). 43 Blamires and Smith, Early Story of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, p. 16.

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typically, twofold: first, to lead the congregation in the hymns and possibly a psalm and the Lord’s Prayer, adding harmonies where appropriate; and second, to sing an introit and an anthem. These choirs would rehearse every week. The choir would sometimes wield considerable influence over local decision-making. A history of the Unley Church in Adelaide tells of a long tussle in the 1890s between the trustees and choir over the provision of a pipe organ: ‘The relations between the two groups became very strained.’ Interestingly, the choir won the day.44 In some cases the organist would lead the choir from the organ, but in other cases the job was divided between organist and choir director. In larger churches these people would be paid, whereas in smaller churches they were usually voluntary. There are stories of organists continuing in their role for 40 years or more. Organists, like orchestral conductors, seem to live longer than the average citizen. The Oxley Road, Auburn, choir in Melbourne in the 1950s numbered about 25, which was an average number for a larger congregation. With the advent of television in 1956, the membership of choirs dropped rather rapidly. Not only television but the shrinking of congregations themselves led to the disbanding of many choirs in the 1960s and 1970s. The robing of the choir, very common in American Protestant churches, was less common in Australian Methodism, but choirs in the larger churches were often robed. In 2011 Jim May, conductor for many years of the Bellevue Avenue, Rosanna, choir in Melbourne, gave a brief history of the music there. This congregation was founded in the boom years post-Second World War. May said of their music: ‘Looking in the choir cupboard at the music I inherited … I suspect there was a lot of music that came out of England, written in the late 1800s (in) a popular musical style … anthems by Caleb Simper for instance.’45 The choir at Rosanna did extend its repertoire to Tudor anthems and modern pieces, and the choir survived until 2011, but May comments: ‘In recent years we have not had the resources … to tackle complex new music.’46 At Oxley Road, Auburn, the anthems of Tertius Noble were a favourite, but the repertoire included Tudor anthems and other music written primarily for the Church of England, including the twentieth-century works of Charles Villiers Stanford and Herbert Howells. The holdings in the Uniting Church archives in Melbourne indicate that some choirs also sang music by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. While some choirs had this extensive repertoire, smaller choirs, especially rural ones, were content with pieces from Alexander’s Hymns no. 3, a collection of songs published in England which resulted from the Chapman D.V. Goldney, Methodism in Unley, 1849–1977 (Unley, SA: Unley Methodist Church, 1980), pp. 75f. 45 J. May, ‘A History of Music in Worship at Bellevue Avenue’ (typescript in the author’s possession, 2011), p. 1. 46 May, ‘A History of Music in Worship at Bellevue Avenue’, p. 2. 44

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Alexander evangelistic missions and were mostly American in origin. It should be added, though, that even a choir of modest size might attempt, on or about Palm Sunday, Stainer’s ‘Crucifixion’ or Maunder’s ‘Olivet to Calvary’. In 1958 the choir at Mildura Methodist Church, in the far north-west of Victoria, undertook ‘major excerpts’ from Mendelssohn’s ‘Elijah’ with accompaniment supplied only by a harmonium (sometimes called an ‘American organ’).47 A sacred solo was sometimes sung in worship, in a few congregations as a regular event, but in others only on special occasions such as an anniversary. Soloists would sometimes move from congregation to congregation, by invitation. In addition to a ‘church choir’, some congregations had a youth choir. It seems that these flourished for a limited time in the mid-twentieth century. Jim May mentions a youth choir, a men’s choir, a women’s choir and a children’s choir at Rosanna. In NSW there was a large youth choir drawn from many congregations called the Methodist Crusader Choir, directed enthusiastically by Roy Scotter, which sang at Methodist rallies, especially during the Annual Conferences. Methodists sang not only in Sunday services but in women’s groups, men’s societies, youth group meetings, church teas and in after-church ‘sing-songs’. Church concerts were also a feature of Methodist life. These were fund-raising and social occasions at which popular songs as well as sacred songs were performed. Special mention must be made of Sunday Schools. From their earliest years in the kindergarten Sunday School scholars were taught to sing. Once they could read, the children would sing from the British Methodist School Hymnal (the 1950 edition had 647 hymns). In some places other collections such as Joyful Voices and C.S.S.M. Choruses were used.48 Those children who enjoyed their singing would sometimes graduate into the church choir. A major event in the local church calendar was the Sunday School Anniversary. These remarkable events call for a major piece of historical research. Rather than commemorating a specific anniversary date, these occasions were musical performances by the children of the Sunday School. Either in the church or in the church hall, platforms would be erected so that all the children could be seen clearly and so that, in turn, they could see the conductor. Rehearsals would be held for many weeks prior to the event. Because of the work involved, and because of the large number of parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents wishing to attend, the ‘anniversary’ would often cover two Sunday afternoons, the music at the second simply repeating the first performance. If there was no local person capable of conducting this event, an imported conductor would be arranged. Much of this Sunday School music was published in Britain and less commonly in the United States, but there was some local composition as well. 47 B. Giddings, ‘The Harmonium Elijah’, Proceedings of the Uniting Church Historical Society of Victoria and Tasmania 19, no. 2 (2012): 95–101. 48 CSSM was the Children’s Special Service Mission.

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E.H. Sugden was dissatisfied with the music sung at anniversaries, so he wrote words and quite a few original tunes. He published these, along with music of the ‘great masters’, which he arranged, in a series called Festal Songs for Sunday School Anniversaries. The first in the series, which appeared in 1898, was so successful that he published four more booklets.49 Sugden conducted the anniversaries in the Carlton Church, and a report in The Spectator in 1907 says that the services were so popular that ‘hundreds were unable to gain admission’.50 The shrinkage of Sunday Schools in Australia, not just Methodist ones, was quite rapid from the 1950s onwards. Many congregations in the twenty-first century have only a tiny Sunday School or none at all, which is a contrast to the schools of several hundred scholars in the first half of the twentieth century. In Victorian and Tasmanian Wesleyan churches alone, in 1902, it is estimated there were 932 Sunday Schools and 77,748 scholars. By 1935 the number had dwindled to an estimated 55,039, still a significant number.51 The decline after the Second World War was exacerbated by the arrival of television and, probably, increased car ownership, with its consequent mobility for the suburban family, was another factor. More investigation is needed here; Beverley Earnshaw is one of few historians to have attempted research on Sunday Schools.52 Conclusions Methodist worship in Australia bore the marks of its eighteenth-century origins in the Church of England. In the course of time this liturgical heritage waned, although sacramental services had unmistakably Anglican roots. The ‘free church’ tradition, with much extempore prayer, became the norm. The similarity to Presbyterian and Congregational worship meant that the melding of traditions that took place in 1977 was fairly straightforward. As Hartley comments: ‘At no time was difference in forms of worship advanced as an argument against union.’53 Preaching was very important to all three denominations, with Methodism having the most overtly evangelistic emphasis. The distinctiveness of Methodist worship lay in two aspects, the centrality of hymn-singing, along with its vigour, and the covenant and watch-night services. Edward H. Sugden, Festal Songs for Sunday School Anniversaries: The Tunes Selected and Arranged from the Works of the Great Masters, and the Words composed by Edward H. Sugden, BA, BSc (Melbourne: Spectator). The first series, undated, appeared in 1898. 50 The Spectator, 12 September 1907. 51 C.I. Benson, ed., A Century of Victorian Methodism (Melbourne: Spectator, 1935), p. 504. 52 B. Earnshaw, Fanned into Flame: The Spread of the Sunday School in Australia (Sydney: Board of Education of the Diocese of Sydney, 1980). 53 Hartley, ‘Non-Eucharistic Methodist Worship’, p. 213. 49

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The twentieth-century liturgical movement (which was ecumenical) was slow to influence worship in Australia, but it gathered speed from about 1950 onwards, with two distinct tendencies: one, the recovery of earlier liturgical traditions; the other, the advent of an informal worship style, also called ‘experimental’ or ‘contemporary’. By the late twentieth century the two divergent styles were firmly established, often appearing in the one congregation, one timeslot being informal or ‘family’ (sometimes with influence from the charismatic movement), and the other timeslot being an ordered, ecumenical style which aimed to recover the heritage of the early Church, the continental Reformation, the Evangelical Revival and the twentieth-century liturgical movement. In both types the participation of the congregation, to balance the ‘up front’ dominance of the preacher or leader, was evident. This participation was not only in hymn, song and psalm, but in the prayers and responses. For most of its history, Australian Methodism adopted the form and style of British Methodist worship. But slowly, after the Second World War, Australian denominations began to take more initiative. This included publications of prayers, songs and sermon material.54 The apron-strings were loosened, and not just in worship. As Robert Gribben puts it, ‘Australians began to explore their own distinctive approach to the arts … and it was inevitable that theology, liturgy and church life should follow.’55

In the musical field, Roland Giese edited two widely used books, Songs of Faith (1966) and Songs for Worship (1968). Not all the songs were Australian but a considerable number were. In liturgical prayer, Terry C. Falla, a Baptist, edited Be Our Freedom, Lord in 1981. Working with the artist Pro Hart, Norman Habel, a Lutheran, produced Outback Christmas in the 1970s and A Bloke Called Jesus in 1982. In 1979 Bruce D. Prewer, a Methodist, began a series of books containing prayers, modern psalms and meditations. His distinctly Australian slant led to significant sales of his work throughout Australia. 55 R.W. Gribben, ‘Uniting in Worship: The Uniting Church in Australia’, in Westerfield Tucker, The Sunday Service, pp. 67–79, at p. 68. 54

Chapter 13

Wesleyan Methodist Missions to Australia and the Pacific David Andrew Roberts and Margaret Reeson

Methodists asserted themselves as an influential force in the religion, politics and economics of empire. Their role and contribution in the global expansion of the British world reflected a strong sense of duty, and of opportunity, sustained by a conviction that they were participants in a great quest to populate the globe with liberal and moral citizens, and which would also bring non-British populations into the enlightening sphere of British influence. Undoubtedly, Methodists were particularly sensitive to those respects in which the imperial project seemed morally compromised by its aggressive and often ungodly materialism. Certainly this was the case with respect to the most serious and discreditable aspect of British imperialism – the dispossession and destruction of Indigenous societies, both in Australia, where missionising was bound closely with imperialism, and in the Pacific, where Methodist mission work often predated the arrival of colonial powers until as late as the 1870s. The story of Australian Methodism and mission in Australia and the Pacific region is a tale of contrasting fortunes. Together they present a story of vision and confusion, spiritual transformation and the complexities of syncretism, profound religious faith, sweet-and-sour relationships, bungling, good intentions and fractured communications. There was a struggle for more inclusive policies, debates over mission issues in the Pacific that threatened the peace of the Church in the colonies, and competition between mission societies. Neither Australian Aborigines nor Pacific island societies presented themselves as passive recipients of Christianity, of any brand. As King George Tupou of Tonga declared in 1843, ‘The friends in England are not able to change the minds of the people of Samoa or Tonga, as to what religion they shall be of.’1 Missionary George Brown, writing from Samoa in the 1870s of the value of

1 Quoted in M. Dyson, My Story of Samoan Methodism, Or, A Brief History of the Wesleyan Methodist Mission in Samoa (Melbourne: Fergusson & Moore, 1875), p. 36.

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Scripture translation, said ‘this will make them Christians. I don’t care a fig to make them into Methodists, they will adopt that if it suits them best.’2 Tentative Beginnings, 1815–1825 Methodist missionary activity in NSW was set in motion by the arrival in August 1815 of the Rev. Samuel Leigh, ‘The first Wesleyan Missionary to the Southern World’.3 There he found a small but optimistic community of Methodists eager to commence work in ‘this benighted land’ – although the emphasis, initially, was on the need for ministry among the convict population, not Indigenous peoples. Leigh believed that there was a need for a worker among the ‘peaceful and harmless’ Aboriginal peoples of the Sydney and Parramatta region, appealing to the Missionary Committee in London in 1817 that ‘these people have as strong a claim on European charity and missionary exertions as any other natives in all the South Seas’.4 Leigh was joined in 1818 by a very young Cornishman, Walter Lawry, and shortly after by others such as Benjamin Carvosso and Ralph Mansfield.5 This was a period of frenetic activity and organisation for the NSW Methodists – a time of building, of expanding membership and of increased and increasingly diverse involvement in social and religious programmes. It involved the promotion of a much broader and ambitious expansion – extending operations onto the frontiers of settlement in NSW and beyond the convict classes to embrace Aboriginal populations. Even more ambitious was the desire for new missions across the Tasman, and in the Pacific – to have missionaries ‘sally forth to those islands which spot the sea on every side of us’.6 Such ambitions were influenced by the presence in Sydney of the Rev. Samuel Marsden of the Church Missionary Society, who had pioneered missionary work in New Zealand, and by London Missionary Society missionaries who passed through Sydney on their way to Tahiti and the Cook Islands. In 1819, Lawry wrote of his grand vision for Sydney as a base for mission spreading out to east and north across the Pacific, singling out Tonga (the Friendly Islands), as a possible target.7 The 2 G. Brown to J.W. Wallis, 10 May 1871, Brown Letter Book 1871–76, Mitchell Library A1686-2. 3 This being the inscription on Leigh’s tombstone in Reading, noted by A. Strachan, Remarkable Incidents in the Life of the Rev. Samuel Leigh, Missionary to the Settlers and Savages of Australia and New Zealand: With a Succinct History of the Origin and Progress of the Missions in those Colonies (London: Hamilton, Adams, 1853), p. 383. 4 Sydney Gazette, 24 July 1819, p. 2. 5 See Chapter 1 for a discussion of the relationships between these missionary workers. 6 Quoted in A. Stevens, The History of the Religious Movement of the Eighteenth Century Called Methodism, Part Three (London: Wesleyan Conference Office, 1878), p. 293. 7 Lawry to Marsden, 13 February 1819, Mitchell Library, Bonwick Transcripts.

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WMMS Committee in London, with a slippery grasp of southern hemisphere geography, then appointed Leigh to New Zealand and Lawry to Tonga in 1822, sending other ministers to replace them in the colony of NSW. Although neither Leigh nor Lawry was successful during their brief periods in the islands, it was the beginning of what would become a most successful chapter in the history of nineteenth-century Methodist missionary enterprise. Unconvincing Efforts among Aboriginal Communities, 1821–1855 The WMMS became the first of the societies to appoint a missionary to NSW whose duties expressly included work with Aborigines. William Walker, who was redirected from the Gambia mission for this purpose, arrived in NSW in 1821. A highly intelligent and charismatic preacher, a decidedly eccentric individual by some accounts, Walker was nonetheless very highly regarded. His earliest reports from NSW brought the plight of Australian Aborigines to a wider audience, through publication in outlets such as the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine, presenting rather unflattering pictures of their ignorance and destitution that were nonetheless important in inserting Aborigines into the British missionary consciousness.8 Although William Walker began his work with great enthusiasm in 1821, by 1825 he was suspended and the Methodist enterprise among Aboriginal people in the Sydney region ceased. Walker had struggled with the challenge of many Indigenous languages, the peripatetic lives of the tribal groups, tribal conflict and the deaths of promising youths from disease, but his suspension was based on his unwillingness to cooperate with the rulings of his Methodist colleagues. The decision to abandon the work altogether perhaps reflected a widespread frustration and pessimism for the prospects of missionary work among Australian Aborigines, which Marsden himself had vocalised quite strongly, and which the Methodists soon shared. The great energies of the evangelical revival fell flat on Australian soil, and although it is highly significant that the WMMS was the first of the major missionary societies to form a local auxiliary, or district committee, in NSW, their efforts were framed by the view that Aborigines were ‘perhaps the lowest and most miserable of the scattered family of man’.9 In the pages of the Methodist Review, harrowing accounts of danger and depravity in New Zealand sat beside quaint and leisurely reports from NSW, as the likes of the Rev. Horton described his walking around the colony, not referring to Aborigines beyond

For example, Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine, August 1822, pp. 539–40. WMMS, Papers Relative to the Wesleyan Missions and to the State of the Heathen Countries, no. 9 (September 1822). 8 9

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some charming descriptions of their extraordinary abilities as trackers, or of the progress of young girls whose needlework seemed promising. However, for the time being at least, this despondency was a call to arms. The NSW Methodists were responsible for the first ever frontier mission to the Australian Aborigines, undertaken in the midst of a convict agricultural station at Wellington Valley, in the remote central-west of NSW, in 1824–26. It was a remarkable episode in a number of respects, but ultimately a quite damaging one that deflated the Society’s pioneering momentum and enthusiasm with regard to Aboriginal missions. Although pitched as a noble and worthy undertaking, the Wellington Valley mission was largely the product of a changing political mood that was raising the possibility of state funding for Aboriginal missions. The NSW Methodists were positioning themselves to become a major stakeholder and beneficiary, their enthusiasm buoyed by a promised 10,000-acre land grant. But then the layman who was sent out to Wellington was publicly accused of dishonestly overstating the early outcomes and long-term prospects of his work, opening a can of political and sectarian worms which brought considerable pressure to bear on the small Wesleyan community in NSW. Although the Society was officially exonerated of wrongdoing, it lost its determination. The Methodists prevaricated; the promised land grant was withdrawn and, having missed their chance, they surrendered the field to the London Missionary Society and the Church Missionary Society.10 The Methodist leadership spent the next decade espousing harsh and despondent views about Australian Aborigines as being unworthy of effort and expenditure. The Methodists re-emerged in the late 1830s, amid changing political times and particularly in the wake of the House of Commons Select Committee on Aborigines. There was renewed energy from a new generation of colonial Methodists, such as the Rev. Joseph Orton, who arrived in NSW in 1831 as the new District Chairman. He soon moved to Hobart, when Van Dieman’s Land was made a separate District, although he retained the position of General Superintendent of Missions. Orton evinced an early interest in assisting Aborigines and agitated heavily for missionary work among them. This was a critical and defining era in Aboriginal policy. In eastern Australia there emerged a raft of protective and civilising schemes – backed, to varying degrees, by state authority and finance – and in these, the Methodists were heavily involved. The focus in the 1830s and 1840s shifted to the Port Phillip District, then rising as the hub of conquest and conflict and the testing ground for new policies and institutions designed to allay the ‘Aboriginal problem’. Broadly, the approach was two-pronged. First, and most famously, was the formation 10 D.A. Roberts and H.M. Carey, ‘“Beong! Beong! (More! More!)”: John Harper and the Wesleyan Mission to the Australian Aborigines’, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 10 (2009), available at http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/807287, accessed 28 January 2014.

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of the Protectorate, a state institution, quite independent of the missionary movement, but one in which Methodists were strongly represented, not least in the character of George Augustus Robinson, appointed Chief Protector of Aborigines for Port Phillip in 1838. Three of his four Assistant Sub-Protectors were former Methodist schoolmasters. The Protectorate was not a missionary enterprise, although Orton had been heavily involved in its establishment. Indeed, the NSW government expressly saw it as something quite distinct. The Protectors were intended to be itinerant lawmen, but the various district headquarters of the Protectors effectively became Aboriginal settlements which in many respects resembled other mission settlements of the period. The Protectors themselves, especially the Methodists, emerged as very vocal and passionate critics of both the settlers and the government, and indeed of the Protectorate itself. AssistantProtector James Dredge, for example, saw the Protectorate as a godless political experiment, far too secular and more or less intended to fail through government maladministration and apathy. Although the Protectorate was disbanded in 1849, some of the Aboriginal settlements lived on for many decades, and at least one Assistant-Protector, William Thomas, was retained by government as a professional ‘Guardian’ of Aborigines. The second prong was an initiative immediately under the direction of the WMMS. The ‘Buntingdale’ mission on the Barwon River south-west of Geelong, established by Orton in 1838, received state funding of £600 a year, on condition that the sum was matched by private contributions. The station was managed by a young Cornishman, the Rev. Francis Tuckfield (formerly a miner and fisherman, and briefly a student of the Theological Institute at Hoxton in London). Over the next decade he and his co-worker, Benjamin Hurst, operated a small safe haven in the midst of one of the fastest and most violent spheres of colonial settlement in Australia, bearing full witness to what one observer described as the ‘exterminating progress of the white man’.11 Tuckfield was a model example of the Methodist missionary who believed in the potential virtues and benefits of British settlement, particularly its capacity to turn savages into settled and God-fearing subjects: a means of ‘raising these wild hordes to the rank of civilised man’.12 But at the same time he utterly despaired of the unprincipled manner in which the imperial project was actually evolving in Australia. Tuckfield did much to publicise the plight of local Aborigines, and to agitate for improvements, for which he was heavily and savagely criticised by G. Arden, Latest Information with Regard to Australia Felix, the Finest Province of the Great Territory of New South Wales (Melbourne: Arden & Strode, 1840), p. 94. 12 Tuckfield to WMMS, 31 June 1840, MS7667, Box 655, State Library of Victoria, p. 143, cited in S.G.G. Ritchie, ‘“[T]he Sound of the Bell amidst the Wilds”: Evangelical Perceptions of Northern Aotearoa/New Zealand Maori and the Aboriginal Peoples of Port Phillip, Australia, c.1820s–1840s’ (MA thesis, Victoria University, Wellington, 2009), p. 118. 11

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local settlers. Eventually, in the late 1840s, as part of a broader winding back of state support for colonial missions, Buntingdale was pronounced to have ‘entirely failed’ and was closed in 1848 – the remains of the mission shortly after obliterated in the ‘Black Thursday’ bushfires of 1851. Tuckfield was appointed superintendent of the Geelong Circuit of the Wesleyan Methodist Church but continued to work with Aborigines wherever possible. Having spent so many years railing against the evils of pastoralism, he himself became a pastoralist, endeavouring to lead by example in accommodating Aborigines within his commercial enterprise. There were other important episodes, and other theatres of Wesleyan missionary work. In Western Australia, the Rev. John Smithies was appointed by the WMMS to conduct an Aboriginal mission in Perth from 1840. His efforts were well supported by a robust, well-connected and relatively wealthy group of Wesleyan settlers (to an extent not possible in NSW in the 1820s). He ran a school for Aboriginal children in Perth – the results, by and large, deemed to be quite impressive. Later he established Aboriginal settlements at Gullillilup and York, before he gave up and immigrated to Tasmania in 1854. Nonetheless, in the mid-1850s, when the Australasian Methodists were formed into their own self-governing Conference, incorporating New Zealand and Polynesia, NSW Methodists could boast that Sydney had become the spiritual Jerusalem of Australia and the Pacific, but they could not reflect happily on their ministrations to the Australian Aborigines. They attributed their failure to the providential helplessness of Aborigines themselves but they also blamed the malignant nature of colonial settlement and governments more concerned with supporting the avarice and greed of colonists than the spiritual well-being of the colonised. All well-meaning efforts were, as the Rev. J.C. Symons put it, ‘not sufficient to alter the now universal belief that the race are beyond the reach of Christian influence, and are insensible to Christian effort’.13 Writing in 1914 of the ‘inexcusable neglect’ of his Church towards the indigenous people of Australia, the former president of the Methodist Church of Queensland the Rev. Joseph Bowes said ‘The Methodist Church of Australia is not represented by any agent in this work. Her interest in the aborigines would appear to have evaporated, through her failure during the first half of the nineteenth century.’14 This despondency and sense of failure contrasted starkly with the vastly different story of Methodist missions in New Zealand and the Pacific.

13 Quoted in J. Colwell, The Illustrated History of Methodism. Australia: 1812 to 1855. New South Wales and Polynesia: 1856 to1902 (Sydney: William Brooks, 1904), p. 191. 14 J. Bowes, ‘The Australian Aborigine’, in A Century in the Pacific, ed. J. Colwell (Sydney: William Beale, 1914), pp. 151–74, at p. 172.

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Looking towards the Islands of the Pacific Although the early effort at missionary work in Tonga by Walter Lawry had produced little success, other missionaries followed him there, beginning with a former blacksmith, John Thomas, in 1826.15 The British Wesleyan Methodist Church also sent men to pioneer work in Samoa, Fiji and Rotuma from 1835. These were, for the most part, men of lowly origins, meagre education and little training, and very few had previous missionary experience in other theatres.16 The distance and poor communication between London and those in the field proved debilitating. There were continuing problems of communication and contact between the many scattered stations that emerged throughout the Pacific, although British Methodists purchased the mission ship Triton in 1839 for conveying missionaries and stores between the colonies of NSW and Van Diemen’s Land, and the mission Districts. Moreover, the WMMS tended to be more authoritative and overbearing than other missionary societies in its dealings with local auxiliaries and missionaries in the field, generating dispute and confusion and a pervasive view among missionaries that their success was hampered by the naivety of the home authorities.17 When the independent Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australasia was established in January 1855, the British mission Board admitted that ‘the field could not [sic] longer be well worked from London as the official centre. Its exigencies had more than once baffled the wisdom of the Committee.’18 From the beginning, mission Districts beyond the Australian colonies, at that time New Zealand (which became a Crown colony separate from NSW in 1841), Tonga, Samoa and Fiji, were an integral part of the whole. They had representation at General Conference and were entrusted with local responsibility, privileges and funding, albeit in the hands of the missionaries. A Board of Missions based in Sydney was appointed with responsibility for mission in the Pacific. Methodist missionary work (that is, the work of the Wesleyan Methodist Church; the minor Methodists were not involved) spread from one island group to another as a result of the vision and enthusiasm of recent islander converts and the initiatives of individual white missionaries. The Committee in London (and from 1855 in Sydney) tended to permit or hinder rather than lead these movements. Early Tongan Christians influenced their relations in Samoa and then in Fiji and Rotuma. Other webs of mission influence from other denominational societies began to criss-cross the Pacific. The situation G.S. Rowe, A Pioneer: A Memoir of the Rev. John Thomas, Missionary to the Friendly Isles (London: T. Woolmer, 1885). 16 N. Gunson, Messengers of Grace: Evangelical Missionaries in the South Seas, 1797– 1860 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 90–93. 17 Gunson, Messengers of Grace, pp. 107–31. 18 Colwell, Illustrated History of Methodism, p. 383. 15

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in Samoa (from 1828) was complex. There the Methodist missionary web, spreading from the west, collided with the London Missionary Society’s sphere of influence, spreading from the Cook Islands and Society Islands in the east. In the comparatively small population of Samoa this led to years of inter-mission competition between these two very similar missionary societies.19 One individual who exercised considerable influence over a 40-year period was the pioneer missionary the Rev. Dr George Brown (1835–1917).20 Born in County Durham, Brown had migrated to New Zealand in 1855 and was accepted as a Methodist missionary in 1860. After 14 years in Samoa, embroiled in the tensions of inter-mission relationships, he persuaded the Committee in Sydney to back a new venture in little-known New Guinea, opening a station in New Britain, on the Gazelle Peninsula, in 1875 with Fijian and Samoan workers. In 1890 the Governor of British New Guinea, Sir William Macgregor, negotiated with four denominational missions to work in that region, which was now under British colonial rule; the Australian Methodists were given responsibility for the eastern islands from 1891 under the leadership of the Rev. William Bromilow. For a number of years there were pleas from Fiji (annexed by Britain in 1874), notably from the missionary Henry Worrall, for work among the increasing numbers of indentured labourers from India; eventually, in 1897, the Committee sent a single worker, Miss Hannah Dudley. In 1902 Australianborn Methodist ministers John Francis Goldie and Rabone Rooney began new work in New Georgia in the Solomon Islands, after years of requests by labourers from the central islands of the Solomon archipelago who had been converted through the Methodist Church while working in Fiji. Again the Committee was slow to be persuaded, in part because of unwillingness to encroach on the Melanesian Mission which was established in the central and eastern Solomon Islands. In 1908 the Committee hesitated before agreeing to a request from the British Methodists to take over one section of their work in North India; the British model for mission differed from their own, with an emphasis on working though orphanages. Belatedly, the Board’s attention was at last turned to the Aboriginal people of North Australia as the result of pleas by the Rev. S.B. Fellowes of Western Australia and initiatives from Victoria and Tasmania.21 The Australian Federal Government, having recently assumed responsibility for the Territory, apportioned the northern sector to the Methodists, including the islands of Van Diemen’s Gulf. In 1916 the first Methodist station was established on Goulburn J. Garrett, ‘The Conflict between the London Missionary Society and the Wesleyan Methodists in Nineteenth-century Samoa’, Journal of Pacific History 9, no. 1 (1974): 65–80; A.R. Tippett, People Movements in Southern Polynesia: A Study in Church Growth (Chicago: Moody Bible Institute, 1971), pp. 111–36. 20 M. Reeson, Pacific Missionary: George Brown (Canberra: ANU EPress 2013). 21 Minutes of Methodist Board of Missions, 5 February 1913. 19

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Island, superintended by a former pioneer of the British New Guinea mission, the Rev. James Watson, who was also to act as ‘Honorary Protector of Aboriginals’. His earliest students included the celebrated Lazurus Lamilami who was ordained in Adelaide in 1966 and became a leading figure in the Methodist Church in the Northern Territory.22 A second station on Elcho Island, established in 1922, was soon after relocated to Milingimbi, under the superintendence of another South Australian, Thomas Theodor Webb (also appointed Chairman of the Northern Australian District), whose work included significant advances in the study of local Aboriginal language and culture, and agitation for Aboriginal rights to education and legal equality.23 Other Methodist communities in Arnhem Land included a second and more successful station on Elcho Island from 1942, the Yirrkala Mission from 1935 and the Croker Island Mission (1940–66). Both the First and Second World War had a direct impact on the work of Methodist missions. During 1913, because of shortage of funds and personnel, the Australian Methodists began serious negotiation with the Methodist Episcopal Church in Germany about the possibility of handing over their work in New Britain as it was then a German colony. German Methodists were already working there beside the Australians. This plan caused much debate but came to an abrupt end when an Australian military force took control of that German colony in September 1914, which led to the withdrawal of their German colleagues. The arrival of war in the Pacific in early 1942 had even more catastrophic effects on Methodist mission work. Australian mission regions of the Solomon Islands, Milne Bay and New Britain were all the scenes of battle between Japanese, Australian and United States forces until 1945 and other mission regions believed they were under threat. Methodist Mission staff in North Australia and Papua New Guinea were evacuated or captured by the Japanese. In an extraordinary act, in 1942, Margaret Somerville and Jessie March led the evacuation of 95 children from Elcho Island, Arnhem Land, across Australia to safety.24 Australian Methodists spent over three years fearing for the fate of mission staff who had vanished without trace; at war’s end four mission nurses had survived captivity in Japan but 10 ministers and several lay staff from the New Guinea Islands and two ministers from North Australia were dead, executed or lost at sea in the prison ship Montevideo Maru.25 L. Lamilami, Lamilami Speaks: The Cry Went Up: A Story of the People of Goulburn Islands, North Australia (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1974). 23 A. Grant, Aliens in Arnhem Land (Dee Why, NSW: Frontier, 1995). 24 M. Somerville, They Crossed a Continent: The Story of a Wartime Exodus from Croker Island to Sydney, 3rd edn (Darwin: Shady Tree, 2011). 25 M. Reeson, Whereabouts Unknown (Sydney: Albatross Books, 1993) and A Very Long 22

War: The Families who Waited (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000); R.S. Brown, New Guinea Methodism in War and Peace: A Personal Record (Adelaide: Uniting Church Historical Society, 1989).

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Following the war, pioneer work was established in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea in 1950, led by Gordon Young, in a context of ‘first contact’ with a previously unknown people. This work brought together a staff composed of workers from many of the earlier mission contexts. By this time a strong interrelationship had been established between the indigenous churches with Methodist origins in Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and North Australia, with exchange of workers and opportunities for study and training offered between the regions. In the post-war era, significant changes evolved in the way Australian Methodists approached mission work, with better education and improved cross-cultural understanding by staff. An expression of this was the posting of Australian Methodist ‘fraternal workers’, beginning with Gordon Dicker, to an ecumenical enterprise in Timor in 1953. With moves towards national independence in many Pacific nations in the 1960s and 1970s, a new voice was heard demanding ‘Missionary go home’. Many Australian mission staff returned to Australia around the time of the inauguration of the Uniting Church in 1977, passing responsibility for independent churches into the hands of indigenous leadership. The Role of the Methodist Board of Missions Why was it such a struggle for the Australasian Methodist Board of Missions? These men (and they were only men until 1918), both lay and clergy, included many with experience in mission work themselves. The men who served as General Secretary were able people who served their church with distinction over long terms notwithstanding many challenges; they included George Brown (1886–1907), Benjamin Danks (1908–10); John G. Wheen (1911–24), John W. Burton (1925–45) and Cecil Gribble (1949–73).26 Missionaries are a notoriously independent and strong-willed lot, often with a focus that does not see beyond their local scene, so management from afar could never be easy. The Board had experienced some unfortunate clashes with other Protestant missionary societies in more than one context and sometimes their hesitation was an attempt to avoid yet another unseemly confrontation with the Church Missionary Society, the London Missionary Society, the Australian Board of Missions or the Melanesian Mission. There was constant tension between attempts to raise funds for missions from Australian congregations and the sometimes unreasonable demands from the Pacific regions. They had to manage multiple remote regions in a context of economic depression, wars, changing 26 E. Clancy, ‘Methodist Leaders: The Presidents General of the General Conference of the Methodist Church of Australasia, 1902–1977’, Church Heritage 12, no. 4 (September 2002): 224–42.

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colonial authority in the islands and natural disasters. To pioneer new work could be at the expense of existing work. The Board based in Sydney had numerous robust debates with Methodists in other colonies about their policies, and in the period when Methodist Union was being considered, some of those debates over mission affairs could have brought the whole union plan undone. A significant decision of the Board, in the light of the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1910, was to establish appropriate training for missionaries. George Brown Missionary Training College began in 1920, initially for lay women, and by 1960 had become an ecumenical enterprise for the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches with the new name All Saints College. Despite human frailty and error, some quite remarkable work had been done through Australasian Methodist missions. While Methodist and other denominational missions, along with traders, planters, scientists and colonial authorities, brought material and social change to the island societies where they were established, other changes were even more profound. Human life was becoming more valued. Women were given new access to the spiritual. The domination and fear of the supernatural was losing potency. Traditional enemies could travel freely and unarmed, not merely because of the presence of police in some areas but because there was a new, if fragile, trust. In 1912, three Solomon Island chiefs, formerly feared head-hunters, sent a message to the Missions Board with their gratitude for the missionaries who came to ‘teach us things that gave us peace and joy’. They were happy because ‘the lotu [the Christian message] lives and grows in our midst. Ten years ago we were in very great darkness, but now our eyes have seen the Light and we are all men who belong to Jesus.’27 A strong element of the Methodist missionary endeavour has always been the assumption that any mission team would include men and women from other Pacific regions that had already responded to the Christian message, and that their influence and service would be valued and significant. George Brown wrote that ‘We could never have made the progress which we have made but for the invaluable help of our native agents.’28 Over the years, pioneer missionary work has developed into the independent churches in the Pacific who are in close relationship with the Uniting Church in Australia today. This had been a dream of George Brown, who wrote of Fiji in 1905:

Letter from Solomon Island chiefs from Roviana Lagoon area, Gumi, Gemu and Sasabeti ‘To Great Missionary Chiefs in Sydney’, in the Australasian Methodist Missionary Review, 29 February 1912. 28 George Brown Journal, 10 June 1897, in the Australasian Methodist Missionary Review, 6 November 1897. 27

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From the inauguration of the united Methodist Church of Australasia in 1902, the previous mission districts of Tonga, Samoa and Fiji had full membership of the General Conference of the united church, with representation by indigenous leaders, until the changes made by the Uniting Church in Australia from 1977; the loss of this link was a disappointment to the Pacific churches. The Impact of Missions in the Pacific on Australian Methodism The relationship between the mission enterprises in the Pacific and Methodist congregations in the colonies of Australasia, from the nineteenth century to the present day, has never been something that ran only in one direction. Because of this work, a window on a wider world was opened to members of rural and town congregations in Australia and New Zealand. Missionary papers were read and places and scenes far from home became part of the known world. Missionaries returning from the Pacific travelled around the colonies with lantern slides and curios, telling tales of danger, triumph or failure, albeit sometimes embellished for open-mouthed audiences. Brown grumbled about expectations that he should be a ‘Dancing Bear’, but contributed his own ripping yarns to the repertoire.30 A key element of this interaction was the need to raise funds to support the missionary endeavour from Methodist congregations around Australia. From the 1850s, it was common for Methodist families to contribute to funds for missionary work; families kept a ‘missionary duck’ or a ‘missionary sheep’ for sale and Methodist women walked their neighbourhoods collecting the donations. Funds were raised by women’s groups, appeals to children through Sunday Schools, from congregations, private benefactors and legacies. At some periods, for example the 1890s and the 1930s, donations withered away, leaving the Missions Board in dire financial straits. Even in periods of prosperity like the 1920s the unending appeals for finance for mission work kept the missionary enterprise continually before church members.

29 Rev. Dr G. Brown, ‘For Members of Conference Only. A Personal Statement’, 1905, National Library of Australia Ferg/6162. 30 George Brown to Rev. James Wallis, Sr., 28 May 1873, Brown Letter Book 1871–76, Mitchell Library A1686-2.

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Australian Methodists read news of events in Fiji or New Britain with interest and a degree of understanding. A significant number of those who served as Presidents of State Conferences or as Presidents-General had previous experience as missionaries and had links with the Pacific. Pacific Island people from the ‘Methodist’ regions visited Australia through the years and were welcomed as speakers at major and minor church functions, becoming known and respected friends, influencing attitudes of Australian Methodists to their people. Gifted Islander young people and the children of Tongan nobility have been educated in Australian and New Zealand Methodist secondary schools, and Islander young people were welcome participants in the major Methodist Youth conventions of the twentieth century. Now in the twenty-first century it is natural to find communities of Pacific Islanders living in Australia, as well as Aboriginal people, who view the Uniting Church in Australia as their spiritual family and have become leaders in this body, because of the legacy of relationship over nearly two hundred years. An important but perhaps unanticipated outcome of Methodist missionary endeavour has been the opportunities it has offered to women. Although the role of the wives of missionaries was rarely recognised, unless they constituted a problem because of inconvenient breakdown of health, their presence in mission contexts often provided the first understanding of the needs of island women. Missionary wives such as Mrs Heighway in Fiji, Lilly Bromilow in the Papuan Islands and Helena Goldie in the Solomon Islands were all legendary for their active efforts on behalf of women’s and children’s health and education. By the 1890s, when Australian women were beginning to demand opportunities for service beyond the home, single women pioneered health, education and spiritual work in the island mission regions; some of the earliest were Eleanor Walker, Jeannie Tinney and Minnie Billing. In spite of some male opposition, this initiative was affirmed by Methodist Conference in 1893.31 As well as women working as fund-raisers, a key benefactor of Methodist missions in the nineteenth century was Mrs Ellen Schofield. Although no women were members of the official Board of Missions until 1918, capable and energetic Methodist church women began their own parallel organisation in 1892 to support women missionaries, beginning in Sydney, NSW, and rapidly spreading to other states; the Ladies Auxiliary to the Foreign Missionary Society was later known as the Women’s Auxiliary to Overseas Missions and versions of this group continue to the present day. Undoubtedly the work of Australian Methodists in the Pacific and in North Australia has had a profound impact. In the island regions, many have received the Christian message while retaining valued elements of their traditional culture. They have valued the opportunities for education offered, for health services, Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church, Minutes of Conference, 1893, ML 287.1/7.

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for training in practical skills. They have been educated for local leadership in the Church and in the political sphere, and trusted with independent decisionmaking. (The move to ‘localisation’ has not been universal in all denominations across the Pacific, with some still retaining expatriate leadership.) They have appreciated strong advocacy for justice on their behalf by Australian and New Zealand Methodists, from voices such as Benjamin Danks and Isaac Rooney speaking against the problems of labour recruitment in New Britain in the 1880s to Methodist voices speaking of Aboriginal land rights in the twentieth century. The Methodist missionary influence and leadership, for example, played a vital role in the activism of Goulburn Islanders against mining in the 1970s.32 Some of the richest streams of the arts in Arnhem Land, in the spheres of music, dance and art, have come from places such as Yirrkala which had had Methodist influence in the past. The strength of the Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (formed in 1985) to influence and shape the life of the Uniting Church in Australia over the last 30 years has grown to a significant extent from the earlier work of the Methodist Church in Arnhem Land. To the present day there continue to be strong personal links between Australian Methodists who served in mission settings in earlier years and the people they served, indicating some fulfilment of an old vision for independent indigenous churches across the Pacific who understand themselves as part of the Church universal.

32 G. Baker, ‘“We Just Cry for Our Country”: “The Boycott” and the Goulburn Islanders’, Australian Historical Studies 41, no. 3 (2010): 302–18.

Chapter 14

Australian Methodist Women Anne O’Brien

Women have long been seen as having a special relationship with Methodism. Their predominance among Wesley’s followers, the importance he placed on their role as educators in the home, his acceptance of their preaching and the emphasis on ‘the feminine’ in Wesleyan theology led British historian David Hempton to describe it as ‘predominantly a women’s movement’.1 The nature of this ‘special relationship’ has attracted varied scholarly interpretation. Though E.P. Thompson’s monumental ‘history from below’ The Making of the English Working Class (1964) gave little attention to women specifically, he excoriated the feminine imagery in Wesleyan hymns and assumed female as well as male converts to be victims of Methodism’s ‘religious terrorism’.2 Deborah Valenze’s efforts in the 1980s to uncover ‘the sacred world view’ of labouring people led her to reject the assumption that Methodism was necessarily a conservative force and found in working-class women’s cottage religion a source of their empowerment.3 More recently, Jennifer Lloyd and Phyllis Mack have expanded Methodism’s emphasis on women’s autonomy while recognising its limited realisation.4 Methodism is a rich focal point for exploring the tensions between home and church that have characterised women’s relationship with religion in the Anglophone world. Wesley taught that home and church were spiritually equal – partners in evangelisation – but the lived experience of Methodist women shows the strains involved in the working out of this partnership. Wesley’s death in 1791 saw the hardening of attitudes towards women’s preaching, reflecting deeper shifts that expanded over the course of the nineteenth century. The gendering of dichotomies between home and work, emotion and reason, the spiritual and material crystallised a cult of respectability that over time came to D. Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), p. 5. 2 E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London: Pelican, 1968), p. 415. 3 D.M. Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters: Female Preaching and Popular Religion in Industrial England (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 6. 4 J. Lloyd, Women and the Shaping of British Methodism: Persistent Preachers, 1807–1907 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009); P. Mack, Heart Religion in the British Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 1

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prescribe the home as peculiarly women’s domain.5 Shifts of such depth were hardly uniformly all-encompassing. Female itinerants played a crucial role in the emergence of the connexional movements of Primitive Methodism (1807) and Bible Christianity (1815) – spreading the message through the English countryside at considerable cost to their health. By the 1830s, however, they too were marginalised within their connexions, but never entirely silenced.6 This chapter traces the shaping of tensions between home and church in the distinctive demographics, geographies and political economies of settler Australia. ‘Culled Flowers’ and ‘Successful Co-adjutors’ Women were essential in establishing families and communities in early Sydney. In the overwhelmingly convict, male population of the foundation years, ‘godly’ women were scarce, but arguably most of the wives and daughters of the chaplains, itinerant preachers and sojourning Pacific missionaries were touched by Methodism. Following the arrival in Sydney in 1798 of the majority of missionaries who had set out for Tahiti two years earlier – and among whose complex motives for retreating, sexual temptation figured strongly – NSW became something of a hunting ground for missionary wives.7 Twelve-year-old Ann Hassall, the youngest daughter of ex-missionary, itinerant preacher and landowner Rowland Hassall, wrote to her brother in 1820 that Mr Orsmond ‘came up to get another wife but he said all the flowers are cull’d because Miss Mileham, Miss Rouse and my Sister were to be married’.8 In an age of patronage, and in a context where ‘suitable’ partners were in short supply, the senior chaplain Samuel Marsden’s brokerage of missionary marriage doubtless involved a degree of pressure on marriageable young women. William Henry’s second wife, Ann Shepherd, was 16 when she accompanied him to Tahiti. Though some of Henry’s missionary colleagues were shocked by the youth of his bride and the E.J. Yeo, ed., Radical Femininity: Women’s Self-representation in the Public Sphere (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998). 6 Lloyd, Women and the Shaping of British Methodism. 7 M. Cathcart et al., Mission to the South Seas: The Voyage of the Duff, 1796–1799 (Melbourne: History Department, University of Melbourne, 1990), p. 147; N. Gunson, Messengers of Grace: Evangelical Missionaries in the South Seas, 1797–1860 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 152; H.M. Carey, ‘Companions in the Wilderness? Missionary Wives in Colonial Australia’, Journal of Religious History 19, no. 2 (1995): 227–48; N. Gunson, ‘Henry, William (1770–1859)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/henry-william-2236/ text2297, published in hard copy 1966, accessed online 14 February 2014. 8 Letter from Ann Hassall to Thomas Hassall, 24 Feb. 1820, Hassall Family Papers, ML MSS A 1667/1. 5

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short time that had lapsed since the death of his first wife, others applauded his decision as prudent.9 It would be a mistake to assume that young women had no choice of partners. Though courted by Samuel Leigh, the first Wesleyan missionary to NSW, Mary Hassall chose his colleague Walter Lawry, writing just before her marriage that for him she felt what she had never felt before – ‘unalienable affection’.10 Mary Hassall was unusual among early colonial Methodist women in committing her thoughts to paper, so it is almost impossible to generalise about these marriages from the inside. But we do know that Wesleyan wives were conceptualised as part of a missionary team. Samuel Leigh’s biographer not only commended his wife Catherine Clewes for her ‘good sense, deep piety, ardent zeal, and indomitable courage’ but described her as ‘successful co-adjutor’ to the mission in NSW; and it was married couples – Mr and Mrs Carvosso and Mr and Mrs Mansfield, for example – whom he depicted as building the colonial mission.11 Large families and sudden death were part of life: Sarah Orton bore 12 children, of whom four died in infancy; Jane Allen bore 14, of whom 10 survived; Lydia Mansfield died in 1831 having borne seven children in 11 years, of whom only one survived infancy.12 Once they reached 12 or so, daughters assisted in the proliferation of Sunday Schools after 1815.13 By the 1810s, many such Methodist teams – whose class backgrounds were deemed suitable for dealing with the lower orders – were sought out for work in colonial educational and penal institutions: John and Ann Hosking ran the Female Orphan School from 1809 to 1819; Thomas and Jane Bowden worked in one of Macquarie’s two Public Charity Schools from 1812 and later in the Male Orphan School; Eliza and William Walker worked in the Native Institution and N. Gunson, ‘The Deviations of a Missionary Family: The Henry’s of Tahiti’, in Pacific Island Portraits, ed. J.W. Davidson and D. Scarr (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1970), pp. 31–54. 10 Letter from Mary Hassall, to Thomas Hassall, 14 July 1899, Hassall Family Papers. 11 A. Strachan, Remarkable Incidents in the Life of Rev. Samuel Leigh, Missionary to the Settlers and Savages of Australia and New Zealand: With a Succinct History of the Origin and Progress of the Missions in those Colonies (London: Hamilton, Adams, 1853), p. 106. 12 N. Cowper and V. Parsons, ‘George Allen (1800–1877)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/allengeorge-1696/text1831, published in hardcopy 1966, accessed online 14 February 2014; J.R. Orton, ‘Orton, Joseph Rennard (1795–1842)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/orton-josephrennard-2526/text3423, published in hardcopy 1967, accessed online 14 February 2014; V. Parsons, ‘Mansfield, Ralph (1799–1880)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mansfield-ralph-2429/text3229, published in hardcopy 1967, accessed online 14 February 2014. 13 Sydney Gazette, 1 Sept. 1821. Letter to Thomas, 21 Feb. 1820. 9

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the Female Orphan School.14 In Van Diemen’s Land – which by the 1820s had been ‘conquered’ for respectability, according to historian James Boyce – all staff appointed by Governor Arthur to the Female Factory were Methodist.15 These positions were rarely without controversy, but the Hoskings won Governor Macquarie’s approval and Mrs Hosking was noted to be ‘a very attentive and kind woman’ who ‘got the girls sewing’.16 Mary Hutchinson, the longest serving manager of a female convict institution, had grown up at the Female Factory Parramatta where her father – another former Pacific missionary – had been superintendent. Married at 16, she bore 10 children, of whom six survived, while serving at the female factories in Hobart and Launceston between 1832 and 1854. Due to her husband’s on-going ill health, she was, in the words of Lieut-Gov. Denison, ‘virtually the Superintendent’; to Col. G.C. Mundy she was a ‘dignified lady who looked quite capable of maintaining strict discipline’.17 If home was the main site of women’s religious expression, the temperance movement of the 1830s and 1840s saw some Methodist women take to the platform to defend its interests. The best-known temperance preacher was the Scottish sea-captain’s wife Isabella Dalgarno, whose feisty and humorous style won her large audiences whenever she visited Port Phillip or Hobart: ‘the men might think themselves the Lords of the creation’, she told a Port Phillip meeting in 1844, but ‘women had the greatest influence’.18 Dalgarno divided the locals. The Cornwall Chronicle thought her ‘particularly coarse’ language was responsible for the uproar at a meeting in Port Phillip in 1844.19 A few years later, one of its correspondents deplored ‘petticoated philosophers, blustering heroines, or virago Queens’ and told her to go home and ‘make her husband and children happy’.20 To Nathaniel Pidgeon, who worked as a city missionary in Sydney from the early 1840s, female preaching was ‘the work of the devil’ – though he was assisted in home visitation by a small group of ‘sisters’.21 14 J. Ramsland, Children of the Backlanes (Sydney: UNSW Press, 1986); J. Brook and J.L. Kohen, The Parramatta Native Institution and the Black Town: A History (Sydney: UNSW Press, 1991). 15 J. Boyce, Van Diemen’s Land (Melbourne: Black, 2008); K. Daniels, Convict Women (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1998), p. 123. 16 J.F. Cleverley, The First Generation: School and Society in Early Australia (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1971), p. 98; Cited in B.M. Bubacz, ‘The Female and Male Orphan Schools in NSW 1801–1850’ (PhD thesis, University of Sydney, 2007), pp. 97, 109–110. 17 Cited in R.C. Hutchinson, ‘Mrs Hutchinson and the Female Factories of Early Australia’, Tasmanian Historical Society Papers and Proceedings (Dec. 1963): 50–67, at p. 64. 18 Cited in E. Windschuttle, ‘Women, Class and Temperance: Moral Reform in Eastern Australia, 1832–1857’, Push from the Bush 3 (1979): 5–25, at p. 5. 19 Cornwall Chronicle, 1 June 1844. 20 Cornwall Chronicle, 4 September 1847. 21 N. Pidgeon, The Life, Experience, and Journal of Nathaniel Pidgeon (Sydney: Smith and Gardiner, 1857), p. 103.

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Domestic Worship and Female Preachers Women were integral to Methodism’s growth across the nineteenth century. The funding provided by the Church Acts of 1836–37 stimulated the growth of the four largest denominations, but the gold rushes of the 1850s particularly stimulated Methodism. Between 1852 and 1867, those affiliated with the Methodist Church increased by 300 per cent, nearly twice the population increase.22 Methodism’s flexible organisation, centred on class meetings, gave women considerable authority in what British historian Linda Wilson has called the ‘intermediate sphere’.23 In pioneering rural townships, ‘cottage religion’ turned the home into ‘a temple of the Lord’, according to the Primitive Methodist Miscellany of 1863.24 At Camden in NSW in the late 1850s, Susannah Loiterton would rise at 4.00 a.m. on Sunday mornings to get her house ready for worship.25 Fanny Cochrane Smith was also at the centre of an extended family Methodist community. One of the few Aboriginal women who followed Methodism in the nineteenth century (and one of the few survivors of notorious Wybalenna on Flinders Island), her kitchen was used as a church at Oyster Cove, Tasmania, before a church was built on land she donated. As well as following Methodist rituals, she sang and told her people’s stories and continued to carry out traditional ceremonies.26 Chain migration forged mining communities in which Methodists were spectacularly dominant and where women took a central role. At copper-mining Moonta, a heartland of Cornish Bible Christianity in South Australia, Moonta’s women were celebrated as archetypal ‘Cousin Jennies’ – simple, strong but stouthearted – to their menfolk’s Cousin Jack.27 For immigrant women, Methodism offered consolation in loneliness and its doctrines had direct emotional appeal. ‘I think I told you before that I had become quite a Wesleyan I hope not in Name only but in heart’, wrote Isabella Wyly, who arrived in Adelaide a ‘penniless B. Chant, ‘The Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Origins of the Australian Pentecostal Movement’, in Reviving Australia: Essays on the History and Experience of Revival and Revivalism in Australian Christianity, ed. M. Hutchinson, E. Campion and S. Piggin (Sydney: Centre for the Study of Australian Christianity, 1994), pp. 97–122. 23 L. Wilson, ‘Constrained by Zeal: Women in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Nonconformist Churches’, Journal of Religious History 23, no. 2 (1999): 185–202. 24 Primitive Methodist Miscellany, 1863, p. 34. 25 Loiterton Family: 400 Years of History, at http://www.loitertonfamily.com/early_ days_camdenpark.htm, accessed 25 November 2011. 26 J. Clark, ‘Smith, Fanny Cochrane (1834–1905)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/smith-fannycochrane-8466/text14887, published in hardcopy 1988, accessed online 14 February 2014. 27 P. Payton, Making Moonta: The Invention of Australia’s Little Cornwall (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2007). 22

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orphan’ in 1857.28 It offered a programme for self-mastery. The squatter Caroline Newcomb, who experienced a day of ‘joy unspeakable and full of glory’ soon after joining the Wesleyan class meeting in Geelong in 1839, confided to her diary, ‘I hope … to watch over my temper and heart, and never harbour an angry thought, nor utter an angry word’.29 But Methodism’s certitudes could also exacerbate spiritual anxieties: Elizabeth Greenwood, niece of the founder of the Bible Christians, William O’Bryan, battled depression following the death of three children in six months and blamed herself for inattention to religion; she thought that Satan was leading her astray.30 Its message of self-mastery to men was telling of efforts to improve women’s experience of marriage. Melbourne’s Primitive Methodist Miscellany in the 1860s exhorted husbands not only to support their families but to show ‘affection and kindness’ to their wives and not to be ‘habitually pettish and dissatisfied with what she does’.31 Clergy wives – long-attested in all denominations to be overworked and unrecognised – were particularly called upon for self-mastery in the Methodist tradition; in part because the itinerancy rule demanded they uproot themselves and their children every three years, and in part because the laity controlled the finances, and could be touchy if the minister’s wife was perceived as wanting.32 The secular press acknowledged the difficulties of ‘Methodism on wheels’ and Methodist newspapers celebrated virtue under stress: Mrs Pritchard, whose husband had pioneered Primitive Methodism in Van Diemen’s Land, ‘wept bitterly’ when she had to leave Hobart, according to the Primitive Methodist Miscellany, but expressed her willingness to go ‘anywhere that God shall be pleased to send us’.33 Weeping heroines figure less among representations of Methodist women than the ‘strong and stout-hearted’. Susannah Loiterton was admired for expressing her thoughts and feelings ‘in the most uncompromising and fearless manner’.34 Mary Jane Norwood, who brought up her family of four singlehanded in working-class Collingwood, Victoria, was admired in Irving Benson’s Cited in D. Fitzpatrick, ‘“This is the Place that Foolish Girls are Knowing”: Reading the Letters of Emigrant Irish Women in Colonial Australia’, in Irish Women in Colonial Australia, ed. T. McLaughlin (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1998), pp. 163–81, at pp. 169–71. 29 Cited in C.I. Benson, ed., A Century of Victorian Methodism (Melbourne: Spectator, 1935), p. 79. 30 J. Smith, ed., Journals of Elizabeth Curnow Greenwood née Trethewie (Canberra: Jack Smith, 2001), p. ix. 31 Primitive Methodist Miscellany, 1863; July 1866, pp. 113–16. 32 K. Dempsey, Conflict and Decline: Ministers and Laymen in an Australian Country Town (Sydney: Methuen, 1983); J.E.S. McCulloch, ‘Elizabeth Brentnall: Myth, Magic and Methodism’, Queensland History Journal 21, no. 4 (2011): 213–26, at p. 216. 33 Primitive Methodist Miscellany, April 1864; Launceston Examiner, 4 April 1898. 34 A. Atkinson, Camden: Farm and Village Life in Early New South Wales (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 173. 28

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centenary history not only as ‘a sturdy, vigorous woman’ but as one who ‘pushed bluntness to extremes’.35 By the 1890s, some itinerant wives – Euphemia Bowes in NSW and Elizabeth Brentnall in Queensland – utilised the skills they had gained as peripatetic class leaders to become leaders of the suffrage movement.36 In the uncertainty of the post-gold rush economy Methodism’s emphasis on respectability as social capital had a growing audience among the ‘anxious classes’, though respectability may have made less progress among Bible Christians or Primitives than Wesleyans: local studies of Camden in NSW and Moonta in South Australia suggest that both these connexions had higher than average rates of pregnancy among women in marriage.37 But most Methodists made good. In Victoria between 1855 and 1901 most regular Wesleyan church attendees were successful small business owners or skilled tradesmen and some made large fortunes.38 The foundation of Melbourne’s MLC in 1882 reflected Methodism’s arrival. Established in part to educate ministers’ daughters who may have had to earn their own livings, its main role was to educate girls for motherhood: ‘the girls of today were the wives and mothers of tomorrow’, declared its founder W.H. Fitchett, ‘and wifehood and motherhood were forces that shaped history’.39 Its motto – ‘For God and Home’ – can be read to reflect the importance of women in the home, as well as the expectations keeping them there. Methodists, then, contributed to the swelling tides of respectability that served to contain women’s ministry – indeed, the experiences of Methodist women provide a barometer of wider processes. The transatlantic evangelical revival of the 1860s stimulated women’s preaching but the new generation were seen as having an ‘exceptional call’ and they sought to distance themselves from the earlier Methodist itinerants. Catherine Booth, for example, was convinced that gender was irrelevant in spiritual matters but distinguished herself from the stereotype of the earlier generation of ‘regular Primitive female preacher’ who

Benson, Century of Victorian Methodism, p. 331. R. Lawson, ‘Brentnall, Frederick Thomas (1834–1925)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/brentnallfrederick-thomas-3050/text4487, published in hard copy 1969, accessed online 14 February 2014; H. Radi, ‘Bowes, Euphemia Bridges (1816–1900)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bowes-euphemiabridges-5312/text8969, published in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 14 February 2014. 37 J. McCalman, Journeyings: The Biography of a Middle-Class Generation 1920–1990 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1993), pp. 29–37; Payton, Making Moonta, p. 146; Atkinson, Camden, pp. 183, 174. 38 R. Howe, ‘Social Composition of the Wesleyan Church in Victoria during the Nineteenth Century’, Journal of Religious History, 4, no. 3 ( June 1967): 206–17. 39 Cited in A.G.T. Zainu’ddin, They Dreamt of a School: A Centenary History of Methodist Ladies’ College Kew, 1882–1982 (Melbourne: Hyland House, 1982), pp. 4, 35. 35 36

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‘puts off her bonnet and shawl and goes at it like a ranter’.40 The best known of the new generation of preachers in the Australian colonies was Serena Thorne, granddaughter of William O’Bryan. When she arrived in Adelaide in 1870 she filled the town hall to its capacity of 1,500 for three weeks, with hundreds unable to gain admission. She was admired by the local press for her ‘ease and naturalness’, but also for her ‘chaste eloquence’, just as visiting evangelists were represented as quiet and lady-like.41 Despite her manifold gifts, Thorne experienced the divergent pulls of home and church. Her diary for 1870 attests to weeks of ‘anxiety and prayer’ about whether she should remain loyal to ‘God’s work’ or return to England to care for her ageing parents. She also received anonymous hate mail, quoting ‘those passages in Timothy and Corinthians’: ‘I suppose the clever individual thought to frighten me’.42 Within some local Bible Christian communities women’s preaching was almost ‘workaday’ but still had curiosity value. A report of Mrs Cory’s preaching at the Terang Bible Christian Church in Victoria in 1888 declared that the church was ‘crowded with a delighted congregation’ and that she was ‘one of the most popular female preachers who has held forth in the Western district’, implying she was not alone.43 Suffragists, Sisters and Missionaries Methodist women played a significant part in the relatively early enfranchisement of women in Australia in the late nineteenth century. It is perhaps not surprising that they were drawn to the suffrage movement. Its over-arching maternalist ideology saw women’s natural capabilities giving them the right and duty to influence the world, beliefs central to Wesley’s teaching.44 It was unjust and absurd, wrote Serena Thorne Lake in her report as Vice-President of South Australia’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1891, that Cited in O. Anderson, ‘Women Preachers in Mid-Victorian Britain: Some Reflexions on Feminism, Popular Religion and Social Change’, Historical Journal 12, no. 3 (1969): 476–84, at pp. 471–2, 483. 41 Register, 10 January 1871, 21 November 1870; S. Swain, ‘In These Days of Female Evangelists and Hallelujah Lasses: Women Preachers and the Redefinition of Gender Roles in the Churches in Late Nineteenth-Century Australia’, Journal of Religious History 26, no. 1 (2002): 65–77. 42 ‘Serena Thorne’s Diary’, in Newsletter: Uniting Church Historical Society, 1978, pp. 5–9. 43 Camperdown Chronicle, 15 September 1888. On women’s workaday preaching, see Lloyd, Women and the Shaping of British Methodism, p. 4. 44 S. Koven and S. Michel, Mothers of a New World: Maternalist Politics and the Origins of Welfare States (New York: Routledge, 1993). 40

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‘the mother influence has no acknowledged authority or legal recognition’.45 Methodist practice facilitated the link with the suffrage movement. The tradition of female preaching paved the way for the few to work in the public sphere to extol the virtues of the private. By 1891 Thorne Lake had been married for 20 years and borne seven children, of whom only one survived childhood. She was one of thousands in the WCTU who carried the suffrage flag, but her uncommon eloquence as leader of the WCTU had been honed by her work as a preacher. And, as we have seen, peripatetic wives developed skills as class leaders. When her husband retired to Sydney in 1882, Euphemia Bowes was aged 66. ‘Always ready with repartee’, she became the founding president of the WCTU in NSW, a position she occupied for the next 10 years.46 Others came to suffrage from their involvement in the social purity movement. Mary Lee and Mary Colton had both worked for the Female Refuge and the Social Purity Society in Adelaide, work that had given them first-hand experience of the double standard on women. Indeed, in trail-blazing South Australia – the first state to enfranchise women and founded by dissenters – four of the seven principal leaders of the suffrage movement were Methodists.47 Like most Protestant denominations, Methodists introduced new opportunities for women in the late nineteenth century to work as home and overseas missionaries but they were employed on terms less equal and less demanding than those of the earlier itinerants so their professionalisation formalised their marginalisation. Romanticised by the founder of Sydney’s Central Methodist Mission (CMM), W.G. Taylor, as ‘angels of mercy’, the ‘Sisters of the People’ – as Methodist home missionaries were called – originated in the West London mission of Hugh Price Hughes, but their immediate foundation in Sydney in 1891 was prompted by the threat of Laura Francis, a young woman from Grafton, to join the Salvation Army if she could not get work with the Methodist Church.48 Francis became a celebrated evangelist, took an active part in the Welsh revival and was employed by the Home Mission department of the Methodist Church from 1905.49 Most Sisters of the People were channelled towards work with women and children, though in Western Australia, Sisters

Cited in H. Jones, In Her Own Name: A History of Women in South Australia from 1836 (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 1986), p. 105. 46 Radi, ‘Bowes, Euphemia’; A. Oldfield, Woman Suffrage in Australia (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 74. 47 Jones, In Her Own Name, pp. 81–121. 48 A. O’Brien, God’s Willing Workers: Women and Religion in Australia (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2005), pp. 97–105. 49 D. Wright, Mantle of Christ: A History of the Sydney Central Methodist Mission (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1984), pp. 56–7. 45

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worked as nurses during the typhoid epidemic of the 1890s.50 Between 1890 and 1915, one hundred women worked as Methodist Sisters of the People in Sydney, some converted by the CMM: Sister Bibby was noted for her ‘entire absence of ostentation’.51 Their turnover was high: the Sisters’ Home was seen in part as a training ground for wives and they resigned on marriage. The contemporary oral record of those who endured children’s institutions are a bleak indictment of practices that were standard and they reflect in part the long hours, low wages and little time off given to workers.52 There were, however, two longserving matrons of Dalmar Children’s Home in Sydney – Elizabeth Hellewell (1926–45) and Dorothy Barnett (1948–65) – under whose governance former residents recall valuing the security Dalmar brought, and being conscious at the time that it was better than other places.53 Overseas missionary sisters were supported by the Women’s Auxiliary for Foreign Missions, founded in 1892. For its first 20 years it faced indifference from ministers reluctant to deflect funds from the home church, but under the leadership of Mary O’Reilly in the 1910s its work expanded: parish auxiliaries supported 93 single women missionaries out of 114 between 1915 and 1935.54 Like most full-time women church-workers in the interwar years, most Methodist missionary sisters were from lower middle-class or workingclass backgrounds, most wrote that they felt ‘called’ to be missionaries and many expressed an urgent desire to render practical help: ‘I feel that, as a nurse, there is so much I can do’, Dorothy Fraser responded to the Methodist Overseas Mission (MOM) questionnaire in 1945. Their conditions of work varied, but they were acknowledged as labouring under more difficult conditions than women employed by other missionary societies, which an enquiry in 1918 did little to improve. They had a higher turnover than most other societies, were paid less and the decentralisation of authority – which treated the isolated mission field as part of a circuit under the direct supervision of a superintendent – could lead V. Whittington, Women of Compassion. The Sisters of the People: Their Mission and Work in Western Australia 1893–1977 (Perth: Vera Whittington, 2002); R. Howe and S. Swain, All God’s Children: A Centenary History of the Methodist Homes for Children and the Orana Peace Memorial Homes (Canberra: Acorn Press, 1989). 51 O’Brien, God’s Willing Workers, pp. 99–105; see also Howe and Swain, All God’s Children. 52 See, for example, N. Musgrove, The Scars Remain: A Long History of Forgotten Australians and Children’s Institutions (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2013); J. Penglase, Orphans of the Living: Growing up in ‘Care’ in Twentieth-century Australia (Perth: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2005). 53 D. Wright, Dalmar: A Century of Caring for Women and Children (Sydney: Wesley Mission, 1993), p. 69. 54 ‘Forty Years History of Women’s Work in New South Wales 1892–1932’, WOAM, box 3, UCA. 50

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to difficulties. Underpinning these problems was understaffing related to underfinancing. Despite accruing a large debt during the First World War, which had only got greater by the late 1930s, the MOM did not curtail the work. The women and their charges were on the receiving end of these conditions.55 Equal Ministry in its Shifting Contexts The moral conservatism that underpinned the WCTU’s commitment to women’s political rights in the late nineteenth century put Methodists in an increasingly oppositional relationship with the modernity that shaped Australian cities in the first decades of the twentieth century. Cinemas, dance palaces and theatres presented threats to the ‘wowser’ mentality that Methodists were seen to epitomise. Youth organisations provided wholesome alternative entertainment.56 The Methodist Girls’ Comradeship (MGC) – counterpart to the boys’ Methodist Order of Knights (MOK) – was founded in 1917 ‘to give the girls something definite to do for the church’.57 The minutes of the Paddington MGC for the 1920s suggest that the meetings were well attended and show the girls putting on plays, including parodies of the local council, and affectionately teasing their mentor Sister Nellie.58 The threat of modernity urged Methodist clergy to new heights of eloquence in contemplating the good mother. ‘Mother’, proclaimed the Rev. S.J. Hoban in the Lyceum Hall, Sydney, on Mother’s Day 1916, ‘holds her place in our heart and life because we instinctively recognise that the crowning grace of motherhood is self-sacrifice.’59 Methodists were certainly not alone in attributing to women an uncanny gift for self-sacrifice, but such tributes are telling of the context in which women’s equal ministry was debated. The issue was stimulated in the interwar years by the ordination of women in the Congregational Church and by controversy over ordination in England, made immediate by the visit to Australia of the English preacher and suffragist Maude Royden in 1927. Methodists came closer than any other denomination to ordaining women in this period. A ‘large majority’ at the Melbourne conference of 1929 agreed that an unmarried woman could offer for the ministry ‘under the same regulations O’Brien, God’s Willing Workers, pp. 128–40; see also D. Langmore, Missionary Lives: Papua, 1874–1914 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1989). 56 See J. Matthews, Dance Hall and Picture Palace: Sydney’s Romance with Modernity (Sydney: Currency Press, 2005), pp. 197–8. 57 Australian Methodist Historical Society, Journal and Proceedings, May 1951, p. 831. 58 Minutes, Methodist Girls’ Comradeship, Paddington, Uniting Church Archives, Parramatta, 1923–27. 59 Our Weekly Greeting, 20 May 1916. 55

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that apply to men’.60 But over the next five years, a series of committees found that though there was ‘substantial agreement’ to the principle of women’s equal ministry, ‘practical difficulties’ stood in its way.61 It is not clear how many women were seeking ordination, but Lillian Scholes received some press coverage at the time. A daughter of the manse with an MA and BD from the University of Melbourne, she was better qualified than many ministers and she told the Australian Women’s Weekly that she had no doubts that women ‘could carry out capably all the duties of a minister’.62 Twenty years later Miss Scholes, an ‘energetic personality’, was earning her living as a teacher at the Australian Coaching College. Now all but forgotten, she is remembered by one of her former students, the poet Bruce Dawe, as an outstanding teacher and ‘a very dedicated and loving woman’.63 Kate Cocks, the first woman police constable in South Australia, also combined a professional life with voluntary welfare work for the Methodist Church but ‘a wealth of legends’ grew up around her: skilled in jiu-jitsu, she is said to have taught a woman whose husband was beating her how to defend herself.64 Instead of equal ministry, an order of deaconesses was established. It attracted 66 women in NSW between 1945 and 1960, but more than half resigned within five years, in part because marriage necessitated resignation, but also because their work was ill-defined – they sometimes filled gaps in circuits, conducted religious instruction in state schools and did left-over jobs generally.65 Clerical expectations were perhaps encapsulated by the referee who commended an applicant in 1955 for her ‘real ability to undertake the role of second fiddle for Christ’s sake’.66 This is not to suggest that none found fulfilling work: the The Argus, 7 March 1929. A. O’Brien, ‘Women in the Churches before 1992: “No Obtrusive Womanhood”’, in Prophets, Preachers and Heretics, ed. E. Lindsay and J. Scarfe (Sydney: New South Books, 2012), pp. 30–54. 62 Australian Women’s Weekly, 11 August 1934; 21 March 1936. 63 Australian Biography, Screen Australia Digital Learning, Bruce Dawe, at http:// www.australianbiography.gov.au/subjects/dawe/interview2.html, accessed 28 July 2012. 64 M. Mune, ‘Cocks, Fanny Kate Boadicea (1875–1954)’, ADB, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cocks-fannykate-boadicea-5705/text9645, published in hardcopy 1981, accessed online 14 February 2014. 65 O’Brien, God’s Willing Workers, pp. 99–105; on Melbourne deaconesses, see B. Feith, Women in Ministry: The Order of Deaconesses and the Campaign for the Ordination of Women within the Methodist Church 1942–77 (Melbourne: Kyarra Press, 1990); on deaconesses in South Australia, see B. Hancock, A History of the Methodist Deaconess Order in South Australia (Adelaide: Uniting Church Historical Society, 1995). 66 Methodist Church, Department of Home Missions, Applications for Training of Deaconesses, Uniting Church Archives. 60 61

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‘bush nurses’ who provided a nursing service to the 35,000 miles surrounding Brewarrina in NSW found it a life-changing experience.67 Noreen Towers worked for the homeless at Sydney’s Central Methodist Mission for nearly 40 years. ‘The homeless educated me’, she said on retirement.68 By the late 1950s, in an era of liberal reform on some gender issues – divorce, for example – the issue of equal ministry looked different. The ‘practical difficulties’ that had seemed insurmountable in the 1930s were found at the General Conference of 1957 to be resolvable with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Following the unanimous acceptance of women’s ordination at the Victorian Conference in 1965, three deaconesses offered for ordination, and in 1966 General Conference passed the resolution to ordain women, 132 for and 18 against.69 This was a major victory but such seismic shifts inevitably led to divisions: some deaconesses felt neglected, indeed, ‘starved out of the church’, according to Phyllis Bonython.70 Other women were stirred to deeper feminist critiques. June Wright, the wife of a Methodist minister, wrote in the Methodist Spectator in 1965 of ‘The Christian Mystique’ as ‘an insidious slavery masked by the … platitude that women are mysteriously different’.71 A new generation of Christian feminists emerged, formed by the swiftly changing religious landscape as well as the international women’s liberation movement. Many were children during the religious revival of the 1950s and early 1960s, where religious practice and community nourished their formative years. As young adults in the later 1960s and 1970s they experienced the liberation of new theology and social justice movements. Dorothy McCraeMcMahon and Jean Skuse, both daughters of ministers, emerged as leaders from the Methodist tradition at this time. McCrae-McMahon was among the founders of Christian Women Concerned, a Sydney-based ecumenical social justice organisation that produced the magazine Magdalene from 1973 to 1987. Skuse had been an observer at the United Nations for the Methodist Church in the United States in the 1970s and came back questioning the power men had in the Church. In 1971 she was the first layperson and first woman to be Secretary of the Australian Council of Churches (ACC) in NSW. Both were instrumental in the foundation of the Commission on the Status of Women S. Somerville, Angels of Augustus: Pioneers of the Living Inland (Noosaville, Qld: Elk and Ice, 2006). 68 M. Reeson, No Fixed Address: The Story of Noreen Towers and her Friendship with Sydney’s Homeless (Sydney: Albatross Books, 1991); Sydney Morning Herald, 23 September 2004. 69 M. Porter, Women in the Church: The Great Ordination Debate (Melbourne: Penguin, 1989), p. 28. 70 Cited in Hancock, History of the Methodist Deaconess Order, p. 25. 71 Cited in O’Brien, God’s Willing Workers, p. 235. 67

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of the ACC, which became one of the main focal points for the outpouring of feminist passion and activism in religion in the 1970s and 1980s.72 The Distinctiveness of Methodist Women How and to what extent can the experience of Methodist women be distinguished from that of women in other denominations over the long two centuries of colonisation in Australia? Frontier conditions fostered the ‘domestic worship’ that Wesley acclaimed; and a small thin strand of Methodist women preachers – in the first temperance movement, in the second evangelical revival and in the suffrage movement – defended the home from the public platform. The idealisation of home and motherhood, however, opened the way for the formalisation of their work as home and foreign missionaries to be accompanied by their marginalisation. These trends ran more or less in tandem with conditions for women in other Christian denominations, but the Methodist alliance of great ambition and limited funds sharpened Methodist women’s liability to exploitation. But all denominations were variegated entities and generalisation is tricky. Methodist women were among the first to be ordained in response to the big cultural shifts of the mid-twentieth century but unlike most denominational girls’ schools, Methodist ladies colleges preferred male clergy as heads. Two threads running through representations of the ideal Methodist woman shed some light on the question of Methodist particularity. It would seem that in their relationship with the world, strong confident voices were particularly admired: in addition to individuals respected as ‘uncompromising and fearless’, who pushed ‘bluntness to extremes’, countless obituaries depicted ‘stout-hearted women’ triumphing over adversity. Women working to become clergy, on the other hand, were preferred humble and self-sacrificing: ‘angels of mercy’, unafraid ‘to play second fiddle’. While this disjunction was not unique, perhaps its Methodist inflections were distinctive, invoking the pressures to autonomy and self-abasement within Christian tradition that Wesley so successfully renewed.73

O’Brien, God’s Willing Workers, pp. 231–58. See Mack, Heart Religion in the British Enlightenment.

72 73

Chapter 15

Australian Methodist Scholars Garry W. Trompf1

Before the First World War, Methodist leadership energies were so focused on congregational life, revival activity, mission work and key social issues that any nurturing of scholarship was a very secondary business. Yet Methodists were vitally interested in educational excellence, founding their own prestigious schools (from the 1860s on), which provided vehicles for high achievement in the world of university scholarship and also offered early bases for training in the ministry.2 Methodism might seem to have lagged behind, but against the common charge that a Methodist/scholarship relationship is oxymoronic, an important story has to be told. When one considers that in ‘the Antipodes’ even the larger Anglican and Catholic traditions rarely produced religious thinkers of international note until after the Second World War, the story of Methodist scholars in Australia follows this general pattern. A sprinkling of thinkers and writers do show up in the nineteenth century to whet our appetite, credentials are clearly established from the 1890s to the Second World War, and then a great bulk of scholarly endeavour follows thereafter. From Springs to Watershed The first recognisable Methodist scholar engaged in scholarly writing in Australia was the Yorkshireman William B. Boyce (1804–89), often considered 1 For assistance with archival sources, special thanks to Dr Jennifer Bows (Sugden Heritage Collections, Queen’s College, Vic.), the Rev. Prof Ian Breward (UCA Archives, Elsternwick, Vic.), Gavin Glenn (UCA Archives, North Parramatta, NSW), Tim Robinson (University of Sydney Archives) and the librarians of the Caroline Library, Lincoln College, University of Adelaide, SA, the Wesley College Library, University of Sydney, and the Benedictine Monastery, Arcadia, NSW. My appreciation also goes to the ever-collegial William Emilsen, who proofread a draft of this chapter. 2 P.L. Swain, Newington across the Years: A History of Newington College, 1863–1998 (Sydney: Newington College, 1999), chs 1–2; J.F. Ward, Prince Alfred College: The Story of the First Eighty Years, 1867–1948 (Adelaide: Gillingham, 1951); [Methodist Ladies’ College], Seventy-five Years of Methodist Ladies’ College, Hawthorn, 1882–1957 (Melbourne: Spectator, 1957).

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a second founder of Australian Methodism after Samuel Leigh. As the first President of an Australia-wide Wesleyan Conference (1855–56), Boyce took the denomination from under its British parent body’s coat-tails and defended Methodism’s credentials in the fast-growing colonies, including the right of its schools to receive state aid.3 First grounded in studies relevant to mission work, Boyce pursued a ‘grammatical’ approach to geography and history, as well as languages (both indigenous and biblical), and gauged the growing influence of world missionary activity statistically and encyclopaedically, ending up as Australia’s first world historian, over a century ahead of Geoffrey Blainey.4 Boyce saw his time as the Thirteenth Period in a globalising history, with the Europe responsible for this perceptible unity thrust into revolutionary fervour. He stood for conservative ameliorism politically, nicely exemplifying ‘the missionary roots of liberal democracy’; and he sits first in an interesting line of Australian Methodist thinkers confronting and accommodating the scientific discoveries and literary achievements of their times.5 The Rev. John Blacket (1856–1935), a lay preacher at 22, was appointed Wesleyan Methodist minister to Minlaton on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula in 1881, and became the first Australian-born Methodist scholar in print. Like a modern Australian John Wesley, tirelessly travelling over bad roads in a horsedrawn buggy through the 13 country circuits in his charge, Blacket was always quietly researching local history and seeking to be up to date in his readings into theology and natural science.6 Of his eight books, most are on South Australian history, both local and general, but two are theological. Like William Boyce, he perceived no clash between his faith and the latest scientific research. God was immanent and still working in his creation, but by his time it was now a matter of reckoning with evolutionary theory, which he accepted as a discovery

P. Gunnar, Here am I, Lord, Send Me: The Life of Missionary Leader Rev. William Binnington Boyce (Annandale, NSW: Desert Pea Press, 2003), chs 5–6. For overviews, see esp. W. Emilsen, ‘Boyce, William Binnington’, ADEB, ed. B. Dickey (Sydney: Evangelical History Association, 1994), pp. 47–8; cf. J. Colwell, Illustrated History of Methodism. Australia: 1812 to 1855. New South Wales and Polynesia: 1856 to1902 (Sydney: William Brooks, 1904), vol. 1, ch. 13. 4 W.B. Boyce, A Brief Grammar of Ancient History, for Use in Schools (Sydney: Robert Barr, 1850); Missionary World: Being an Encyclopaedia of Information … Relating to Christian Missions, in all Ages and Countries, and of all Denomination (New York: Anson D.F. Randolph, [1872]). 5 Was Boyce Australia’s first encyclopaedist of history? See his Introduction to the Study of History: Civil, Ecclesiastical, and Literary (London: Theophilus Woolmer, 1884). 6 A.D. Hunt, ‘John Blacket (1856–1935)’, ADB (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1979), vol. 7, pp. 312–13. 3

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of human reason, complementing biblical revelation and confirming the divine presence in nature and among different peoples.7 Pioneer missionaries were also integral to the laying of the foundations of a tradition of Australian Methodist scholarship. They had plenty of remarkable experiences with Indigenous peoples in the Pacific region and thus a good deal of new information to digest and relay to an interested public, both in Australia and abroad. When we consider the output we are left astounded at the amount of solid Methodist ethnography published between 1880 and 1910. Most of these authors based themselves in Australia (though virtually all were of British birth).8 The best-known Methodist missionaries around the turn of the century appeared as a star-studded array of eminent researchers, competing or else collaborating with the best British anthropologists. Most eminent among the missionaries, if also for a time highly controversial, was Northumbrian the Rev. Dr George Brown (1835–1917). A Unitarian convert to Methodism with 14 years’ experience in Samoa, Brown started the Methodist Mission in New Britain from his new base in Sydney, shipping a whole house to ‘Deutsch Neuguinea’ in 1877.9 In 1892 Methodist missionaries across German and British New Guinea cooperated to present the first general survey and assessment of the importance of totemism in traditional Melanesian cultures (presenting findings comparable to John McLennan’s on totems in Australian religions).10 Brown was in a better position than anyone else to write the first comparative study of Melanesian and Polynesian peoples, possessed impressive language skills, and could account for almost 50 years’ experience in the islands.11 His decision to compare island peoples in terms of their life cycles was innovative ethnologically, and he showed how the old polymathic tradition could be kept alive by maintaining zoological, geographical, ethnographic, linguistic and historical interests as he operated in the field – perfect for his presidency of the Geographical Section of the Australasian J. Blacket, Theistic Essays; and Earnest Seekers after Truth; also an Essay on Socialism (London: J. Nisbet, 1894) and Not Left without Witness: Divine Truth in the Light of Reason and Revelation (London: Eliot Stock, 1905). 8 T. Williams with J. Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, ed. G.S. Rowe, 2 vols (London: Alexander Heylin, 1858); G.C. Henderson, ed., Journal of Thomas Williams: Missionary in Fiji, 1840–1853, 2 vols (Sydney: Angus and Robertson 1931). 9 See esp. H.B. Gardner, George Brown: Gathering for God in Oceania (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2006); M. Reeson, Pacific Missionary George Brown (Canberra: ANU EPress, 2013). 10 G. Brown, ‘The Conceptual Theory of the Origins of Totemism’, Australasian Society for the Advancement of Science 13 (1912): 401–13. 11 G. Brown, ‘Papuans and Polynesians’, Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 16 (1887): 311–27; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians: Their LifeHistories Described and Compared (London: Macmillan, 1910). 7

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Association for the Advancement of Science, if not for his presidency of the Methodist General Conference (1913–16). By 1910 missionary research would seem to have been leading the way for Methodist scholarship. It was small wonder that English-born Methodist intellectual the Rev. James Colwell (1860–1930), Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, believed a time of consolidation for Methodists and a newly federated Australia could be celebrated at the same time. He had a fine group of scholars to harness, showing them off in a 781-page procession of reports, in his A Century in the Pacific, edited just before the opening salvos of the First World War, about Christian (and largely Methodist) achievements in a new nation thoroughly engaged with its island neighbours.12 Colwell’s history was perhaps a flagrant piece of denominational chauvinism, but his work suggests that Methodism could serve as a crucial index to the fashioning of a whole emergent region, and he apparently sensed an advantage in the comparatively little that was being drawn together by other churches. In allowing, indeed helpfully sponsoring, voices from various quarters to cover a wide range of materials, Colwell would go on to produce the first massive multi-volume history of Australia (1925).13 The fact of his being a Methodist may sadly have consigned his labours to dusty shelves, while more secular minds have gone on unaware of his existence or ignored him as partisan. For one brief pre-war moment, then, Methodist scholarship took a leading edge. Most of the thinkers, however, were already ageing, and two world wars and the Great Depression were to put a dent in Methodist intellectual life. One of Colwell’s editorial helpers, however, was emerging as one of the outstanding academicians on the Victorian scene: Edward H. Sugden, the urbane and influential Master of Queen’s. ‘The Peter Pan of Methodism’, translator of Plautus, field naturalist, musicologist and wartime chaplain, Sugden acquired such influence in the university setting that, by 1920, he was able to relieve himself of his duties as theological tutor and establish a separate college professorship in theology.14 That gave him more legroom to write over the next 11 years (1921– 32), although he was Methodist President General of Australasia from 1923 to 1926. His Topographical Dictionary to the Works of Shakespeare and his Fellow Dramatists (1924) earned him a coveted Melbourne DLitt, and he made no excuse about his Methodist connections through producing the first annotated edition of Wesley’s Sermons, investigating Wesley’s London experiences and in J. Colwell, A Century in the Pacific (London: C.H. Kelly, 1914), and see his edited Illustrated History of Methodism. 13 J. Colwell, The Story of Australia: Past and Present, in Pen and Picture, 6 vols (Sydney: S.F. Clarke, 1925), vols 1–3 (by Colwell himself ), 4–6 (edited by him). 14 R. Howe, ed., The Master: The Life and Work of Edward H. Sugden (Melbourne: Uniting Academic Press, 2009), esp. I. Breward, ‘E.H. Sugden as Scholar and Preacher’, ch. 7; M.F. Sugden, Edward H. Sugden: A Pen Portrait of the First Master of Queen’s College, University of Melbourne (Melbourne: Lothian, 1941), p. 34 (quotation). 12

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general proclaiming Wesley’s Influence upon Australia.15 Where W.H. Fitchett was perhaps the greatest inspirer of an ‘old school’ Methodism, expressed in print with ‘conservative-Evangelical’ expositions, it was Sugden’s intellectual heritage that was to be the true watershed for Methodist scholarship. Three Major Streams The three towering public figures of British Methodism during the first half of the twentieth century – the Rev. Dr William Sangster (1900–60), the Rev. Dr Donald Lord Soper (1904–98) and the Rev. Dr Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) – championed the best features of their tradition: preaching, social activism and pastoral care.16 There were three Australian equivalents to these English ‘greats’, although not so much through any simple emulation as through the fact that the English trio ‘institutionalised’ the preacher-scholar, the apologist-activist and the pastor-psychologist-mystic as Methodist markers. The first is the Rev. Dr Sir C. Irving Benson (1897–1980), a Yorkshire lad who captured attention as a young Methodist Home Mission preacher in the Western District of Victoria and (as protégé of Fitchett) went on to be a very prominent churchman in Melbourne, eventually Superintendent Minister of Wesley Church at the CMM.17 Benson had a penchant for cultivating conservative political (even lingering imperial) connections to the Christian cause.18 The wider public came to respect Benson’s incredibly long-lasting run of genial, sermonic pieces in Melbourne’s Herald. A bibliophile and supporter of the magnificent Melbourne Public Library (only a city block away from his Mission), Benson kept up the tradition of publicising John Wesley’s importance

E.H. Sugden, trans., The Psalms of David (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1924); E.H. Sugden, Israel’s Debt to Egypt (London: Epworth Press, 1928); E.H. Sugden, Topographical Dictionary to the Works of Shakespeare and His Fellow Dramatists (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1925); E.H. Sugden, Wesley’s Standard Sermons (London: Epworth Press, 1921); E.H. Sugden, Wesley’s Influence upon Australia (Melbourne: Methodist Book Depot, 1927). 16 P. Sangster, Doctor Sangster (London: Epworth Press, 1962); W.E. Purcell, Portrait of Soper: A Biography of the Reverend the Lord Soper of Kingsway (Oxford: Mowbray, 1972); F.D. Travell, Doctor of Souls: Leslie D. Weatherhead, 1893–1976 (London: Lutterworth, 1999). 17 A.H. Wood, Rev. Sir Irving Benson Kt C.B.E., D.D.: Wesley Church, the Central Mission, 1926–1967 (Melbourne: n.p., 1967[?]); B.T. Brown, Men with a Mission: Sir Irving Benson and Arthur Preston at the Central Methodist Mission, Melbourne (Melbourne: Uniting Church Historical Society, 1989). 18 R. Howe, ‘Benson, Sir Clarence Irving Benson (1897–1980)’, ADB (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1979), vol. 13, pp. 170–71. 15

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for the nation.19 Meriting an honorary doctorate in Divinity from the University of Toronto (1939), Benson’s fame as a scholar had come early in his upgrading of preceding accounts of early Victorian Methodists (by Blamires, Smith and Colwell) in the edited volume A Century of Victorian Methodism (1935). Benson was quite able to write up most of the history himself, yet he also employed a small coterie of fellow researchers, including Thomas Rentoul and Harold Overend, and, with a Foreword by Sugden, the book had a wide Melbourne readership.20 With its motley chapters Benson’s book loses coherence, yet for future historical research surely its greatest worth lies in its appendices: first, the astonishingly detailed historical notes on all the Victorian circuits; second, the story of the Methodist Book Depot; and third, a basic history of Church governance arrangements. For the Australian counterpart to Lord Soper, I have chosen the Sydney-born Rev. Dr Sir Alan Walker (1911–2003), the most famous of Australia’s public evangelists, indeed on Stuart Piggin’s estimation the most important of Australian Christians so far – for being the one most listened to in his time.21 Walker was the author of almost 40 books and most of his publications were ‘ringing calls to missions’, promoting the need for adaptive evangelising in the changing world, quick responses to contemporary issues or popular representations of the Gospel, yet solid enough to be listed by Epworth Press alongside Sangster and Weatherhead.22 Walker’s intelligent observations about urban issues and the need to relate to the youth culture gave him international status as an academic theologian of mission, leading to a Lectureship in Evangelism at the prestigious Boston School of Theology (1957), the co-founding of the World Methodist Evangelism Institute within the Candler School of Theology, Emory University, and an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Bethany Theological Seminary (1982), apart from his Australian knighthood (1981) and the Prix de l’Institut de la Vie (French Academy of Sciences) for his work in social service (1983).23 C.I. Benson, John Wesley, The Founder of Methodism: How Methodism was Born (Melbourne: Literature and Publications Committee of the Methodist Church, [1935?]) and John Wesley and the Beginning of Methodism (Melbourne: Methodist Publishing House, [1965?]). 20 C.I. Benson, A Century of Victorian Methodism (Melbourne: Spectator, 1935). 21 S. Piggin, ‘Introduction’ to A. Walker, A Vision for the World: Alan Walker tells his Story (Melbourne: New Melbourne Press, 1999), p. 5. 22 A. Walker, A Ringing Call to Mission (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1966); A. Walker, Herald of Hope (Sydney: Albatross, 1994); A. Walker, The Many-Sided Cross of Jesus (London: Epworth Press, 1962). 23 Wright, Alan Walker: Conscience of the Nation (Adelaide: Openbook, 1997), esp. pp. 120–28; H. Henderson, Reach for the World: The Alan Walker Story (Nashville, TN: Discipleship Resources, 1981). 19

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After an unpromising start, a combined training in Theology at Leigh College and Arts at the University of Sydney, stints at Sydney suburban ministry at Croydon and Waitara created the opportunity for Walker to visit Britain as a 27-year-old minister looking for experience. It was there (in 1938) that he met all three of the English ‘greats’ and was most deeply affected by Soper’s work among the down-and-out, recalling his own youthful efforts to communicate with ‘hooligans’ in the streets of Newtown. He admittedly soon veered from radical socialism when encountering the ‘Christian social reformist’, pro-Labour Party and very ecumenist position of Archbishop William Temple (1881–1944). It was Soper’s parting challenge, however, that confirmed in Walker a lifelong active opposition to war: ‘Alan, you are going home. You must decide whether you are to be a Policeman [meaning the British], a Pirate [Hitler] or a Pacifist’ – pacifism presenting itself to Walker as ‘the greatest moral and ethical issue of the day’.24 When back home, the war was on and he was appointed to work in the Hunter Valley town of Cessnock (NSW). It was there, in a difficult context, that he undertook a postgraduate degree and produced his best scholarly research. Walker’s Masters thesis in Anthropology and Social Science was published only in report form as Coaltown: A Social Survey of Cessnock, N.S.W. by Melbourne University Press (albeit 141 pages long) because the detailed family case studies could not be made public, but its coverage of multiple factors (family life, economic activity, religious profiles, political allegiances, cultural pursuits, leisure) gave a portrait rarely matched in town studies, even now.25 Methodists had a tradition of writing about townships and their denomination’s impact on them, but Walker’s study was a breakthrough. Using questionnaire methods along with statistics, he was able to gauge a shift in attitudes towards religion in Cessnock from the time of the failure of a 1929 millenarian movement (to Walker, a case of overseas ‘charlatan’ revivalism), through the Depression and into wartime. Daring to evoke the social psychology of being ‘down in the dumps’ with 7.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. mining drudgery, Walker explored what the role of the churches could be in allaying ‘the deep pessimism which hangs like a thick fog over the whole town’.26 Perhaps he eschewed a class analysis, but he knew full well that, as microcosms of the whole town, church congregations were composed of those who worked down the mines and those who ran them (or played on the miners’ cravings) above ground. He went on to apply nationally and globally the challenge that he analysed academically in Cessnock. The times when the old call to fight the flesh A. Walker, There is Always God: An Australian Discovers the Religion of England (London: Epworth Press, 1939). 25 A. Walker, Coaltown: A Social Survey of Cessnock, N.S.W. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1945). 26 Walker, Coaltown, pp. 58–60, 69, 127–8. See also ch. 8 generally. 24

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and the devil no longer washed; with such socio-economic suffering ‘religion has come to appear irrelevant and unnecessary’, and unless Christians could offer the kind of ‘international idealism’ presented by the Communist world, they would only be able to offer a ‘private haven’ rather than ‘a new community’.27 It is well known that he lost support in the pews for preaching pacifism in wartime, but he regained numbers in due course; and his questionnaires revealed that the great majority of the new generation, the young people, saw the churches as ‘absolutely necessary’ for town life.28 This research gave him the confidence to combine public evangelism with a national (indeed even international) reconstructive vision. The place of scholarship in the working out of Walker’s ministry is obvious in his participation in the World Council of Churches (WCC), his accompanying of Dr Herbert Evatt as Advisor to the Australian delegation to the United Nations and his teaching of missiology in North American universities. It is also reflected in various of his remarkable stances – adjudging Billy Graham a ‘shallow’ theologian beside the consistent pacifist Martin Luther King Jr., stubbornly opposing nuclear proliferation and the Vietnam War, and eventually spurning Gough Whitlam’s Labor Government for abetting post-Christian libertarianism out of kilter with his preferred ‘national goals’.29 In contrast, in the figure chosen as the ‘Australian-based counterpart’ to Leslie Weatherhead, we are dealing quite definitely with an academic type, though one transforming into a mystic as his unusual personal explorations proceeded. Dr Raynor Carey Johnson (1901–87), whose personal friendship with Weatherhead began in 1928, was the third Master of Queen’s College (1934–64). The first great lay scholar-theologian of Australian Methodist history, he was acclaimed by Geoffrey Blainey as an intellectual ‘possibly without peer in this country’.30 Another Yorkshire lad, Johnson obtained his undergraduate degree at Balliol College, Oxford, and his doctorate from the University of London, held prestigious posts as a physicist and had published three versions of his textbook approach to spectroscopy and quantum mechanics by the end of the 1940s.31 His foray into theological matters derived from long-standing interactions with Weatherhead, who frequently stayed with him in London when visiting from Leeds in the early 1930s, and from their recharged friendship when the great Walker, Coaltown, pp. 73, 88 and ch. 5 generally. Walker, Coaltown, pp. 61–6, 73 and ch. 4 generally. 29 Wright, Alan Walker, esp. pp. 74–5, 187, 202–30; and see Walker et al., A Vision for Australia, Key Issues 1–2 (Sydney: Albatross, 1987). On Walker’s post-war pacifist activism, see below n. 46. 30 Cover accolade, A. Moore, Raynor Johnson: A Biographical Memoir (Melbourne: Lakeland, 2007). 31 R. Johnson, Spectra (London: Methuen, 1928), Atomic Spectra (Methuen: London, 1946) and An Introduction to Molecular Spectra (London: Methuen, 1949). 27 28

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preacher-psychologist stayed at Queen’s during his three-month 1951 tour. Methodists, however, were not really ready for Johnson. Even Weatherhead became unnerved when Johnson expressed the view that most of traditional Christian theology had become passé and needed replacement.32 Johnson’s thesis was that reality could not be reduced to matter; there were patterns lying behind physicality of a more-than-material nature, from the very spectra he so skilfully mathematised to the imponderableness that no two snowflakes have ever been found to be exactly alike. From Kirlian photography that showed the energy fields of limbs still existing after amputation through to the parapsychological phenomena of telepathy and synchronicity, Johnson was bent on integrating the spiritual quest to the very frontiers of science. From the primordial flash of energy, along the slow evolutionary path to life and on to the electric age and our late-coming awareness of the unconscious mind (via Freud and Jung), perhaps of super-consciousness, Johnson saw the universe as myriad refractions of the one divine Light, in a virtual theory of everything. Preaching about Theosophy in Queen’s College Chapel would only bring adverse criticism. When alleged to be not the Methodist he always claimed to be, he chose retirement in 1964. Reaching the Delta For most in the next half-generation of better-known Methodist scholars, significantly, a first-rate education no longer depended on old imperial connections. North America and even the European continent beckoned. The balance sheet shifted, even though the British connection held on; and with the strengthening of Australian theological tertiary possibilities, the diversity of Methodist scholarly enterprises increased. Here I will map out some of the broader academic currents of Methodist scholarship and document their impact on national and international life. Theologians In Australian Methodism high-level theologising was fitful but not uninteresting. Queen’s first theological professor, Edward Albiston (1866–1961), was obviously a brilliant and inspiring teacher. Perhaps the Great War seemed to turn him into a kind of ‘Methodist Quaker’, restraining his writer’s hand, but he doughtily defended a critical approach to Bible exposition (memorably foiling

32 See esp. A.K. Weatherhead, Leslie Weatherhead: A Personal Portrait (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1975), pp. 178–9.

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arch-conservative W.H. Fitchett, who opposed using Peake’s Commentary).33 At Queensland’s King’s College the first Master, Oxford-trained the Rev. M. Scott Fletcher (1868–1947), son of Joseph Fletcher of Sydney’s Stanmore Institution, produced his remarkable Psychology of the New Testament (1912), positing inter alia that there were no better means of keeping one’s sanity than by following Christ’s teachings. Fletcher went on to help an Australian readership to understand apocalypticism in its ancient context and was active as a teacher about intellectual history for the Workers’ Educational Association.34 Easily the most influential Methodist theological educator mid-century was Bendigo-born the Rev. Prof Calvert Barber (1893–1967), who succeeded Albiston at Queen’s. Wise and long-serving (1937–59), and nurturing Colin Williams and Norman Young who followed him, Barber addressed the multireligious context and the new intellectual and social challenges of post-war Australia. He completed his London doctorate on beliefs about sin in the great religions, and his wartime stretcher-bearing experience made him terribly aware of evil. Even though he began with an interest in natural theology he later faced Barthian suspicions towards all kinds of naturalism in full swing. Still, benefiting from attending the 1936 World Congress of Faiths (London), Barber bequeathed one of the earliest Australian exercises in Comparative Religion and was in a good position to undertake some of the most penetrating criticisms of evolutionary social theory (and its racist implications) in his lecturing.35 In Barber’s wake, Gippsland-raised the Rev. Prof. Colin Williams (1921– 2000) gained quick renown for filling an obvious gap with his book on the relevance of Wesley for contemporary times. While his Queensland counterpart Ian Grimmett had been more interested in influences upon Wesley historically, Williams asked what claims the Methodist founder had to address new challenges of the times.36 His very intelligent attention to secularisation (as a Christian humanist) and to key social issues (such as racial and religious conflict) made him a good choice for the Deanship of America’s great Divinity School at Yale (1969–79). Concentrating here on his role in Australia, Williams’ 33 I. Breward, A History of the Churches in Australasia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 120–21. 34 M.S. Fletcher, The Psychology of the New Testament (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1912); M.S. Fletcher, Hellenism and Judaism as Reflected in the Apocalyptic Movement during the Maccabaean Period (Sydney: Penfold, 1926). 35 C. Barber, ‘The Concept of Sin in the Great Religions of the East’ (PhD diss., University of London, London, 1938); B. Barber, ‘Calvert Barber (1893–1967): Methodist, Apologist, Ecumenist’, UCA Historical Society 9, no. 2 (2002): 4–7. 36 I. Grimmett, ‘The Influence of English Thought of the Eighteenth Century on the Life and Teachings of the Reverend John Wesley, etc.’ (MA diss., University of Queensland, Brisbane, 1947); C. Williams, John Wesley’s Theology Today: A Study of the Wesleyan Tradition in the Light of Current Theological Dialogue (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1961).

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lecturing adapted Barber’s interests in the direction of modern thought from the nineteenth century, improving on it as a proud product of the ‘Melbourne history school’. But he focused on the pressing question of authority and the competing claims of revelation, reason (and science) and recorded history, defending the Lordship of Christ in bringing finality to cosmic meaning. A worthy choice to be Australia’s Methodist delegate at the Second Assembly of the WCC in Evanston, Illinois (1954), he served again in New Delhi (1961) and Uppsala (1969).37 Williams’ one-time colleague at Queen’s, Cambridge-trained the Rev. Prof. Eric Osborn (1922–2007), whose pomposity irksomely challenged Williams’ own formidable persona, achieved renown for his 1957 study of Clement of Alexandria, who was brilliantly engaged philosophically in the polyphony of Hellenistic religious life. Osborn emerged as the veritable Southern Hemispheric doyen of Patristic Studies during the 1970s, and even kept slightly ahead of his teacher (later Sir) Henry Chadwick’s output, pounding out five other leading books on the pre-Nicene Fathers and attaining an Emeritus Professorship at La Trobe University.38 While a strong ecumenist, Osborn never forgot Methodist interests,39 but his attainments and output were unprecedented. The arrival of Robert Maddox (1931–82) as Principal of Leigh College presented a very special phenomenon outside the prestigious Victorian sphere. Maddox emerged as one of Australia’s finest New Testament scholars, considering The Purpose of Luke-Acts (1982) and his stint as a Humboldt Fellow working with Ferdinand Hahn in Munich.40 Norman Young (1930– ), the first Australian Methodist to pen a positive work about a German higher-critical theologian (Rudolf Bultmann), was appointed foundation Professor in Melbourne’s United Faculty of Theology (1969) and held various Visiting Professorships (including Yale, Drew, Princeton and Cambridge, UK). He was Methodism’s theological frontrunner For this and more I rely on B. Howe, ‘Colin Williams’, unpublished paper delivered to the [second] workshop on ‘Methodism in Australia’, Queen’s College, University of Melbourne, 9 Dec. 2011. 38 E. Osborn, The Philosophy of Clement of Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957); E. Osborn, Justin Martyr (Tübingen: J.C. Mohr, 1973); E. Osborn, Ethical Patterns in Early Christian Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976); E. Osborn, The Beginning of Christian Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 39 E. Osborn, Church Union Now (Melbourne: Methodist Publishing House, 1964); E. Osborn, The Faith of the Gospel (Melbourne: Methodist Publishing House, 1964); E. Osborn, Word and History: Three Lectures in New Testament Themes, Lectures in Biblical Studies 1 (Perth: University of Western Australia, 1967). 40 R. Maddox, The Purpose of Luke-Acts (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982); see also his Witnesses to the Ends of the Earth: The Pattern of Mission in the Book of Acts (Melbourne: Joint Board of Christian Education, 1984). 37

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in negotiations towards the Uniting Church, and was for 20 years a member of the World Methodist/Roman Catholic International Commission.41 Gordon Dicker (1930– ) being the first Methodist missionary to work with a non-Methodist church (in West Timor), offered advanced thinking about multicultural ministry and comparative Protestant theology for the emergent Uniting Church (heading Sydney’s United Theological College, 1989–96).42 The theological leadership in Queensland had a less adventurous soul in Ian Grimmett (1915–99), a bastion of the older Methodist orientation.43 The Indian-born son of a Conference President, Ian Weeks (1938– ), who became Head of Religious Studies at Deakin University, used his command of both Plato and Continental existentialism to support Methodist theological thinkers, including Bruce Barber (1937– ), Calvert’s son, who became Dean of the United Faculty of Theology, Melbourne.44 Exploring the Natural Sciences It is often forgotten that the two men touted overseas as Australia’s greatest religious thinkers were not clergy, but natural scientists: Sir John Eccles, theorist of the synapse, and Melbourne-born agricultural scientist Charles Birch (1918– 2009), Challis Professor of Biology at the University of Sydney (1963–83), who also was both ecumenical Methodist and process theologian. Birch did not leave his Melbournian Anglican conservatism behind until his doctoral years in Adelaide, where he became a progressive Methodist lay preacher (1942) and an evolutionary biologist with a deep commitment to the social responsibility of 41 See esp. N. Young, History and Existential Theology: The Role of History in the Thought of Rudolf Bultmann (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969); N. Young, Introducing the Basis of Union (Melbourne: Joint Board of Christian Education, 1971); N. Young, Creator, Creation, and Faith (London: Collins, 1976). For a Festschrift on Young, see S. Winter, ed., Immense, Unfathomed, Unconfined (Melbourne: Uniting Academic Press, 2013). 42 G. Dicker, Children of Timor (Sydney: Sydney Methodist Church of Australasia, 1960); G. Dicker, ‘The Concept of “Simul Justus et Peccator” in Relation to the Thought of Luther, Wesley, and Bonhoeffer, and its Significance for a Doctrine of the Christian Life’ (PhD diss., Union Theological Seminary, New York, 1969); G. Dicker, Faith with Understanding (Sydney: Unichurch, 1981). 43 For indications, see I. Grimmett, ‘A Trinitarian Approach to the Doctrine of the Kingdom of God’ (PhD diss., Union Theological Seminary, New York, 1957); and I. Grimmett, ‘William Moore, 1821–1893’, ADB (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1974), vol. 5, p. 280; see also Ministerial Retirements and Memorials, Uniting Church Qld Synod, 1999, vol. 1, addendum. 44 For example, I. Weeks, with D. Reid, eds, A Thoughtful Life: Essays in Philosophical Theology, H. Wardlaw Festschrift (Adelaide: AFT, 2006), esp. ch. 14; see also B.L. Barber and D. Neville, eds, Theodicy and Eschatology (Adelaide: AFT, 2005).

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science. Becoming an exponent of process philosophy (as ‘fathered’ by Alfred North Whitehead) and the process theology of American Methodist John B. Cobb Jr., Birch eventually pitched himself against Methodist orthodoxy and an interventionist God, often acerbically. As Vice-Master of Wesley College at the University of Sydney, and also active in the Methodist-founded Wayside Chapel, he claimed new scientific discoveries necessitated a ‘postmodern’ theological outlook, with the way open to engage in other religions with environmental sensitivities and compassion for all living things.45 Meeting the Challenge of the Changing Socio-political Environment We have already seen how the instilling of Methodist social conscience brushed off on scholars’ public endeavours. Opposition to war in this later period expectedly shows up, for example, with an important cluster of Methodists opposing Australian involvement in the Vietnam War. The tempestuous ‘peace prophet’, the Rev. Frank Hartley (1909–71) was forever spotting anti-democratic ‘shadowy forces’ of Western militarism behind Cold War rhetoric against Communism.46 But we should also recognise those exceptional analysts who addressed whole systems of political economy, making their mark internationally. Bathurst-raised Sydney-cum-London-educated Graham Maddox (1940– ), Professor of Politics at the University of New England, pursued a wide-ranging agenda, from exploring how religious values have shaped modern democracy, the role of constitutionalism in limiting government – separating it from wider society and requiring government’s protective role – to analysing the Methodist factor in political history.47 Historians Historians of Methodism were, of course, prominent in the post-war period, and a clear transition into critical scholarship occurred, with pietistic, heavily confessional and anecdotalist approaches dissipating. Of all the researchers 45 C. Birch, On Purpose (Sydney: UNSW Press, 1990); C. Birch, Regaining Compassion for Humanity and Nature (Sydney: UNSW Press, 1993). 46 R. McArthur, ‘“The Gospel has always been Disturbing”: The Centrality of “God’s Will” to the Cold War Political Activism of the Reverends Frank Hartley and Alfred Dickie’, Journal of Religious History 34, no. 3 (2010): 354–72, esp. p. 364. 47 G. Maddox, Religion and the Rise of Democracy (London: Routledge, 1996); G. Maddox, ‘The Ancient Foundations of Modern Democracy’, in Religion in the Ancient World: New Themes and Approaches, ed. M. Dillon (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1996), pp. 299–310; G. Maddox, ‘Methodism and Politics’, Introduction to Political Writings of John Wesley (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1998), pp. 1–39; G. Maddox, ‘John Wesley and the Spirit of Capitalism’, Australian Religion Studies Review 11, no. 2 (1998): 85–97.

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into Methodist history, the Rev. Dr Arnold D. Hunt (1921–2001) was the most prolific, contributing a great deal about (albeit mainly South Australian) Methodists and other worthies to the ADB and penning a monumental history of the Methodists for his state.48 In the east, the Rev. Dr Eric G. Clancy (1909–2002) was the acclaimed paragon of Methodist historians, yet although industrious in archival work and in churning out publications on New South Wales Methodism (both the general story and particular congregational histories), one can see how his writing became less in-house and more distantiated with the benefit of his local preacher collaborator Don Wright.49 The Udy brothers taken together, James (1920–2003) with the Revs Gloster (1918–2003) and Richard (1923– ), epitomise some of the commonalities and differences of thinkers focused on the different potentialities of Methodist churchmanship. They all had experience ministering in the country; they were in the forces during the Second World War, giving service to those armed against tyrannies but remaining at heart pacifists; and they represent the Celto-Cornish contribution to Methodism, with a strong desire to hold on to a precious heritage.50 They all exercised themselves with Methodist history, writing congregational histories; James tackling the important National Memorial Methodist Church in Canberra, while Gloster wrote a detailed account of the Methodist class meetings (the result of a Boston and Harvard education), as well as a history of Methodism in Parramatta that drew heavily on primary sources.51 Gloster’s interests focused more on the vitality of spiritual life in small groups; he founded the Australian Upper Room spirituality groups, was among those who took up Glenn Clark’s Camps Farthest Out (becoming their national 48 A. Jackson, ‘Arnold D. Hunt: An Appreciation’, in Heritage of Faith: Essays in Honour of Arnold D. Hunt, ed. G.W. Potter et al. (Morphett Vale: Flinders Press/G.W. Potter, 1996), pp. 2–6; A.D. Hunt, This Side of Heaven: A History of Methodism in South Australia (Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1985), esp. chs 3, 6–7. See also D. Hilliard, ‘Looking Again at the History of South Australian Methodism: Twenty-Five Years after Arnold Hunt’s This Side of Heaven’, Aldersgate Papers 10 (2012): 71–83. 49 E. Clancy (with K. Whitby), Great the Heritage: Guide to Methodist Records in New South Wales, 1815–1917, 2 vols (Sydney: Church Records and Historical Society, 1993– 95); D. Wright and E.G. Clancy, The Methodists: A History of Methodism in New South Wales (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993). 50 J. and G. Udy, Together We Serve (Sydney: Australian Upper Room, 1994); J.S. Udy, One More Challenge (Sydney: Yaraandoo Life Centre, 2002); J.S. Udy, Pride of Lions: The Story of a Cornish Family called Udy (Sydney: Yaraandoo Life Centre, 1995). 51 J.S. Udy, Living Stones: The Story of the Methodist Church in Canberra (Sydney: Sacha Books, 1974); G.S. Udy, Spark of Grace: The Story of the Methodist Church in Parramatta and the Surrounding Region (Parramatta: Epworth Press, 1977); G.S. Udy, Key to Change (Sydney: Donald Pettigrew, 1962), E. and R. Udy, Sea, Sand and Sunburnt Country: The Story of an Australian Pioneering Family, John and Myra White (Sydney: Centatime, 2007).

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leader) and was the great inspirer of the Rev. John Mallison (1929–2012), who in many writings championed the development of ‘Christian cells’ in local congregations.52 Richard, by comparison, came to concentrate on Aboriginal issues;53 while James, with his Boston degree in Protestant mission history, was the first Methodist scholar to look like a versatile church historian. Apart from his call with Clancy for those of Methodist background ‘to dig’ and not just let their tradition ‘die’ in a Presbyterian-Congregational-Methodist amalgam, James Udy should be known for his Eusebius-like manner of collecting every official statement towards union of the Uniting Church in existence.54 Victoria at last got an energetic historian of its rich Methodist history in Renate Howe (1939– ) who, with skills deriving from the famous Max Crawford ‘School of History’ at Melbourne University, has raised the level of critical acumen still further (earning an Associate Professorship at Deakin University). She has shown how Methodists were far from out of touch with those facing the dislocating forces in Australia’s rapid urbanisation (from the 1880s).55 A small host of congregational, regional, school and narrowly institutional histories from this post-war and largely pre-UCA generation also need a reckoning. However, detailed attention would unfortunately delay our journey through ever-spreading waters. Enriching the Missiological Dimension The Methodist scholarship connected with mission that came close to the beginning of our account should now be allowed to draw it towards a close. Writing on both Pacific Island and Aboriginal affairs since the Second World War has been immense and complex. The biggest name was the Rev. Dr A. Harold Wood (1896–1989), longest-serving headmaster at Melbourne’s MLC (1939–66), who wrote a massive, five-volume work on Australian Methodist overseas mission work in the South Seas, North India and the Southern Highlands of Papua (New Guinea). The first two studies document the immense importance of Wesleyan Methodism behind both ecclesial and political 52 Udy, Key to Change, chs 2–6; and his ‘Foreword’ to J. Mallison, How to Commence Christian Cells in the Local Church (Sydney: John Mallison, 1964). 53 Helping B. Clarke and others with the charter Free to Decide (Darwin: United Church in North Australia, 1974). 54 J.S. Udy and E.G. Clancy, eds, ‘Dig or Die: Reunion within Australian Methodism’, Church Heritage 12, no. 3 (2002): 156–71. 55 R. Howe, ‘The Wesleyan Church in Victoria, 1855–1901: Its Ministry and Membership’ (MA thesis, University of Melbourne, 1965); R. Howe and S. Swain, The Challenge of the City: The Centenary History of Wesley Central Mission, 1883–1993 (Melbourne: Hyland House, 1993).

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arrangements in contemporary Tonga and Fiji.56 In the last volume, Wood’s somewhat dry concern for institutional details was alleviated by the collaborative input of Margaret Reeson (1938– ), who had had hands-on experience of newly contacted highlanders caught ‘between two worlds’, and whose flair for good style took her on to write about the trials of women in New Guinea during the last war, and more recently about George Brown’s mission work.57 Alan R. Tippett (1911–88) was of immense importance in global missions scholarship. Of Cornish descent, raised in Geelong and trained theologically in Queen’s College, Tippett was one of the greats in the emerging discipline of Missiology, indeed founder of the crucial journal of that name (1973– ). With over 20 years’ ministering and researching in Fiji, Tippett managed to secure an Anthropology degree at the American University (Washington, DC), and by the time he received his doctorate from the University of Oregon (1964), he was associate to church growth exponent Donald McGavran and a leading figure at the School of World Mission, Fuller Theological Seminary (California).58 Tippett’s study Solomon Islands Christianity (1967) set the model for understanding the stresses and strains of ‘indigenising’ the Church and he was first to popularise the category ‘people movements’ as collective local energies to create church-centred communities.59 Along with practical work among indigenous Australians, Methodist research efforts into traditional life and the development of a contextual missiology can hardly be neglected here. Co-founder of the famous Yirrkala Mission Station the Rev. Wilbur S. Chaseling (1910–89) penned the pioneering monograph on the Yolngu, Arnhem Land; Anne E. Wells (1906–98), wife of a great Methodist activist for Aboriginal rights, Rev. Edgar A. Wells (1908–95), was early in writing sensitively about Yolngu traditional and Christian Aboriginal

A.H. Wood, A History and Geography of Tonga (Nuku’alofa: Government Printer, 1932); A.H. Wood, Overseas Missions of the Methodist Church, 5 vols (Melbourne: Aldersgate Press, 1973–87); I. Breward, Dr. Harold Wood: A Notable Methodist (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2013). 57 Wood and Reeson, Overseas Missions, vol. 5 (1987). 58 C.H. Kraft and D.D. Priest, ‘Who was this Man? A Tribute to Alan R. Tippett’, Missiology 17 (1989): 269–81; A.R. Tippett, Introduction to Missiology (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1987). 59 A.R. Tippett, Solomon Island Christianity (London: Lutterworth, 1967); A.R. Tippett, People Movements in Southern Polynesia: Studies in the Dynamics of Church-planting and Growth in Tahiti, Tonga, and Samoa (Chicago: Moody, 1971); G. Trompf, Religions of Melanesia: A Bibliographic Survey (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006), pp. xiv, 22, 26; L.W. Caldwell, ‘Selected Missiological Works of Alan R. Tippett’, Missiology 17 (1989): 283–92. 56

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art; while Methodist missionary linguist Beulah Lowe (1927–2005) explored and defended the Yolngu vernacular.60 Overall Contribution The common misconception that Methodism and scholarship are mutually contradictory cannot be wished away, admittedly, for there are still ministers around who would say that the Bible is the only text necessary to read for preaching; but things have come a long way. One could not do justice in a single chapter to the number of scholars who began as Methodists, but mainly worked on with the Uniting Church or in other ecclesial connections. If history involves a recovering of the great flow of collective activities from the past, surely Methodist scholars have been among the great makers of Australia’s intellectual heritage.

60 W.S. Chaseling, Yulengor: Nomads of Arnhem Land (London: Epworth Press, 1957); A.E. Wells, This Their Dreaming: Legends of the Panels of Aboriginal Art in the Yirrkala Church (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1971); B. Wearing, Beulah Lowe and the Yolngu People (Glenning Valley, NSW: Wearing with Coast Biographers, 2007), pp. 20–32.

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Chapter 16

Australian Methodist Historiography Hilary M. Carey

This chapter considers the development of opposing strands in the historical vision of Methodist people in the southern world from the Providential narratives of founders and colonisers to the commemorative history writing that followed and the slow decline in confidence and self-identity which continues to the present day. Reflexive historical writing about Methodism in Australia began in the 1950s and was encouraged by the establishment of historical societies and journals as well as the Association for the Journal of Religious History. Changes in Methodist historical practice over the course of Australian history reflect the transformation of the Methodist movement from its British origins until the inauguration of the Uniting Church. Scholarly writing about the Methodist past in Australia has generally been less active than elsewhere in the Methodist world, as can be seen from the substantial bibliography accumulated over the three years of this project, though there has been no general lack of individual studies of particular people, places and themes. This is surprising since history writing was part of the selffashioning of the Methodist movement from the very beginning. The journals and diaries of Methodist founding father John Wesley set the standard for the quasi-obsessive record-keeping and self-recording which was the mark of the committed Methodist and these have created extraordinarily abundant materials for the generation of Methodist histories in all parts of the world to which Methodists have made their way. As Edward Sugden (1854–1935), Master of Queen’s College in Melbourne, observed in 1929, Wesley himself seems to have been uninterested in the settlement of Australia and made no reference to it in any of his writings.1 His nearest approach to the southern continent was on Friday 17 November 1773, when he recorded in his journal that he had spent some time reading ‘a Volume of Captain Cook’s Voyages’, which was presumably the 1773 edition by John Hawkesworth.2 Wesley was singularly unimpressed and appears to have read no further than Cook’s account of Tahiti: 1 E. Sugden, ‘Wesley’s Influence Upon Australia’, in Wesley as a World Force, ed. John Telford (London: Epworth Press, 1929), p. 89. 2 J. Hawkesworth, ed., An Account of the Voyages Undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, 3 vols (London: Strachan and

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Methodism in Australia I sat down to read it with huge expectation. But how was I disappointed! I observed … Things absolutely incredible: ‘A nation without any curiosity;’ and, what is stranger still, (I fear, related with no good design,) ‘without any sense of shame! Men and women coupling together in the face of the sun, and in the sight of scores of people! Men whose skin, cheeks, and lips are white as milk.’ Hume and Voltaire might believe this – but I cannot.3

Wesley goes on to equate such outrageous ideas with the fabulous adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Creating a believable context for the Methodist missionary occupation of Cook’s southern world was the work of the generation which came after the death of Wesley and other Methodist founders. For outsiders, Methodists were seen as a nuisance and source of trouble and when their affairs were noted by the colonial press it was, initially, mostly in negative terms. The Sydney Gazette reported on 9 October 1808 that a factory owner in the west of England had offered his workers their wages for attending church. On 24 May 1817, the same newspaper reported on trouble caused by Methodists in the slave-owning plantation colony of Barbados where planters had sent petitions to the Governor asking him to remove ‘sectaries particularly the Methodists’ and replace them with ‘learned teachers of the established Church’.4 The rebel tag was also associated with Methodist agitation in southern Africa and in Upper Canada where Methodists were allegedly implicated in the Upper Canada Rebellions of 1837 and 1838 where settler grievances included the allocation of the clergy reserves exclusively for the use of the minority Church of England and Church of Scotland. Two strands of Methodist historiography are represented in the Australian Methodist heritage. The dominant, Wesleyan Methodist, tradition was politically and theologically conservative and placed a premium on the British roots of the movement as well as its origins in a breakaway from the established Church of England. In the astute analysis of Elie Halévy: ‘Methodism is the High Church of Nonconformity. It is a Nonconformist sect established by Anglican clergymen who wished to remain faithful to the Church of England.’5 Only after Wesley’s death did the democratic and, in the case of the settler colonies, colonising tendencies in Methodism come to the fore. Wesleyan Methodists in Australia were generally keen to demonstrate their British patriotism and trace their connection to Wesley himself, despite, as noted above, his regrettable Cadell, 1773), vol. 3, p. 46. Cook observed: ‘our friends in the South Seas had not even the idea of indecency, with respect to any object or any action’. 3 W.R. Ward and R.P. Heitzenrater, eds, The Works of John Wesley, vol. 22: Journal and Diaries V (1765–75) (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1993), pp. 394–5. 4 Sydney Gazette, 24 May 1817. 5 E. Halévy, The Birth of Methodism in England, trans. Bernard Semmel (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1971), p. 51.

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failure to have noticed the existence of the southern continent. The second, more politically liberal tradition was expressed most fully by the smaller Methodist societies (Primitive Methodist, Methodist New Connexion, Bible Christian and the United Methodist Free Church). This stressed the original social message of the Methodist movement, its adaptability in moulding itself to new spheres of activity beyond Britain. The latter tradition has gradually eclipsed the former, especially in more recent reflexive history writing on themes such as Methodism and the labour movement, missions to the Aborigines and social activism. In relation to Methodism in the United States, Russell Richey has argued that history has acted as a bearer and creator of denominational identity in American Methodism. Its central narrative supported the claim that Methodism was a ‘child of Providence’ which was created by God specifically to play a role in American society.6 To some extent, similar core beliefs are reflected in Methodist writing in Australia about the Providential role played by Methodism in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. However, there are important distinctions to be made, notably the absence of the idea of a distinctive Australian Methodism with an independent role from the British motherland. Instead, most southern Methodist histories stress the links which bound them not only to John Wesley, who functioned as an avatar for all Methodist founding fathers, but to the British crown and homeland as well. Over the last two hundred years, Australian Methodist historical writing has progressed through a number of stages which have reflected changes in the political and cultural landscape in Australia, as well as the slow emergence of academic, scholarly investment and interest in the Methodist movement. History writing began with the published and unpublished journals and chronicles of Methodist pioneers, many of them written with a conscious eye to their role in future history writing. As in the United States, the historical writing of colonial missionaries was buoyed up by Providentialism: the view that the arrival and settlement of Australia by Christians was explicitly intended by God. The senior Anglican chaplain Samuel Marsden (1765–1838) encapsulated this very clearly in a letter dated 28 September 1818, written during one of his seven missionary voyages to New Zealand: ‘The British settlement in New Holland is a very wonderful circumstance in these eventful times. The islands of the Great Pacific Ocean could not have been settled, unless there had been a settlement formed previously in this country … How mysterious and wonderful are all the ways of God. The exiles of the British nation are sent before to prepare the way

6 R.E. Richey, ‘History as a Bearer of Denominational Identity: Methodism as a Case Study’, in Beyond Establishment: Protestant Identity in a Post-Protestant Age, ed. J.W. Carroll and W.C. Roof (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), pp. 270–95, at p. 270.

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of the Lord!’7 This passage so impressed the Methodist historian James Colwell that he quoted it at the beginning of his Illustrated History of Methodism, published in 1904.8 Providentialism as an organising idea does not entirely disappear but it was gradually replaced by less spiritually ambitious commemorative histories. Commemorative histories were written to record and celebrate the achievements of Methodist founders and pioneers. It dominated history writing throughout the heyday of Australian Methodism until the First World War. After this it was gradually replaced in style and spirit with what might be called ‘heritage history’. Heritage history emerged in the post-war era when Methodism began to decline as a major force in Protestant Australia everywhere but in South Australia. Less overtly confident than earlier forms of Methodist commemoration, it was suffused with nostalgia and, sometimes, a sense of decline. Finally, beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, comes scholarly, reflexive history. The rest of this chapter will review Australian Methodist history writing in the light of these stages of development, beginning with the earliest records created by the movement. Providential History, 1788–1854 Methodist societies, like other missionary organisations, were assiduous in recording their expansion in the settler colonies. Missionaries sent out by the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society and the other Methodist bodies in Britain were under instructions to keep journals and reflect on their progress. These were then returned to the Home society in England for reading and comment and sometimes also for publication. All colonial Methodists maintained a range of official records including minutes of District and Quarterly Meetings, correspondence and letter books, Missionary notices and reports, and, occasionally, published reports in Methodist periodicals such as The Methodist and the Christian Advocate. There were also one and sometimes two connexional magazines or weekly newspapers in each colony. Other important records are the journals, sometimes in many volumes, of the work of early ministers, including Joseph Orton, George Erskine, William Schofield, William Horton and Joseph Oram, all of which were drawn on by Colwell and subsequent Methodist historians. There were also visitors from the British Conference, notably the Rev. Robert Young (1796–1865) who was delegated by the British Conference in 1854 to report on planning for the establishment of a 7 Extract from a Letter from the Rev. S. Marsden, 28 Sept. 1818, Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle 28 (1820), p. 533. 8 J. Colwell, The Illustrated History of Methodism. Australia: 1812 to 1855. New South Wales and Polynesia: 1856 to1902 (Sydney: William Brooks, 1904), flyleaf.

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Table 16.1 A statistical view of the mission churches in the Southern World, to be embraced in the Australasian Connexion, 1854 Australia and New Zealand Friendly Isles Feejee (Fiji) Total Van Diemen’s (Tonga) Land (Tasmania) Missionaries

66

20

11

22

108 [119]*

Circuits

33

17

5

4

59

Chapels

142

104

107

61

414

Other preaching places

145

143

13

31

337 [332]

Catechists

3

5

3

50

66 [61]

Day school teachers

44

12

724

368

1,148

Sunday School teachers

887

424

Local preachers

303

322

527

56

1,208

Church members

5,322

4,093

6,834

2,707

18,956

On trial

231

389

59

34

1,063 [713]

Sabbath schools

116

188

304

Sabbath scholars

7,891

5,730

13,621

Day schools

2,288

2,618

7,279

3,916

16,101

Members of the congregations

34,100

10,864

9,800

5,760

60,524

1311

*Totals as in the original with corrected figure in brackets Source: Young, Southern World, p. 455

single Australasian Conference for Australia, Van Diemen’s Land, New Zealand, the Friendly Islands (Tonga) and Fiji, which was never practical.9 Young published the journal of his long voyage under the title The Southern World, giving some 9 D. Wright and E.G. Clancy, The Methodists: A History of Methodism in New South Wales (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993), p. 31.

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idea of the importance of the Australian mission to the British Conference at this stage in global Methodist expansion.10 A statistical note summarised the overall standing of Methodism in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific at the time of Young’s voyage (see Table 16.1). It was still a small church, with 60,534 members of congregations, of which by far the largest number (34,100) were in Australia.11 The ‘Southern World’, however enthusiastically endorsed by Young as a sphere for future expansion, had palpably failed to match the explosive growth of Methodism in the Atlantic World in the same era. Following Young’s recommendation, the first Australasian Methodist Conference was held in 1855 under the presidency of W.B. Boyce (1804–89). At the time of Young’s visit, there were 60,524 Wesleyan Methodists in the ‘Southern World’; by the time of Australian Federation the 1901 census recorded over 504,000 self-described Methodists, in addition to those living in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. Commemorative and Heritage History, 1854–1950 The consolidation of Australian (and New Zealand) Methodism happened after 1854 and with it came the impulse to commemorative history-making to record and celebrate this achievement. With the creation of the independent Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Conference, the Minutes of the Annual Conference and its Missionary Society form an important, continuous record of the work of the largest Methodist organisation in the southern world.12 It was not until 1874, however, that Conferences were established in NSW (including Queensland), Victoria (including Tasmania) and South Australia (including Western Australia), and these became the real vehicles for building a denominational identity. In addition to history writing in magazines and newspapers, book-length histories were undertaken to record the work of missions and Methodist societies. Most were frankly promotional and some were intended to inspire candidates to the ministry or for the mission fields.13 Others, such as Christian Work in Australasia by James Bickford (1816–95), 10 R. Young, The Southern World: Journal of a Deputation from the Wesleyan Conference to Australia and Polynesia: Including Notices of a Visit to the Gold Fields (London: Hamilton, Adams, 1854). 11 Young, Southern World, p. 455. 12 First Report of the Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (Sydney: Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (AWMS), 1855); Minutes of the Conference of the Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church (Melbourne: AWMS, 1855–73). 13 See, for example, J. Watsford, Glorious Gospel Triumphs: As Seen in My Life and Work in Fiji and Australasia [with Introductory Sketch by W.H. Fitchett] (London: Charles H. Kelly, 1900).

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may have appealed to Christian emigrants considering settling in the burgeoning Australian colonies.14 Major histories, which covered the work of a whole colony or Methodist District, were produced under the direction of their respective District Conference. These generally followed the sequence of establishment of Annual Conferences in the colonies after the first Australasian Conference was held in Sydney in 1855.15 The earliest historical efforts came from the Victoria and Tasmania Conference, which in 1881 gave the Rev. W.L. Blamires and the Rev. John B. Smith responsibility to compile a ‘Jubilee History’.16 The origins of Methodism in Victoria were dated back to 1835, the year of the first Methodist religious service which was conducted by Henry Reed, a ‘zealous Local Preacher’ from Tasmania for a congregation which included William Buckley, the celebrated escaped convict. The project included extensive interviews with members of the church and consultation of family papers, including the manuscript journals of the Rev. Joseph Orton. Nonetheless, this was not an official history, and the authors called for their work to be seen as their personal responsibility: The Christian enterprise of the Wesleyan Church in this land deserves a permanent and appropriate record, whether this volume be an adequate representation of it or not. The sons and daughters of Methodism would not willingly allow the work of God in the rise and progress of their Church to pass from their memory, and go into oblivion. This book is an attempt to embalm and preserve some of the vital facts and salient features of its story.17

Writers of commemorative history explicitly discounted their role as interpreters of a past. Their aim was to list, preserve and even ‘embalm’ Methodist events. Blamires and Smith carefully constructed themselves as amateurs, ‘annalists’ rather than professors of history, whose only role was to record those memories and events which might otherwise have been forgotten: ‘They have not exhaustively studied the facts, interrogated the spirit, and deduced the important lessons, which Methodism in this land presents to the historians. They have compiled and put into a succinct form the facts and annals of the 14 J. Bickford, Christian Work in Australasia: With Notes on the Settlement and Progress of the Colonies (London: Wesleyan Conference Office, c. 1878). 15 From 1873, it was decided to hold Annual Conferences in the colonies and a General Conference for the whole Connexion every three years. In 1874, four Annual Conferences were set up for New South Wales, Queensland and the Pacific Islands, Victoria and Tasmania, South Australia including Western Australia, and New Zealand. Western Australia was made a separate Conference in 1900. 16 W.C. Blamires and J.R. Smith. The Early Story of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Victoria (Melbourne: Wesleyan Book Depot, 1886), p. 12. 17 Blamires and Smith, Early Story, pp. iii–iv.

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early Methodist story.’18 In the best tradition of commemorative history, their history of Methodism in Victoria amply fulfils this objective and provides a very full list of people, institutions and achievements, district by district, settlement by settlement, church by church, and, locally, society by society, which was the Methodist term for local congregations. In 1935, the Rev. C. Irving Benson produced a new Victorian history at the request of the Centenary Committee of the Victorian Conference. Benson made more claims for his work than Blamires, declaring that it was based on years of research into contemporary documents: ‘My purpose has been to present a living picture of the men, women and movements of the first hundred years of Methodism in this State. The record is one of which the Church may be humbly proud.’19 Benson was also unusual in the care he gave to accounts of Aboriginal missions, such as Buntingdale, and women, such as the class leader Caroline Newcomb.20 Commemorative efforts in New South Wales, the founding colony, began a little later than in Victoria and culminated in the work of James Colwell.21 Besides his illustrated history, Colwell produced narratives of Methodism in the Windsor district of New South Wales, and a handsome, fully illustrated souvenir of the ‘Jubilee’ Conference of 1905, celebrating 50 years of the Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Conference.22 Efforts to launch a national history of Methodism were initiated as early as 1860 when, as Colwell noted, the Australasian Conference of 1860 recommended that ‘a record of facts and incidents respecting the introduction of Methodism into these Colonies’ should be compiled. This never eventuated, possibly because of the stresses and strains of attempts at union and possibly because of the rather different trajectories of Methodism in the various colonies.23 The Methodist Conference gave its approval to Colwell’s history of Methodism in New South Wales, which was published in a volume of over 650 pages in 1904. Although ostensibly a history of Methodism in Australia from 1812 to 1855, Colwell, like Blamires and Smith before him, made little pretence to have written a comprehensive history. It was intended as a simple narrative of events mostly focused on New South Wales Blamires and Smith, Early Story, p. v. C.I. Benson, ed., A Century of Victorian Methodism (Melbourne: Spectator, 1935), foreword. 20 Benson, Century of Victorian Methodism, pp. 75–82. 21 Colwell, Illustrated History of Methodism. 22 James Colwell, Windsor District Methodism: A Circuit with a History (Windsor, [NSW]: Herald Print, 1907); Colwell, The Methodist Jubilee Conference Album, 1855–1905 (Sydney: Mark Blow [The Crown Studios], 1905). 23 The General Conference commissioned a history of the Church in New Zealand in 1881, though it was not until 1900 that William Morley fulfilled it. W. Morley, The History of Methodism in New Zealand (Wellington: McKee, 1900). This was neatly bifurcated into ‘Maori Missions’ and ‘Colonial Churches’. 18 19

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and those he called ‘pioneers and officials’. ‘The time for writing a philosophic History of Methodism has not yet arrived’, he explained.24 What he did find space to cover was the history of Methodist missions to the Pacific Islands, New Zealand and the Australian Aborigines, as well as the path to Methodist Union. There was also ample coverage of Methodist urban missions, revivals and rural itinerancy. Colwell wrote for an audience of the Methodist faithful with little expectation that it might be read by Australians of other Christian denominations or even by other Methodists overseas. Other conferences in other states also produced jubilee and/or centenary volumes in the commemorative tradition. In Western Australia, Charles Jenkins provided a brief narrative survey of Methodism in 1930 which provided good coverage of activities in the mining districts.25 In Queensland, R.S.C. Dingle published a centenary history in 1947, produced as part of centenary celebrations in that year. The Queensland centenary efforts were particularly ambitious and the centenary history was just a minor part of what was proposed as a four-year crusade in every circuit with the explicit objective ‘that Methodism may make her contribution to the spiritual rejuvenation of the world and the building up of a Christian order in the Pacific’.26 The creation of a ‘centenary’ for Queensland in 1947 was particularly inventive, given that Queensland did not become a separate colony until 1859. However, the centenary committee dated the glimmerings of Queensland Methodism to the earliest date possible – namely the decision by the District Meeting in Sydney to appoint a minister to Moreton Bay in 1847 in response to a request from ‘a few Christian people living in Moreton Bay asking for the appointment of a minister’.27 Commemoration history continued unabated in the 1920s and 1930s, during which Methodists continued to write history which was timed to appear for anniversaries, real or contrived, and continues in different forms today. Reflexive History More sophisticated forms of Methodist history writing in Australia began in the 1950s and were fostered by the founding of regional historical societies, most of which produced their own journals. The earliest of these was the journal Heritage (South Australia) in 1956. An important forum for scholarly discussions of Methodist history was provided by the Association for the Journal of Religious Colwell, Illustrated History of Methodism, preface. C.A. Jenkins, A Century of Methodism in Western Australia, 1830–1930 (Perth: Methodist Book Depot, 1930). 26 R.S.C. Dingle, ed., Annals of Achievement: A Review of Queensland Methodism, 1847–1947 (Brisbane: Queensland Book Depot, 1947), p. 13. 27 Colwell, Illustrated History of Methodism, p. 21. 24 25

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History, founded by a group of academic historians at the University of Sydney in 1959. Significant here is the work of Ken Cable, who in 1963 and 1964 published articles on Protestant religious controversies and the education debate.28 Other studies of Australian Methodism appeared at about the same time in Historical Studies (later Australian Historical Studies), including N.D. McLachlan’s account of Edward Eagar (1787–1866) in 1963,29 Renate Howe on aspects of Methodism in Victoria30 and R.B. Walker on Methodism in South Australia and an attempted ‘typology’ of Methodism in New South Wales, published in the Journal of Religious History in 1971.31 While all of these articles were about Methodist denominational identity and sectarian politics, matters of central importance to the rapid rise of Methodism in Australia, other historians began to investigate aspects of Methodism which impacted on the new social and labour history and its interrogation of the intersection of religion with class, race and gender. Historians were interested in Methodism’s links to the labour movement and the Halévy thesis of Methodism as an alternative to revolutionary resistance, as well as the social role played by Methodism in mining districts.32 Important interrogations of Methodist missions to the Aborigines were provided by J.D. Bollen, who wrote about the Methodist mission in New South Wales, and later about other English missionary societies.33 The long gap between the opening – and early closure – of the earliest Aboriginal missions in the colonial era and the re-establishment of Methodist missionary work among the K.J. Cable, ‘Religious Controversies in New South Wales in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, Part 2: The Dissenting Sects and Education’, Royal Australian Historical Society Journal 49 (1963): 58–74; K.J. Cable, ‘Protestant Problems in New South Wales in the MidNineteenth Century’, Journal of Religious History 3 (1964): 119–36. 29 N.D. McLachlan, ‘Edward Eagar (1787–1866): A Colonial Spokesman in Sydney and London’, Historical Studies, Australia and New Zealand 10, no. 46 (1963): 431–56. 30 R. Howe, ‘Protestantism, Social Christianity and the Ecology of Melbourne, 1890– 1900’, Historical Studies 19, no. 74 (1980): 59–73. 31 R.B. Walker, ‘Methodism in the “Paradise of Dissent”, 1837–1900’, Journal of Religious History 5, no. 4 (1969): 331–47; R.B. Walker, ‘The Growth and Typology of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in New South Wales, 1812–1901’, Journal of Religious History 6, no. 4 (1971): 331–47. 32 J. Moss, ‘South Australia’s Colonial Labour Movement’, Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia 6 (1979): 12–26; R. Frances, ‘Christianity on the Coalfields: A Case Study of Collie in the Great Depression’, Studies in Western Australian History 9 (1987): 115–24; T. Laffan, ‘“Not a Dictatorship of the Proletariat but a Comradeship of All”: Methodism and the Newcastle Labour Movement’, Labour History 85 (2003): 217–24. 33 J.D. Bollen, ‘A Time of Small Things: The Methodist Mission in New South Wales, 1815–1836’, Journal of Religious History 7, no. 3 (1973): 225–47; J.D. Bollen, ‘English Missionary Societies and the Australian Aborigines’, Journal of Religious History 9, no. 3 (1977): 263–91. 28

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Aborigines in the Northern Territory beginning with Yirrkala mission in 1935 has led to a similar gap in the historiography. However, a significant intervention in relation to these later missions was provided by ethnographer Howard Morphy and his study of what he called ‘mutual conversion’ of missionaries and missionised in the Methodist mission to the Yolngu.34 Other themes in Methodist scholarly history reflected in scholarly journal articles include Methodism and war,35 the role of women36 and the important body of work, including highquality scholarly histories, of Methodist social welfare.37 An important feature of this new social and cultural history was that while much of it continued to be written from within the Methodist or post-Methodist Uniting tradition, it was referenced to other streams in the broader social history of Australia, and related to other religious traditions, both Protestant and Catholic. In the absence of a major monograph in the new scholarly mode covering all Australian states, the most important study of Methodism in Australia was undoubtedly provided by Arnold D. Hunt’s 1985 history of Methodism in South Australia, This Side of Heaven.38 Hunt’s history represented a break with earlier traditions of narrative celebration and reflected the shift towards scholarly complexity in other fields of Australian history. Hunt’s history was the first attempt to provide a full study of Methodism as a religion of the people of South Australia. While Hunt called it ‘a general survey of Methodism covering 140 years’,39 he in fact enthusiastically entered into the cultural world of Methodism at a local level. He included a glossary of Methodist terms, a warts-and-all critical assessment of John Wesley’s strengths and weaknesses as a religious leader and a sympathetic survey of all the varieties of Methodism that came to South Australia, including laymen and women as well as ministers. There was a particularly generous selection of photographs, which illustrated features of Methodist life such as class meetings, with a discussion of the reasons for the decline of membership as other church activities rose. He explored issues which H. Morphy, ‘Mutual Conversion? The Methodist Church and the Yolngu, with Particular Reference to Yirrkala’, Humanities Research 12, no. 1 (2005): 41–53. 35 A.D. Hunt, Methodism Militant: Attitudes to the Great War, 1914–1918 (Clarence Park, SA: South Australian Methodist Historical Society, 1975). 36 J. Wood, ‘The Role of Women in the Methodist Church: A Personal Reflection’, Proceedings of the Uniting Church Historical Society Synod of Victoria 10, no. 1 (2003): 65–73. 37 J. Murphy, ‘Suffering, Vice, and Justice: Religious Imagineries and Welfare Agencies on Post-War Melbourne’, Journal of Religious History 31, no. 3 (2007): 287–304. For reflection on writing their history of the Wesley Central Mission in Melbourne, see R. Howe and S. Swain, ‘Writing the Centenary History of Wesley Central Mission’, Uniting Church Studies 1, no. 2 (1995): 15–24. 38 A.D. Hunt, This Side of Heaven: A History of Methodism in South Australia (Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1985). 39 Hunt, This Side of Heaven, p. vii. 34

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had been more or less avoided in earlier histories of Australian Methodism such as religion and politics and the social context of Methodist social campaigns in relation to drink, gambling, Sunday observance and morality. In relation to the successful union of Methodist bodies, Hunt was prepared to articulate the losses to the more open and democratic smaller churches in the wake of the capitulation to the wealthier and more assertive Wesleyans, who were generally more politically conservative.40 Hunt also brought new strands of inquiry into play, including the important role of women in many spheres of social work and in both home and foreign missions. South Australian Methodists maintained a lively interest in mission work through the Women’s Auxiliary for Foreign Missions and the smaller men’s and young women’s movements.41 He provided a nuanced account of Methodist responses to the great events of the twentieth century, war, depression and the disturbances of the 1960s followed by the increasing secularism of the succeeding decades leading up to the formation of the Uniting Church. He noted: ‘Union took place in a time of growing awareness of the widespread indifference, if not hostility, to Christianity in an increasingly secular society.’42 He also pointed to the unrealised expectation that union might lead to a revival of evangelical Christianity. Like Wesley himself, Hunt wrote with optimism about the future, but also realism about the historical past. His work set a new standard for Methodist historiography in Australia. Methodism was also addressed with full critical, scholarly weight in Ian Breward’s histories of the churches in Australia, and later Australia and the Pacific.43 In these works, Breward laid the foundations for a modern understanding of Methodism in Australia, integrated with the parallel histories of the other Christian churches in Australia. His concise article on Methodism for the Encyclopedia of Religion in Australia provided the most up-to-date account of Australian Methodism at the time of its appearance in 2009.44 There have also been important studies of individual Methodist people and institutions, especially the Central Missions. Alan Walker has been the subject of a biography by Don Wright, who also co-authored a history of Methodism in New South Wales.45 Hunt, This Side of Heaven, p. 220. Hunt, This Side of Heaven, p. 314. 42 Hunt, This Side of Heaven, p. 427. 43 I. Breward, A History of the Australian Churches (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993); I. Breward, A History of the Churches in Australasia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). For Breward’s appraisal of Arnold Wood, see I. Breward, A Notable Methodist: Dr A.H. Wood (Black Forest, SA: Historical Society of the Uniting Church in South Australia, 2006), updated in Dr. Harold Wood: A Notable Methodist (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2013). 44 I. Breward, ‘Methodists’, in The Encyclopedia of Religion in Australia, ed. James Jupp (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 404–15. 45 Don Wright, Alan Walker: Conscience of the Nation (Adelaide: Openbook, 1997); Wright and Clancy, The Methodists. 40 41

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A special factor in preparing a history of Methodism in Australia is the formation of the Uniting Church in 1977. While greeted enthusiastically by the vast majority of Methodists, it also undoubtedly led to an eclipse in the distinctive Methodist contribution to Australian life and society. One reflection of the changed standing of Methodism in the Uniting Church is evident in the collection of papers which were the outcome of the Wesley Heritage Conference, held at Wesley College, University of Sydney, in 1980. The title of the collection was Dig or Die. Most Australians would recognise this cryptic phrase as a reference to the famous Dig Tree which marked the site of a cache of buried food for the exploring party led by Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills to Northern Australia in 1860–61. The returning explorers failed to understand the message and wandered off to die a lingering death from malnutrition. The message, according to editor James S. Udy, was that it was now necessary to dig hard to identify the Methodist heritage in Australia and that without effort something critical was likely to be lost.46 The ambivalence indicated by the collection’s title also makes a striking contrast with the triumphalism of an earlier era. There were three historical papers: Eric Clancy on rural Methodism, Arnold Hunt on the Bible Christians and Alan Walker on Central Methodist Missions; and three more on the Methodist heritage of the Union Churches of Canada, Australia and the Pacific by Glenn Lucas, James Udy and Neville Threlfall respectively. The changing times are also reflected in the prominence of accounts of Methodism among Indigenous people in the South Pacific, among the Maori and Australian Aborigines and, crossing the Pacific, Native Americans. Stuart Piggin contributed an important reflection on Marxist views of Methodism, including a critique of E.P. Thompson. There was no attempt to promote Methodism as a vehicle for glorious gospel triumphs or for the embedding of British traditions of worship and practice in Australian soil. While these elements of regret about the demise of the historical identity of Methodism in Australia continue to haunt insider historians, there is also a growing interest in Methodism from outside. In the new millennium, the most important strand of international Methodist history writing has been the re-discovery of Methodism’s transnational and international roots. This was always evident in the Atlantic World, especially since the publication of David Hempton’s ground-breaking study Empire of the Spirit.47 While Hempton makes little if any reference to Australia – though he had read Arnold Hunt’s work on J.S. Udy and E.G. Clancy, eds, Dig or Die: Papers Given at the World Methodist Historical Society Wesley Heritage Conference at Wesley College within the University of Sydney, 10–15 August 1980 (Sydney: World Methodist Historical Society Australasian Section, 1981), pp. 13–15. 47 D. Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005). 46

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South Australia – the approach resonates for future studies of Methodism in the British World. The danger of these imperial and transnational approaches is that they tend to place too much emphasis on continuity and loyalty to Britain and too little on innovation and adaptation to local conditions. For of all the British and Irish founding churches in Australia, Methodism, in all its branches, has the most substantial claim to be the distinctive form of Australian Christianity, with the strongest Australian accent. There is a connection here to the distinctive Australian accent of historian Geoffrey Blainey, son of a Methodist Minister, who could write of his Victorian childhood, ‘my world was essentially Australian’.48 There were good reasons why Methodists were so unanimous in their support for the move into the Uniting Church, the first Australian Church, with its effective and egalitarian blended polity, social conscience and home-grown nationalism. The dual strands in the Methodist heritage in Australia continue to resonate in the Uniting Church tradition.

48 Quoted by Deborah Gare, ‘White Ghost of Empire’, in The Fuss that Never Ended (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2003), p. 92. For the view that Blainey was untouched by religion in his major historical writing, see Tom Frame, ‘Geoffrey Blainey, Religion and the Churches in Australian History’, Lucas 23 & 24 (1997–98): 83–109.

Chapter 17

The Continuing Methodist Legacy, 1977–2014 William Emilsen and Glen O’Brien

During the World Methodist Conference of 1951, John Scott Lidgett, 97-yearold patriarch of British Methodism, preached at the University Church in Oxford and passed out afterwards from sheer exhaustion. Adrian Hastings, a wry Catholic observer commented, ‘Methodism had arrived – was it also about to pass away?’1 Many assume that Australian Methodism ‘passed away’ in 1977 with the formation of the Uniting Church. For some, this is cause for regret, while others see the merging of the Methodist Church into the Uniting Church as a fruitful expression of its ‘catholic spirit’. There remains, however, a continuing legacy of Methodism in Australia. The Uniting Church itself remains a member of the World Methodist Council (as well as of the World Communion of Reformed Churches) and the influence of its Methodist DNA continues to be felt (even if, for some, it is something of a recessive gene). There also exist in Australia three other member churches of the World Methodist Council – the Chinese Methodist Church, the Church of the Nazarene and the Wesleyan Methodist Church – as well as numerous immigrant churches of Methodist heritage and a number of smaller Methodists groupings, such as the Bible Methodists, with no formal ecumenical engagement. This chapter will attempt to describe the ongoing influence of the Methodist ethos in the Uniting Church, as well as providing a survey of the other member churches of the World Methodist Council and their contribution to the continuing Methodist presence in Australia. The Uniting Church and its Methodist Heritage In 1979, Dr Harold W. Wood, the Methodist leader who, perhaps more than any other, brought the Methodist Church into union, said in an interview, ‘that A. Tuberfield, John Scott Lidgett: Archbishop of British Methodism? (London: Epworth Press, 2003), p. xi. This anecdote and the later material on the Wesleyan Methodist Church appear in G. O’Brien, ‘The Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia’, Uniting Church Studies 17, no. 2 (December 2012): 67–81. 1

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Methodism will not be lost if we are true to it. We will make our Methodist spirit a contribution to the Uniting Church. This is our heritage and we give it freely, wholeheartedly, as part of the life of the Uniting Church.’2 A common theme running through some hundred interviews that one of the authors has conducted over the last 17 years with former Methodist ministers who entered the Uniting Church is that Australian Methodism in the 1960s and 1970s, in the words of one interviewee, ‘had run out of puff ’. When the author interviewed Dean Drayton, a missiologist originally from Adelaide, about his study of evangelism in the Methodist Church in South Australia, and especially his reflections on the disappearance of the class meeting, he cheerfully replied, ‘Thank God for the Uniting Church’.3 The published and unpublished memoirs, biographies and autobiographies of former Methodist leaders tell more or less the same story. It would be tempting to follow sociologists Bryan Wilson’s and Robert Currie’s analysis of ecumenism and attribute Methodist enthusiasm for church union in Australia to an anxious response to its declining public influence and dwindling membership.4 Certainly, there were well-documented pragmatic and ‘non-theological’ reasons, such as the better use of property and personnel, that contributed to the vote for or against church union. It would be a mistake, however, as sociologist Alan Black has clearly demonstrated, to assume that membership decline was the sole, or even major, factor contributing to Methodism’s support for church union. Black rightly observes that ‘Methodist … support for church union certainly predated their membership decline’ and ‘[t]here is little evidence to suggest that support for church union was strongest in those congregations which were weakest or which had suffered the greatest decline’.5 In nearly a thousand published histories of local Methodist churches in Australia held in the National Library in Canberra, the abiding image that best depicts Australian Methodism is found in photographs of wooden churches being hauled by teams of horses or oxen or being carted on the back of a truck to a new place. Methodism had the capacity to move, to cross 2 From transcribed recorded interview between the Rev. Dr A. Harold Wood and the Rev. Dr James S. Udy at Wesley College on 9 June 1979, p. 18; in J.S. Udy and E.G. Clancy, eds, Dig or Die: Papers Given at the World Methodist Historical Society Wesley Heritage Conference at Wesley College within the University of Sydney, 10–15 August 1980 (Sydney: World Methodist Historical Society, World Methodist Historical Society, 1981), p. 197. 3 D. Drayton, Five Generations: Evangelism in South Australia, A Study of the Methodist Church 1836–1976 (Adelaide: Committee on Evangelism, South Australian Synod, 1980). 4 B.R. Wilson, Religion in Secular Society (London: Watts, 1966); R. Currie, Methodism Divided: A Study in the Sociology of Ecumenicalism (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1968). 5 A.W. Black, ‘The Sociology of Ecumenism: Initial Observations on the Formation of the Uniting Church in Australia’, in Practice and Belief: Studies in the Sociology of Australian Religion, ed. A.W. Black and P.E. Glasner (Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1983), p. 106.

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geographical and theological boundaries. At its best it was flexible and mobile; its theology imbued it with Wesley’s ‘catholic spirit’ and its itinerant clergy were genuinely ecumenical. ‘Methodists were more union minded’ than any other denomination, observed the sociologist Hans Mol in the early 1970s.6 Looking back over 76 years of union negotiations, James Udy, a Methodist historian and Master of Wesley College within the University of Sydney, expressed the same view in slightly more theological language. He identified the Wesley heritage in the Uniting Church as ‘the Catholic spirit which has prompted Methodists to attempt to move again and again throughout this century into a larger organic Christian unity for the purpose of more effective mission at home and abroad’.7 Most Methodists did not enter the Uniting Church fearing that Methodism would cease to exist; rather they wholeheartedly embraced joint parishes with Presbyterians and Congregationalists before 1977 and entered the Uniting Church in the hope that ‘the best for their church was still to come’.8 The vast majority of Methodists were convinced that uniting was God’s will. The profound conviction within the Uniting Church that it is called to be a ‘pilgrim people’, usually interpreted as ‘a Church on the move’, or a ‘movement’, is Methodism’s most enduring legacy. It would be true also to say that many Methodists who favoured church union did not anticipate the sudden changes that came in 1977. Overnight, names changed. The circuit became a parish, the district a presbytery and the parsonage a manse. The leaders’ meeting and the quarterly meeting no longer existed. The trust committee was replaced by the finance and property committee. The role of laypeople became more prominent. Worship took on a more contemporary style. Communion rails started to disappear and new patterns of celebrating Holy Communion had to be accommodated. Even alcohol, the last bastion for many Methodists, had to be tolerated. Methodism may have sung heartily about dying to live, but it never expected it to happen so quickly. In the epilogue to his unpublished memoir ‘I Raise My Ebenezer’, Arnold Hunt, one of Methodism’s most distinguished historians, reflected sadly on the fast-fading memories of Methodism in the first 20 years since the formation of the Uniting Church. Hunt had been a Methodist member of the Joint Commission on Church Union and, within the South Australian Conference, was ‘one of the chief advocates of union’. He spoke for many Methodists 10 or 20 years on when he wrote, ‘[n]

H. Mol, Religion in Australia: A Sociological Investigation (Sydney: Thomas Nelson, 1971), p. 133. 7 J.S. Udy, ‘Wesley Heritage in the Formation of the Uniting Church in Australia’, in Dig or Die, p. 197. 8 D. Simmons, ‘Preface’ to Wesley Warradale Uniting Church: The First 50 Years 1953– 2003 ([Warradale]: 50th Anniversary Committee, 2003), p. vii. 6

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either I nor those who worked with me expected the new church to become so different so quickly from what we had known before’.9 Hunt further elaborated: I believed that union was a historical movement whose time had come and that it was, in religious terms, a movement of God’s spirit. I didn’t expect, nor did others, that changes in the Uniting Church would come so rapidly. Most of us, especially in South Australia, believed that more of Methodism would survive than has been the case.10

For James Udy, the ‘losses’ far outweighed the ‘gains’. He listed five losses that former Methodists most keenly felt. First, he identified the Church’s rapidly disappearing connection with its ‘Wesleyan roots’. He was distressed by those in the Uniting Church who eschewed tradition like a disease and spoke of ‘a brand new church without any deep roots in the past’.11 The distinguished American Methodist scholar Albert Outler, who visited Australia in 1986 to give the Cato Lecture, expressed the same concern: Some of you Uniting Church people are in deep trouble. You are trying to cut completely your roots with the past. Some of your professors have told me that they are not interested in your Methodist heritage because the Uniting Church is a new church looking to the future.12

More specifically, Udy missed the Wesleyan emphasis on the proclamation of the Gospel, particularly its focus on universal salvation and sanctification. Whereas the Basis of Union (1971), the founding document of the Uniting Church, clearly stated that ‘the Uniting Church will listen to the preaching of John Wesley in his Forty-Four Sermons (1793)’ and ‘[i]t will commit its ministers and instructors to study these statements’, Udy rightly discerned that, ‘this has been largely forgotten in both congregational life and, even more seriously, in some places where Uniting Church ministers train for ministry’. If, as Udy believed, ‘the Uniting Church was born to walk erect on two theological legs, the Evangelical Catholic and the Reformed’, and it allowed the former to wither (especially its emphasis on the constant striving towards holiness), then inevitably it would end up a ‘theological cripple’.13 A.D. Hunt, ‘I Raise My Ebenezer: A Memoir of a Life in Methodism, Brighton’, Uniting College for Leadership and Theology, Adelaide, 1997, p. 205. 10 Hunt, ‘I Raise My Ebenezer’, p. 206. 11 J.S. Udy, ‘After Ten Years – Reflections by a Former Methodist’, in The Uniting Church in Australia: Reflections after Ten Years, ed. G.S. Udy (North Parramatta: Upper Room, 1987), p. 35. 12 Quoted in Udy, ‘After Ten Years’, p. 34. 13 Udy, ‘After Ten Years’, pp. 36–7. 9

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Udy’s second loss related to a lack of clear understanding of the role of the ordained minister in the Uniting Church that he once knew in the Methodist Church. He was disturbed by the democratisation of the Church and the blurring of the roles of the laity and the clergy. His third and related loss concerned the diminishing of ‘the close fraternity among ministers’ and ‘the role of the Methodist Conference as a meeting place for all ministers’.14 One particular consequence of this breakdown in fraternity that Udy particularly regretted was the ‘shoddy treatment’ retired ministers received in the Uniting Church. A rather sad letter from Neville Guthrey to the editor in the July 2012 issue of Insights, the magazine of the NSW and ACT Synod, drew embarrassing attention to this matter. Guthrey, a self-styled ‘old retired minister’ felt as though he was ‘little more than a name in the Synod Directory’, whose death and funeral the Church would one day announce in an email.15 Guthrey’s lament contrasted sharply with the warmth and respect Udy recalled from his Methodist days: ‘In Methodism retired ministers, who had served the church faithfully over a lifetime, were respected and given an honoured place in Synods and Conferences.’16 Udy’s fourth loss was the lack of ‘strong ministerial leadership’ within the Church. He attributed this mostly to the rise of multiple or ‘team ministries’ (without a designated leader) that were popular and probably necessary shortly after church union. ‘I have seen too many congregations wallowing in unsolved problems because both ministers and lay people were afraid to give leadership through the problems.’17 In Methodism there was provision for a superintendent minister to be appointed in those congregations or parishes with more than one minister. The most contentious matter of all for Udy and most former Methodists was the manner in which the Uniting Church placed ministers in congregations or church agencies. The process adopted by the Uniting Church followed more closely the ‘call’ system in the Congregational and Presbyterian churches, which reflected the Reformed tradition. The Methodist system of ‘stationing’ relied on an appointment system which guaranteed every church a minister and every minister a place. Methodists considered it the most sensible of all systems, and perhaps the most godly as well.18 In recent times there has been a revisiting of Methodist patterns of leadership and appointment. The move was spearheaded by the South Australian Synod in 2007 when it decided to rename the former Parkin-Wesley College the ‘Centre for Leadership and Theology’ Udy, ‘After Ten Years’, pp. 42–3. Insights, July 2012, pp. 2–3. 16 Udy, ‘After Ten Years’, pp. 43–4. 17 Udy, ‘After Ten Years’, p. 44. 18 The Methodist Handbook on Church Union (Melbourne: Melbourne Publishing House, 1964), p. 26. 14 15

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and deliberately set out on a course of ‘developing leaders’ in its programmes of ministerial education.19 As the Uniting Church moves into its second generation and former Methodists retire and die, it is almost certain that distinctive Methodist teachings and practices will become less evident in its life. For many former Methodists this remains a sharp sense of loss, but it would be a mistake to think that the Methodist heritage in the Uniting Church will pass into oblivion. Indeed, since the early 1980s, there has been a reinvigorating of the Methodist impulse in the Uniting Church with immigration from Pacific Island countries. Up-to-date figures provided by Kerry Enright, National Director of UnitingWorld, estimate that there are some 8,000 Methodist Pacific Islanders who have joined the Uniting Church. The largest groups are from former Methodist Mission areas: Tonga (4,200), Fiji (2,000), Samoa (950) and Rotuma (100).20 Methodism brought much into the new Uniting Church and continues to do so with its flourishing migrant-ethnic churches. Around the time of church union, Harold W. Wood published a small pamphlet reassuring members of the Uniting Church that the ‘essential truths’ of Presbyterianism, Congregationalism and Methodism would be retained in the new church.21 Of Methodist essentials, Wood listed seven: (1) the preaching of conversion from sin to a new life in Christ; (2) the quest for holiness; (3) the experience of assurance; (4) the practice of Christian fellowship by believers and the value of spiritual experience, including a ‘cheerful religion’; (5) the opportunity for lay preaching; (6) city missions and a responsibility for a better society; and (7) the ministry of sacred song.22 If Wood’s seven essentials are taken as a checklist, then it is immediately obvious that the Uniting Church has been reasonably successful in preserving elements of its Methodist heritage. Apart from in small evangelical groups like the Fellowship for Revival words like ‘holiness’ and ‘perfection’ may not be widely used in the Uniting Church but there exists a spirituality informed by Methodism that is warm, courageous and outgoing. The influence of Methodist hymnody and hymnodists is evident in the Australian Hymn Book and Together in Song. The Methodist covenant service has been adopted by the Uniting Church. Social justice in the Uniting Church, The rationale behind this decision is clearly set out in A. Dutney, A Genuinely Educated Ministry: Three Studies on Theological Education in the Uniting Church in Australia (Sydney: The Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia, 2007). See also A. Dutney, ‘So Different So Quickly’: The Impact of Church Union on the Ministry (Adelaide: Historical Society of the Uniting Church in South Australia, 2005). 20 K. Enright to W.W. Emilsen, 22 November 2012. 21 A.H. Wood, Our Heritage in the Uniting Church (Melbourne: Aldersgate Press, 1977), n.p. 22 Wood, Our Heritage in the Uniting Church, n.p. 19

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and especially its work for Aboriginal reconciliation, is an outgrowth of the Methodist social conscience. Central Methodist Missions in the larger cities, renamed Wesley Central Missions, have not only found a future in the Uniting Church but have also remained very Methodist in their style of worship and organisation. Lay preachers continue to exercise an important role in the Church, confirming and continuing the lay ministry ethos of an earlier time. Small groups or ‘faith communities’ have rediscovered the Wesleyan notion of the ‘gathered’ nature of ecclesia.23 The biennial National Christian Youth Convention, which began in 1955, emanating from Alan Walker’s Mission to the Nation, remains significant in the life of the Uniting Church in Australia.24 The Uniting Church still retains its links with the World Methodist Council and with partner Methodist Churches in the Pacific. And, most importantly, the ‘catholic spirit’ imbued from Methodism has helped the Uniting Church to live with theological, spiritual, ethical and cultural diversity.25 The Chinese Methodist Church in Australia The Chinese Methodist Church of Australia (CMCA) is a small but growing community of 16 local churches and eight preaching points with a total membership in 2012 of 2,588.26 In addition, it has four churches in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. The Church was formally established in 1995 with its constitution adapted from the Book of Discipline of the Methodist Church in Malaysia (1992). Its early organisation can be traced to the church-planting ministry begun in 1986 by James Ha when he established the Melbourne Chinese Church. Ordained and given recognition in 1988 as a missionary of the Sarawak Chinese Annual Conference, the Rev. (later Bishop) James Ha began to plant more preaching points and local churches in other cities and states beginning in Brisbane in 1989. Since then congregations have

23 G. Wainwright, On Wesley and Calvin: Sources for Theology, Liturgy and Spirituality (Melbourne: Uniting Church Press, 1984), p. 55. 24 D. Wright, Alan Walker: Conscience of the Nation (Adelaide: Openbook, 1997), pp. 106, 249. 25 K. Rowe, ‘The Wesleyan Heritage as Conversation Partner’, in Marking Twenty Years: The Uniting Church in Australia 1977–1997, ed. W.W. Emilsen and S. Emilsen (North Parramatta, NSW: UTC Publications, 1997), p. 52. 26 The membership figures were provided by the Church’s statistician, Ms Lina Lim, in an email dated 15 November 2012, and updated by Bishop James Kwang in an email dated 20 November 2012.

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been established in the ACT, NSW, Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia.27 The CMCA has strong links to the Methodist Church in Sarawak, Malaysia. Since 2002 it has had its own bishop, elected for a term from among the ordained ministers. The Rev. Albert Chiew was elected Bishop at the end of 2006 and during his episcopate he sought to bring the Conference closer to more traditionally Methodist polity, with an emphasis on following the CMCA Book of Discipline. This emphasis has continued under the leadership of the Rev. James Kwang who was elected Bishop in 2010. Members have been provided with annual seminars on Methodist belief and polity and pastors are given specialised training on Methodist identity. The Connexional system of Methodism has been preserved and directives on ministry and mission flow from the central authority of the Annual Conference through the District Conferences to local congregations.28 Typically in each church there is a Chinese-speaking congregation and an English-speaking congregation meeting separately; which one being the largest varies from place to place. Elements of traditional Methodist worship, including the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed and the singing of the Gloria Patri are in evidence, and the worship style usually takes a ‘blended’ approach, seeking to unite classical Methodist elements with contemporary music in an effort to appeal to the younger generation. On 30 November 2001, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Provisional Annual Conference of the CMCA and the UCA which, among other things, fulfilled the conditions for the UCA to withdraw its objections to the admission of the CMCA into the World Methodist Council and the National Council of Churches. As a consequence, the Conference affirmed a change of name from ‘The Methodist Church in Australia’ to ‘The Chinese Methodist Church in Australia’ on 1 December 2001, though it was originally registered under the Societies Act as a religious society bearing the name of ‘The Methodist Church in Australia’.29 Working towards recognition as a ‘religious body’ by the Commonwealth Government, it is authorised by the Attorney General’s Office to register ministers as marriage celebrants and by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to sponsor overseas religious workers. The qualifier ‘Chinese’ is often dropped in local usage, perhaps reflecting Chinese Methodist Church, Sydney, ‘Church History’, at http://www.cmcsydney. org.au/full.php?title=Church%20History&fname=./template/general/enghist/, accessed 25 November 2011. 28 Gratitude is expressed to Bishop James Kwang for information about the Chinese Methodist Church, forwarded in an email, 16 November 2012. 29 Journal of the 2nd Session of the Mission Annual Conference, The Methodist Church in Australia (1995), p. 5. 27

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the fact that, though its constituency is almost entirely Malaysian, Singaporean and mainline Chinese, it has the aim of ministering to all Australians.30 The Church of the Nazarene The Church of the Nazarene began work in Brisbane in 1945 at the instigation of Albert Anthony Erikson Berg and other disaffected Australian evangelicals, who saw themselves as raised up to champion a return to the emphasis in early Methodism on entire sanctification.31 It is one of numerous ‘Holiness’ denominations formed in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, several of which emerged in Australia in the years following the Second World War. The Methodist Episcopal Church had, by the late nineteenth century, become middle class and respectable, much less given to religious ideals such as perfectionism. Reform-minded Methodist leaders, such as Nathan Bangs and Bishop Jesse Peck, joined in a mid-century call to return to Wesley’s original perfectionist emphases. Then, in 1867, the formation of the National Camp-Meeting Association for the Promotion of Christian Holiness in Vineland, New Jersey, gave organisational clout to a strong group of radicals, many of whom were ready to break ranks with mainstream Methodism and form their own churches and associations.32 Among these newly formed Holiness churches was the Church of the Nazarene, with its beginnings in the work of the former Methodist minister Phineas S. Bresee and the physician Joseph P. Widney in Los Angeles from 1895.33 There followed numerous mergers between a number of independent Approximately 95 per cent of the 100 members of the Preston, Victoria, congregation are immigrants from mainland China. Bishop James Kwang, email message to the author, 16 November 2012. 31 Much of this section is drawn from G. O’Brien, ‘“A Dogged Inch-by-Inch Affair”: The Church of the Nazarene in Australia 1945–1958’, Journal of Religious History 27, no. 2 ( June 2003): 215–33. 32 J.L. Peters, Christian Perfection and American Methodism (Grand Rapids, MI: Francis Asbury Press, 1985), pp. 133–53. See also M.E. Dieter, The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century (Metuchen, NJ and London: Scarecrow Press, 1980); C.E. Jones, Perfectionist Persuasion: The Holiness Movement and American Methodism, 1876–1936 (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1974); W. Kostlevy, ed., Historical Dictionary of the Holiness Movement (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009); V. Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1997). 33 F. Cunningham, S. Ingersol, H.E. Raser and D.P. Whitelaw, eds, Our Watchword and Song: The Centennial History of the Church of the Nazarene (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press, 2009). 30

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Holiness organisations, most of whom had their origins in Methodism. Today the International Church of the Nazarene, officially established in Pilot Point Texas in 1908, has over 26,353 churches, a membership of over two million people and a growth rate of over 48 per cent in the last 10 years alone.34 The greatest growth areas are in the Africa, Eurasia and South America regions, which increased their full membership by an average of 12 per cent, 18 per cent and 8 per cent respectively in the five years up to 2011. In that same period the United States and Canada region saw no full membership growth at all and the Asia-Pacific region, which includes Australia, only 3 per cent growth.35 It was the witness of an American serviceman stationed in Brisbane during the Second World War that sparked interest in the Church of the Nazarene commencing work in Australia. Meredith T. (Ted) Hollingsworth, a licensed minister from Little Rock, Arkansas, recuperating in a Brisbane hospital in 1944, met 35-year-old Australian Army officer Albert Berg, who was attracted by Hollingsworth’s testimony to entire sanctification. Berg determined to seek the experience, professing that he had found it in January 1945. By this time, Hollingsworth had returned to the United States, and prepared a report for presentation to the Board of General Superintendents, who enthusiastically approved the idea of establishing a Nazarene presence in Australia. After holding revival services in the Sydney suburb of Campsie, visiting American District Superintendent E.E. Zachary organised the Sydney group into the first Australian Church of the Nazarene on 3 November 1946, with 20 charter members and A.A. Clarke appointed as pastor. Zachary carried out a vigorous work of organisation, until his departure for the United States in December 1948, attempting to bring to this somewhat disparate and far-flung nucleus, among other things, ‘training in Nazarene techniques of administration’, a phrase that suggests a certain ‘by-the-book’ approach to church government.36 American Nazarenes seemed unaware of the history of revivalism in Australia. Perhaps their Australian friends were also uninformed about this aspect of Australia’s religious history. There was a tendency seen among both the Americans and the Australians to interpret Australian religious history in extremely bleak terms. When General Superintendent Dr G.B. Williamson visited Australia at the end of 1951, he claimed in his report that there had been no effective Holiness ministry in Australia in the 35 years prior to the establishment of the Church of the Nazarene. This is certainly an overstatement. Holiness teaching was not as Official Site of the International Church of the Nazarene, ‘Nazarene Church Statistics’, at http://nazarene.org/ministries/administration/statistics/display.html?parm=1, accessed 6 December 2012. 35 Official Site of the International Church of the Nazarene, ‘Nazarene Global Missions’, at http://globalmission.nazarene.org/regions.html 2, accessed 1 November 2012. 36 R.F. Cook, Water from Deep Wells (Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Publishing House, 1977), pp. 149–50. 34

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widely forgotten or neglected among Methodists as the Holiness people thought it to be. It is understandable that, coming as they largely did from Brethren and Baptist backgrounds, early Australian Nazarenes were encountering WesleyanHoliness teaching as something entirely new. More conservative Methodists, Pentecostals and those involved in the Keswick Convention movement were all aware of, and were promoting, varieties of holiness teaching in their own ways. Nonetheless, for these early Nazarene pioneers, the absence of holiness teaching in Australia was at least ‘subjectively’ true, and the hostility they evoked from other churches could only confirm their suspicions.37 Nazarenes had considerable success from the 1940s in church planting among Australia’s Indigenous people.38 The Nazarenes saw the establishment of city churches as the ‘backbone’ of their movement, with Sydney being preferred as a place for Zachary to settle, because of its larger population. Doug and Maysie Pinch, however, felt that ‘their sphere [was] among the wattles’.39 The Pinches worked for the United Aborigines Mission among the Bandjalang (or ‘Bundjalung’) people at Box Ridge in Coraki, about 30 km south of Lismore in northern NSW until their work was terminated when the Mission charged them with ‘heresy’ over their adoption of Nazarene teaching. The Bandjalang people, already marginalised from both white Australian society and other Aboriginal groups, proved very open to the Nazarene message and seemed to receive it as enthusiastically as they would later receive Pentecostal influences.40 By 1958 there were 13 Nazarene churches, with a total membership of 324. After the Billy Graham Crusade of 1959, in many ways a watershed moment for Holiness churches as they identified more fully with broader evangelicalism, American styles of religious piety began to influence Australian evangelicals more widely. Growth continued, as indicated by the 1991 census, which showed 1,532

D.B. McEwan, ‘An Examination of the Correspondence (1944–48) Relating to the Founding of the Church of the Nazarene in Australia’, A Paper Submitted to Professor Raser in Partial Fulfilment of the Course Requirements for History and Polity of the Church of the Nazarene, Nazarene Theological Seminary, 1984, p. 39. 38 G. O’Brien, ‘Their Sphere is Among the Wattles: Doug and Maysie Pinch and the Nazarene Mission to the Bandjalang’, Australian Journal of Mission Studies 2, no. 2 (Dec. 2008): 45–52. 39 A. Berg, letter to T. Hollingsworth, no date, but responding to a letter of Hollingsworth dated 6 June 1946. Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Archives. Alfred Chesson also felt called to be ‘among the wattles’ in rural, though not specifically Aboriginal, ministry. 40 M. Calley, ‘Pentecostalism among the Bandjalang’, in Aborigines Now, ed. Marie Reay (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1964), pp. 48–57; M. Calley, ‘Race Relations on the North Coast of New South Wales’, Oceania 27, no. 3 (1957): 189–209; M. Calley, ‘Aboriginal Pentecostalism: A Study of Changes in Religion, North Coast, NSW’ (MA thesis, University of Sydney, 1955). 37

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identifying with the Church of the Nazarene, 846 of these in Queensland.41 The Church began to advertise itself as ‘a church in the Methodist tradition’ in order to make its theological orientation clear to the public and also to take advantage of any former Methodists who may have been looking for an alternative to the Uniting Church. They may have gained some of these, since between 1977 and 1982 the Church of the Nazarene grew by a 54 per cent increase in members. In 2011 it had 35 churches, organised in three districts. The greatest concentration is in Queensland, where in 2011 its Northern Pacific District had 15 churches.42 The Wesleyan Methodist Church There are many parallels between the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia and the Church of the Nazarene.43 Both have formal links with American denominations in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, and both were established immediately after the Second World War through contacts between Australian Evangelical leaders and American servicemen. The Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia held its first official Conference in 1947. In 2012 it had 82 congregations in four Districts situated in five states, the strongest representation being in Victoria and south-east Queensland. In 2010 it reported a total membership of 2,075, with an average Sunday morning attendance of 3,418.44 In addition, the Church supports missionary work in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, Bougainville (PNG’s North Solomons Province), the Solomon Islands and Mozambique. It also has very strong links with the Wesleyan Methodist Church of New Zealand, formed in 2000 when a number of prominent Evangelical ministers withdrew from the Methodist Church of New Zealand.45 It is sometimes mistakenly assumed that Wesleyan Methodists are ‘continuing Methodists’ who chose to stay out of the union that formed the Uniting Church in 1977, just as there are ‘continuing’ Presbyterians and ‘continuing’ Congregationalists. This is not the case, as the Wesleyan Methodists were not part of the discussions leading to union. Some former Methodists did transfer to the Wesleyan Methodist Church after 1977, but not in large numbers. Its origins lay rather in connections established in the immediate post-Second World War period, between a Royal Australian Air Force Chaplain, the Rev. Kingsley M. Cited in R. Ward and R. Humphreys, Religious Bodies in Australia: A Comprehensive Guide (Melbourne: New Melbourne Press, 1995), p. 138. 42 Church of the Nazarene in Australia, ‘Nazarene Churches’, at http://www.nazarene. org.au/churches/, accessed 2 December 2011. 43 O’Brien, ‘Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia’, pp. 67–81. 44 Information provided on 22 March 2011 by National Statistician Heidi Wright. 45 R. Waugh, ‘Planting a Church Planting Denomination’, in New Vision New Zealand, vol. 4 (Auckland: MissionKoru, 2011). 41

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Ridgway, and the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America. Ridgway sought to establish a more revivalist Methodist Church in Australia that would bear the features of the North American Holiness movement into which he had married in 1929.46 The Church may be seen both as a new religious movement, emerging out of the post-war context of greater engagement between Australians and Americans, and as a new expression of the long-standing holiness and revivalist strain within Australian evangelicalism. The Wesleyan Methodist Church of America (originally called a ‘Connexion’) had been established in 1843, separating from the Methodist Episcopal Church over the issue of slavery.47 By 1945, when Kingsley Ridgway first made contact with the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America, it had drawn close to the mainstream of American religious life, being an active member of both the National Association of Evangelicals and the World Methodist Council, of which it was a charter member.48 In 1967 the American Church had grown to 82,358 members; by 2005 it numbered 128,385.49 The following year it merged with the Pilgrim Holiness Church to become simply ‘The Wesleyan Church’, though Australian Wesleyans successfully petitioned to retain the word ‘Methodist’ in their name.50 Globally, the Wesleyan Church in 2012 claimed ‘nearly 400,000 constituents in 5,000 churches and missions in 80 countries of the world’.51 Kingsley Ridgway’s hope that many disaffected Australian Methodists would join the Wesleyan Methodist Church went largely unmet and the pioneering years in Australia were very difficult. The Wesleyan Methodists were often looked upon by mainstream Australian evangelicals as ‘holy rollers’ and ‘sinless perfectionists’. Even separatist evangelicals of a more stridently ‘fundamentalist’ tone suspected them because they were associated with a highly organised American denomination, with codified rules and a defined polity that was thought to frustrate the freedom of the Spirit’s working. Though sometimes referred to as ‘that American group’, the early vision and G. O’Brien, Pioneer with a Passion: Kingsley Ridgway, Wesleyan-Holiness Pioneer, 2nd edn (Brisbane: Wesleyan Methodist Church, 2011); G. O’Brien, ‘Old Time Methodists in a New World: Kingsley Ridgway and A.B. Carson’, Lucas Special Issue – His Dominions: Explorations in Canadian-Australian Religious and Cultural Identity 29 ( June 2001): 63–83. 47 I.F. McLeister and R.S. Nicholson, Conscience and Commitment: The History of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America (Marion, IN: Wesley Press, 1976). 48 W.E. Caldwell, ed., Reformers and Revivalists: The History of the Wesleyan Church (Indianapolis, IN: Wesley Press, 1992). 49 Association of Religion Data Archives, at http://www.thearda.com/Denoms/ D_1466.asp, accessed 17 February 2011. 50 P. Westphal Thomas and P. William Thomas, The Days of our Pilgrimage: The History of the Pilgrim Holiness Church (Marion, IN: Wesley Press, 1976). 51 ‘Who are the Wesleyans?’, The Wesleyan Church, at http://www.wesleyan.org/about, accessed 1 November 2012. 46

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energy came from Australian leaders who were the authentic pioneers of the Church. American missionaries came as ‘support staff ’, and mutual respect characterised the relationship between Australian pioneers and their American sponsors. Seeking to avoid the accusation of paternalism, the Church from the beginning made an attempt to train and appoint an Australian leadership and to provide the new churches with self-sustaining autonomy. The emergence of this new denomination should not be seen as an instance of American religious imperialism but as an authentic movement of Australian Christians finding in their American cousins willing ‘sponsors’ who provided legitimacy for their efforts by means of a link with a recognised and established denomination.52 In spite of the chilly reception it received in its early days, when the Wesleyan Methodist Church held its fiftieth anniversary celebrations in Melbourne in 1996, representatives of almost all the mainline Protestant and Evangelical denominations were present to convey their congratulations. Wesleyans had moved from ‘outsider’ to ‘insider’ status partly because of an ability to reflect those broader aspects of Americanisation that had been integrated into Australian evangelicalism and to minimise those that had not. In supporting the Billy Graham Crusade of 1959 (Kingsley Ridgway was on the Melbourne organising committee) the Wesleyans positioned themselves more fully with the broader culture of evangelicalism over and against an older reactionary fundamentalism. In 1974 the Wesleyan Methodist Church still had only four churches in Melbourne and one in Sydney, though it had been operating in the country for over 25 years. Following the formation of the Uniting Church in 1977 there was some growth from ‘switchers’ but not to the degree that many Wesleyans anticipated. This opportunism regarding former Methodists, along with the application of then-popular church growth strategies, aided the opening up of Wesleyan Methodist work in Queensland at a rapid rate in the 1980s, under the leadership of the Rev. Don Hardgrave. Between 1975 and 1985 the Wesleyan Methodist Church experienced an annual growth rate of 20–25 per cent. Such rapid growth led to grandiose expectations on the part of some leaders who saw the Wesleyans spearheading a ‘spiritual awakening’, expected to spread throughout the country. This growth period for Wesleyans corresponded with a period of considerable tension in the Uniting Church. The 1980s and 1990s saw the latter denomination engaged in vigorous discussion over the place of gay and lesbian people in the Church, which alienated many conservative members. Another controversial issue arose when the 1985 Assembly forbade rebaptism of those baptised as infants, a decision which led to the withdrawal from the denomination of a number of larger Uniting Church congregations, including 52 G. O’Brien, ‘Anti-Americanism and Wesleyan-Holiness Churches in Australia’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 61, no. 2 (2010): 314–43, at pp. 342–3.

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Churchlands in Perth, O’Connor in Canberra and Rangeville in Toowoomba. In 1984, Australian National Superintendent the Rev. Thomas J. Blythe described the pattern of church planting over the previous four years as continuing to be ‘opportunistic, with most churches being started around groups of displaced Christians from the Uniting Church scene’.53 This base of ‘shifting Methodists’ led to a conversion growth of 37.5 per cent over the decade 1974–83. Between 1988 and 1992, the Church saw a further 64 per cent increase in membership from 1,049 to 1,799.54 The late Rev. Stan Baker led the Church through a period of stabilisation and maturity in the 1990s, including a re-evaluation of its membership commitments and a period of influence in the wider Pacific region. At the 2008 South Pacific Convention and National Conference held at Philip Island, Victoria, a new National Superintendent was appointed for a minimum term of four years. Queensland-born the Rev. Lindsay Cameron, along with his wife Dr Rosalea Cameron, returned from 10 years in Africa, during the last several of which he had served as Africa Area Director for the Wesleyan Church, a significant denominational appointment. A theologically conservative leader, he argued for a stronger centralised authority as a means of preserving the distinctiveness of Wesleyan Methodism, a stance that alienated some more progressive denominational leaders. He was succeeded as National Superintendent in 2012 by the Rev. Rex Rigby whose election was a notable event, as Rigby is the first Indigenous person ever to be appointed head of an Australian denomination. The 2012 South Pacific Convention held in Brisbane, 15–19 January, adopted a new regional structure that encompasses Australia, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands and Bougainville. The regional growth that has led to such a proposal has not been matched within Australia itself, however, with the earlier growth pattern having slowed down and levelled off. The Wesleyan Methodist Church began as a movement that placed very high demands upon its members but over time it has gradually moderated them, lessening its expectations and becoming more like the older established denominations in the process.55 The setting forth of a distinctive doctrine of holiness as a ‘second blessing’ has significantly waned in the Wesleyan Methodist Church. Little difference is now found between Wesleyan preaching on sanctification and general exhortations to godly living that might be found in any T.J. Blythe, ‘Report on Australia to the Wesleyan World Fellowship 1984 Marion Indiana’, p. 2, Wesleyan Archives, Indianapolis, Indiana. 54 T.J. Blythe, ‘Australian National Conference Report to the General Council of Wesleyan World Fellowship for the years 1988–1992, meeting at Indiana Wesleyan University, Marion, Indiana’, p. 2, Wesleyan Archives, Indianapolis, Indiana. 55 G. O’Brien, ‘Joining the Evangelical Club: The Movement of the Wesleyan-Holiness Churches in Australia along the Church-Sect Continuum’, Journal of Religious History 32, no. 3 (Sept. 2008): 320–44. 53

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Evangelical church. The growth and survival of the Church by ‘transfer’ rather than ‘convert’ growth has probably contributed to the lessening of its Holiness identity. In its official church pronouncements, and in its local networks, the Wesleyan Methodist Church’s posture seems warm towards individual members and churches of other denominations but decidedly cold towards the mainstream ecumenism represented by the WCC and its representative regional bodies. Continued reliance on the authority of the Bible and a general sense of being identifiably ‘Wesleyan’, rather than ‘Calvinist’, ‘Pentecostal’ or ‘Liberal’, have helped preserve some degree of uniqueness of identity and anchored the Church in theological conservatism. The Wesleyan Methodist Church has not had a significant influence on Australian evangelicalism, except perhaps in south-east Queensland where its numbers are relatively strong. Perhaps its greatest influence has been through Kingsley College, until 2008 a Member Institute of the Sydney College of Divinity (though it is located in Melbourne), where a large number of evangelical students from non-Wesleyan denominations have studied. The student body at Kingsley College (formerly Wesleyan Methodist Bible College) was always overwhelmingly non-Wesleyan, and it is likely that neither Kingsley College nor the Nazarene Theological College (which moved from Sydney to Brisbane in 1973) could have survived if not for students from other denominations. Future Prospects for Dialogue There is much room for improvement in relations between the Uniting Church and other Australian churches in the world Methodist family. The Wesleyans and Nazarenes tend to view the Uniting Church as theologically liberal and are especially wary of the Uniting Church’s greater openness to same-sex relationships. If Uniting Church members are aware of the existence of the Holiness churches, they tend to think of them as ‘those American groups’, a quite inaccurate perception given that their leadership and constituency have been Australian since their inception. Or they may think of them as reactionary fundamentalists, which is also inaccurate since, though certainly on the conservative end of the spectrum, Wesleyans and Nazarenes generally value Wesley’s ‘catholic spirit’ and typically engage quite happily with their fellow Christians. Joint membership in the World Methodist Council is alone reason enough for seeking greater engagement and more friendly cooperation.

Conclusion Glen O’Brien

Australian Methodists were given an opportunity in the early nineteenth century to establish their faith in an altogether new environment. While retaining a strong sense of kinship with the ‘mother’ churches of Britain they were not restrained by the ecclesial arrangements that prevailed in the old world. In the early disputes between Samuel Leigh and his fellow missionaries, discussed in Chapter 1, it became clear that close ties to the Church of England were unnecessary in NSW where Anglican pretensions to be a de facto established church never became a lasting reality. Methodists developed an understanding of themselves as a better kind of Anglican – Protestant but also Evangelical and missionary – the true heirs of the Reformation who had been ‘purified’ by the pietism of the eighteenth-century revivals. The idea that the eighteenth-century Church of England was a moribund institution on its last legs until rescued by the Methodist revival is one of the more egregious missteps of nineteenthcentury Methodists and is still sometimes heard even today. William Gibson has recently pointed out that this Methodist narrative has been so widely propagated that even Anglicans themselves have come to believe it.1 Revisionist historians like Gibson have shown that the eighteenth-century Church of England was in a much healthier spiritual state than Methodists have supposed.2 Rather than seeing Methodism as a revitalising force in competition with the Church of England, it should be seen rather as a sign of the vitality of the Established Church and one of several such movements of the period. While other formative influences must not go unnoticed, it was directly from his Church of England heritage that Wesley drew the overall shape of his Anglican Arminianism.3 While the posture of being ‘improved Anglicans’ was difficult to assert in the face of an Established Church and Methodists were considered Dissenters, W. Gibson, ‘“The Past is Another Country”: John Wesley’s History of Britain’, keynote address at the 13th Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies, 12–19 August, 2013. 2 W. Gibson, The Church of England, 1688–1832: Unity and Accord (London and New York: Routledge, 2001); J.C.D. Clark, English Society, 1660–1832: Religion, Ideology, and Politics in the Ancien Regime (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 3 D.A. Bullen, A Man of One Book? John Wesley’s Interpretation and Use of the Bible (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2007), p. xxviii. 1

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in the colonies there was nothing to dissent from and no need for churches to define themselves in relation to the Church of England. It was a level playing field in which the churches could compete for souls and may the best preachers win. In South Australia’s ‘paradise of dissent’ the opportunities for expansion on the back of devout immigrant farmers and miners from Methodist strongholds were even greater, leading to a representation of Methodists per population that would be hard to equal anywhere in the world. The regional chapters (2 to 6) all delineate the fortunes of Methodism in its new setting as it grew along with all the colonies towards national Federation and Methodist Union. Methodists in Australia were less restrained in regard to healing their historic divisions than was the case in Britain and Chapter 8 has traced the relatively smooth path towards union. Professor Kenneth Kinghorn used to tell his Methodist history students at Asbury Theological Seminary that not even God knew how many different Methodist churches were in existence.4 But if the nineteenth century was an era of Methodist schism, the twentieth century would prove to be one of convergence and reunion. Was it a greater pragmatism on the part of Australian Methodists that enabled them to achieve a union of all the major Methodist churches a full 30 years before a similar union was achieved in the United Kingdom? The ‘minor’ Methodists inhabited a different landscape than their counterparts at home, not only because Wesleyan Methodists were less tied to the Established Church but also because their home churches responded to their colonial counterparts in different ways. The Methodist New Connexion was much stronger in the United Kingdom than it ever became in Australia. Bible Christian and Primitive Methodist leaders in Britain seemed happy to allow their members in far flung Australia to join the Methodist church of their choosing. The fluidity that enabled a devout Methodist to move between the porous boundaries of different Methodist communions with ease made union much easier to achieve. No doubt there are important differences to be noted between Wesleyans and the ‘minor’ Methodists but we should resist the simplistic idea that the Wesleyans were more theologically ‘liberal’ and the minors more ‘evangelical’. Charles Wesley expressed the desire that God would ‘unite the pair so long disjoined: knowledge and vital piety’.5 On the issue of ministerial training of clergy, Wesleyans were as conflicted as others over which of these two elements should be given priority over the other.6 Though Primitive Methodists are usually considered more on the revivalist end of the spectrum, it should be Personal reminiscence of the author, a student at Asbury from 1996 to 1998. Hymn 461, Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodist (1780). 6 For a detailed study of the New Zealand situation, which mirrors the Australian experience closely, see S.J. Thompson, Knowledge and Vital Piety: Education for Methodist Ministry in New Zealand from the 1840s (Auckland: Wesley Historical Society, 2012). 4

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remembered that the English liberal-evangelical Arthur S. Peake, whose 1919 Commentary placed him at the centre of controversy in Australasian Methodism, was a Primitive Methodist and that W.H. Fitchett, who vigorously opposed the use of Peake’s Commentary in the Victorian Conference, was a Wesleyan. Division between liberal and conservative Methodists did not play out along strictly denominational lines so much as it was a pan-Methodist problem. It was the unique machinery of Methodism, the itinerancy, the circuit system and the centralising power of the Conference, that enabled Methodists to hold disparate opinions together in the one household without losing a strong sense of connectional identity. A strong united Methodist Church of Australasia entered the twentieth century on a wave of optimism and with every reason to anticipate further progress. It could not have anticipated the disruption to its trajectory represented by the ‘challenges of nationhood’ in the first five decades of the century and of the ‘swinging sixties’ that followed, outlined in Chapters 9 and 10. As was the case for all of the churches the 1950s represented for Methodists something of a high water mark in twentieth-century religious participation but it proved to be a false dawn. The loss of religious certainty in the following decades and the rapid pace of social change saw Methodism struggling to keep pace with an increasingly alienated constituency. In a book such as this it is impossible to cover every aspect of the story; it can only be hoped that this research will stimulate further studies in the field. Some readers may have noted the absence of the Northern Territory in this volume. Serious consideration was given to providing a chapter on the North, which represents a significant sphere of Methodist activity. Part of the reason why it is not included here is the very pragmatic consideration that after making every effort we could not find anybody willing to write such a chapter. In any case, Methodism never had a strong Connexional presence in the North but chose instead to work with other denominations. A.J. Bogle’s Wesleyan mission in Darwin in 1873 did not develop into a wider connexion. In 1926 the General Conference handed the remote areas of the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Queensland to the MIM and the decision was made to work jointly with the Presbyterian Australian Inland Mission which had been established in 1912. As noted in Chapter 6, Methodists, Presbyterian and Congregationalists accepted a comity arrangement whereby each would focus on different areas of the sparsely populated north, with Methodist activity being focused on Arnhem Land. These three denominations joined the United Church in North Australia in 1946, beating the rest of the country to an effective Protestant union by 31 years.7

7 W.W. and S. Emilsen, ‘The North’, in The Uniting Church in Australia: The First 25 Years, ed. W. Emilsen and S. Emilsen (Armadale, Vic.: Circa, 2003), pp. 67–9.

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Another limitation has been the need to keep the work to a manageable size. Chapters on theological education, social services and ecumenism would have enhanced the project but again limitations of size or availability of authors proved prohibitive. These three areas are touched upon in other chapters, however, and it is hoped that this will compensate to some degree for the lack of dedicated chapters on these topics. No doubt there will be many readers who will feel that this or that theme or person has been neglected or not given adequate coverage. We can only say that we tried our best through broad consultation to gauge a sense of our likely readership’s expectations and hope that the appearance of the present work will provide the impetus for a wider proliferation of studies. One of the features of Australian Methodism that contributed largely to its character was an ability to embrace a diversity of theological views. During the American fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the early twentieth century evangelical Protestantism allowed itself to become split over two concerns – social reform on the one hand, and personal piety on the other. In a kind of unspoken agreement (though often flaring up into pitched ideological battles) liberals would focus on justice and the conversion of society, and fundamentalists would focus on personal piety and the conversion of individuals. This unfortunate and unnecessary dichotomy stood in contrast to an earlier pattern which had considered both concerns to be part of the same mission. Methodists were less affected than some others by this split and in Australia such disputes were never played out as a ‘culture war’ as was the case in America. Methodism stands as an example of a church that tried long and hard to resist this division and to hold the two concerns together. The same strains are felt in the UCA where there has been an unwillingness to allow the Church to be defined by any one particular theological approach. Alan Walker stands as the finest example of a Methodism that was at once orthodox and radical. Theologically quite conservative he nonetheless was radical enough to attract the attention of Australia’s national security agency, ASIO. Methodism was born out of a Pietist insistence that while religious orthodoxy was valuable it was no guarantee of godliness. Wesley’s insistence that religion did not consist in opinions, however correct, but rather in the love of God and neighbour has influenced Methodists to place an emphasis on religious experience and social engagement as the best test of the validity of a person’s faith. When a selection of Wesley’s Sermons was chosen for inclusion in a book of ‘Historic Documents of the Uniting Church in Australia’, those chosen were focused on Christian experience – salvation by faith, justification by faith, the witness of the Spirit, the means of grace and Christian perfection.8 According to Michael Owen, when the Uniting Church listens to these sermons it will 8 M. Owen, ed., Witness of Faith: Historic Documents of the Uniting Church in Australia (Melbourne: Uniting Church Press, 1984), pp. 175–223.

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be listening to preaching ‘aimed at awakening and reviving faith, not to faith declaring what it believes, nor to systematic instruction in the faith’.9 The inner-city Missions of the UCA continue to carry the name ‘Wesley’ and Sydney’s Wesley Mission has been particularly concerned, under the leadership of the Rev. Dr Keith V. Garner, to emphasise the Methodist foundations of the Mission, producing booklets and study material including the DVD John Wesley: The Man and His Mission.10 Wesley Mission was perhaps the only UCA agency to commemorate, on 15 July 2012, the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the first Methodist class meeting in Sydney with a street march culminating in a celebration at the State Theatre. This marked the beginning of four years of celebratory events that will culminate in 2015 with the marking of the bicentenary of Samuel Leigh’s arrival in NSW.11 Methodism can be seen as in some ways the most Australian of churches. Though there were certainly strong ties to Methodist strongholds such as Cornwall, and to the northern industrial cities of England, it was from the beginning less ethnically defined than other denominations. Nor was it given to bitter theological disputes over finer points of doctrine; it preferred a ‘nononsense’ approach to spreading its message, with sleeves rolled up in an activist approach to the faith. Nineteenth-century disputes among Methodists in both Britain and America were not typically about doctrine. They focused instead on systems of church government, with a demand for more democratic representation in keeping with the rhetoric of liberty that came to prevail in the age of revolutions. Methodists also divided over issues of social justice, most notably in America over slavery, where the failure to reconcile differences led to the 1844 split between northern and southern Methodists. Today the unity of American Methodism is once again threatened on a social issue; this time samesex marriage and the rights of its LGBTIQ church members. While this debate certainly has theological underpinnings, it is perceived by many as at heart an issue of social justice, while for others it is a test of loyalty to an inherited faith. Australian Methodists were not involved in debating this particular issue prior to 1977 but their responses to the Vietnam War, to Aboriginal land rights, to immigration schemes and much else were driven in the same way by two competing concerns – faithfulness to a received tradition and the application of that tradition to fresh challenges. Of the three denominations that came together to form the UCA, Methodists were the most enthusiastic for union and put up the fewest roadblocks. Owen, Witness of Faith, p. 177. Wesley Mission, John Wesley: The Man and His Mission, dir. Richard Attieh (2013). 11 ‘Thanksgiving Service on Two Hundred Years of Methodism in Australia’, at http:// www.insights.uca.org.au/news/thanksgiving-on-200th-anniversary-of-methodism-inaustralia, accessed 25 March 2014. 9

10

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John Wesley’s ideal of a ‘catholic spirit’ of openness to all Christians helped Methodists forward into a willingness to lose aspects of their own identity for the sake of a higher good – the unity of God’s people. The UCA also desired to be a truly ‘Australian’ church and indeed it became that, since though the precedent bodies had their origins in Great Britain, the Church that came into existence on 22 June 1977 was a fresh opportunity for an Australian church that could leave behind old world divisions and start out on a fresh journey of faith. Although it was certainly not alone among the three in this respect, the way in which Methodism had flourished on Australian soil helped make such a Church possible. In its adaptation to the remote bush, its active engagement with the coastal population centres and its willingness to confront government policy when Christian principles were at stake, it was well fitted to make a contribution to such a project. The story of Methodism does not end in 1977, both because the Methodist spirit continues to inhabit the UCA and also because of the ongoing existence in Australia of other Methodist churches whose history continues to be made and written.

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Marshall, B. Mining, Ministry and Miracles: A Short History of the Eaglehawk Wesleyan Methodist Church, 1852–1900. Eaglehawk Uniting Church, 1998. Mathias, R. Mission to the Nation: The Story of Alan Walker’s Evangelistic Crusade. Melbourne: Joint Board of Christian Education, 1986. Methodist Church of Australasia, Methodist Handbook on Church Union. Melbourne: Melbourne Publishing House, 1964. Methodist Church of Australasia, New South Wales Conference. 100: Methodist Book Depot (NSW), 1858–1958. Sydney: Methodist NSW Conference, 1958. Methodist Church, Victoria. The Centenary of the Methodist Book Depot, 1859–1959. Melbourne: Methodist Book Depot, 1959. Methodist Ladies’ College. Seventy-five Years of Methodist Ladies’ College, Hawthorn, 1882–1957. Melbourne: Spectator, 1957. Methodist Missionary Society of Australasia. The First Report of the Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society. Sydney: Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, 1855. Morgan, J.V. Morgan’s Colonial Methodism in South Australia: An Annotated Pictorial Account of Aspects of Methodism, 1836–1900. Adelaide: Lynton, 1973. Morphy, H. ‘Mutual Conversion? The Methodist Church and the Yolngu, with Particular Reference to Yirrkala’, Humanities Research 12, no. 1 (2005): 41–53. O’Brien, G. ‘Anti-Americanism and Wesleyan-Holiness Churches in Australia’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 61, no. 2 (2010): 314–43. O’Brien, G. ‘“A Dogged Inch-by-Inch Affair”: The Church of the Nazarene in Australia 1945–1958’, Journal of Religious History, 27, no. 2 ( June 2003): 215–33. O’Brien, G. ‘“The Empire’s Titanic Struggle”: Victorian Methodism and the Great War’, Aldersgate Papers 10 (September 2012): 50–70. O’Brien, G. ‘Joining the Evangelical Club: The Movement of the WesleyanHoliness Churches in Australia along the Church-Sect Continuum’, Journal of Religious History 32, no. 3 (Sept. 2008): 320–44. O’Brien, G. ‘Not Radically a Dissenter: Samuel Leigh in the Colony of New South Wales’, Wesley and Methodist Studies 4 (2012): 51–69. O’Brien, G. ‘Methodist Encounters with Other Religious Traditions in the Southern World,’ Australian Journal of Mission Studies 8, no. 1 ( June 2014): 42–53 O’Brien, G. Pioneer with a Passion: Kingsley Ridgway, Wesleyan-Holiness Pioneer, 2nd edn. Brisbane: The Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia, 2011. O’Brien, G. ‘Their Sphere is Among the Wattles: Doug and Maysie Pinch and the Nazarene Mission to the Bandjalang’, Australian Journal of Mission Studies 2, no. 2 (Dec. 2008): 45–52.

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Walker, A. A Vision for the World: Alan Walker tells his Story. Melbourne: New Melbourne Press, 1999. Walker, A. What Shall We Do with the Germans? Melbourne: Pacifist Council of Australia, c. 1946. Walker, A. The Whole Gospel for the Whole World. London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1958. Walker, F.T. The Golden Heart of Labour: The Story of the Men’s Own Movement. Sydney: Methodist Book Depot, 1919. Walker, R.B. ‘The Growth and Typology of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in New South Wales, 1812–1901’, Journal of Religious History, 6, no. 4 (1971): 331–47. Walker, R.B. ‘Methodism in the “Paradise of Dissent”, 1837–1900’, Journal of Religious History 5, no. 4 (1969): 331–47. Ward, J.F. Prince Alfred College: The Story of the First Eighty Years, 1867–1948. Adelaide: Gillingham, 1951. Watsford, J. Glorious Gospel Triumphs: As Seen in My Life and Work in Fiji and Australasia. London: Charles Kelly, 1900. Webb, B.L. The Religious Significance of the War. Sydney: n.p., 1915. Whitby, K., and E.G. Clancy. Great the Heritage: The Story of Methodism in N.S.W. 1812–1975. Sydney: The Division of Interpretation and Communication of the N.S.W. Methodist Conference, 1975. Whittington, V. Women of Compassion. The Sisters of the People: Their Mission and Work in Western Australia 1893–1977. Perth: Vera Whittington, 2002. Williams, C.W. John Wesley’s Theology Today: A Study of the Wesleyan Tradition in the Light of Current Theological Dialogue. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1961. Winter, Sean, ed. Immense, Unfathomed, Unconfined: The Grace of God in Creation, Church, and Community. Essays in Honour of Norman Young. Melbourne: Uniting Academic Press, 2013. Wood, A.H. Overseas Mission of the Australian Methodist Church, 5 vols. Melbourne: Aldersgate Press, 1973–87. Wood, D’A. What future for the Australian Churches? Enfield, NSW: Leigh College, 1973. Wood, J. ‘The Role of Women in the Methodist Church: A Personal Reflection’, Proceedings of the Uniting Church Historical Society Synod of Victoria 10, no. 1 (2003): 65–73. Wright, D. Alan Walker: Conscience of the Nation. Adelaide: Openbook, 1997. Wright, D. Dalmar: A Century of Caring for Women and Children. Sydney: Wesley Mission, 1993. Wright, D. Mantle of Christ: A History of the Sydney Central Methodist Mission. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1984.

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Wright, D., and E.G. Clancy. The Methodists: A History of Methodism in New South Wales. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993. Young, N. Introducing the Basis of Union. Melbourne: Joint Board of Christian Education, 1971. Young, N. ‘Ministerial Education in the Victoria and Tasmania Conference, 1874–1977’, Aldersgate Papers 10 (2012): 95–110. Young, N. Queen’s College and its Theologs: Reflecting Church and Society. Parkville, Vic.: Queen’s College, University of Melbourne, 1999. Young, N. Sugden as Theological Educator: Inheritance and Legacy. Parkville, Vic.: Queen’s College, University of Melbourne, 2001. Young, R. The Southern World: Journal of a Deputation from the Wesleyan Conference to Australia and Polynesia: Including Notices of a Visit to the Gold Fields. London: Hamilton, Adams, 1854. Zainu’ddin, A.G.T. They Dreamt of a School: A Centenary History of Methodist Ladies’ College Kew, 1882–1982. Melbourne: Hyland House, 1982. Theses and Dissertations Bailey, A.V. ‘Launceston Wesleyan Methodists, 1832–1849: Contributions, Commerce, Conscience’. PhD thesis, University of Tasmania, 2008. Brown, B.T. ‘Warrnambool’s Wesleyan Heritage, 1847–1977’. MA thesis, Deakin University, 2003. Clancy, E.G. ‘The Primitive Methodist Church in New South Wales, 1845– 1902’. MA thesis, Macquarie University, 1985. Frappell, S. ‘Building Jerusalem: Post-war Reconstruction and the Churches in NSW’. PhD thesis, University of Sydney, 1996. Hicks, N. ‘The Establishment of a Central Methodist Mission in Adelaide’. BA Honours thesis, University of Adelaide, 1966. Howe, R. ‘From Goldfields to Community: Ballarat 1856–1866’. BA Honours thesis, University of Melbourne, 1960. Howe, R. ‘The Wesleyan Church in Victoria, 1855–1901: Its Ministry and Membership’. MA thesis, University of Melbourne, 1965. O’Brien, G. ‘North American Wesleyan-Holiness Churches in Australia’. PhD thesis, La Trobe University, 2005. Smith, G.M. ‘Transplanting Tradition: The History of Kingswood College’. MPhil thesis, Murdoch University, 2009. Somerville, A. ‘The Training of the Methodist Ministry in New South Wales, 1919–1939’. MA thesis, Macquarie University, Sydney, 1982. Tibbs, P. ‘Illawarra Methodism in the Nineteenth Century: A Comparative Study of Primitive Methodism and Wesleyan Methodism in Wollongong, 1838–1902’. BA thesis, University of Wollongong, 1981.

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Subject Index This is a subject index covering the Introduction, Conclusion and main text of the book. All personal names can be found in the Name Index. Aboriginal peoples 102, 154–5, 184 mission to 199–202, 204–5, 252–3 agape meal, see love feasts aged care 101, 142 Alexander’s Hymns no.3 192, 193–4 All Saints College, see George Brown Missionary Training College ALP, see Australian Labour Party (ALP) American Methodism 3, 7, 8–9, 170, 245, 277 see also Australian Methodism; Methodism Anglican Church 48, 60–61, 107–8 see also Church of England anthems 193–4 anthropology 231 Anzac myth 10–11 APDA, see Australian Protestant Defence Association (APDA) apologist-activist scholars 230–32 assimilation of Indigenous peoples 102, 154 Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Conference 248 Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Connexion 27 Australia District, formation of 23 Australian federation 8, 124 Australian Hymn Book, The 192 Australian Labour Party (ALP) 88n53, 136 Australian Legend, The (Russel Ward) 9 Australian Methodism ambiguity of identity 27 British roots 245, 273

challenges of modern society 149–50, 277 decline before union 258 diverse theology 276–7 early growth 21–3, 30–31 and federation 43–4 legacy to Uniting Church 257–9, 262–3 political and social activities 11 political involvement 42–3 purpose in secular age 151–3 relationship to British Methodism 109–10 revivals 171 union 43–4 see also American Methodism; Methodism Australian Protestant Defence Association (APDA) 136 Bandjalang people 267 baptism 187–8 Barclay College 103 bark petition 154, 155 Basis of Union (1885) 121, 122–3 Basis of Union (1892) 124, 125 Bible Christian Bush Mission of South Australia 67 Bible Christian Foreign Missionary Society 6 Bible Christian Women’s Missionary Board 73 Bible Christians 7, 25, 120

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in goldfields 48 in NSW 29, 33 and revivals 170 in South Australia 59–60, 67, 69 in Western Australia 97 worship 71 Billy Graham Crusade 210, 267 Board of Missions, Sydney 203, 206–7 Boer War 116–17 Book of Common Prayer 181, 182, 184, 187 Book of Offices 187 British Conference 5–6 colonial representatives 107–8 influence on Australian church 109 Buntingdale mission 201–2 Centenary of Methodism (1915) 137 Central Methodist Mission (CMM) 56, 134, 153, 156–7 Century in the Pacific, A ( James Colwell) 228 Century of Victorian Methodism (C.I. Benson) 230 chaplains, army 139–40 Charismatic movements 179 see also evangelical churches children’s homes 141–2 Chinese congregations 50, 67, 86, 97 Chinese Methodist Church of Australia (CMCA) 263–5 choirs 184, 192–4 Christian Endeavour societies 73, 99, 135, 176 Christian morality in war 138–9 Christian perfection, doctrine, see entire sanctification, doctrine Christian socialism 43 Christian Women Concerned 223 Christian Work in Australasia ( James Bickford) 248 Church Act 1836 (New South Wales) 37, 41 church architecture 136, 189–90 church extension 99 Church Missionary Society (CMS) 198

Church of England influence 45 relations with Methodism 15, 17, 18–19, 20 in South Australia 70–71 see also Anglican Church Church of the Nazarene 265–8 church outreach 22 church tea, see love feasts Church Worship Society 188–9 circuit riders 9, 16 circuit system 48 civic life 49–50, 52–3 class meetings 99, 169–70 decline 54, 69–70, 176–7 CMCA, see Chinese Methodist Church of Australia (CMCA) CMM, see Central Methodist Mission (CMM) CMS, see Church Missionary Society (CMS) Coaltown: A Social Survey of Cessnock N.S.W. (Alan Walker) 231 commemorative histories 248–51 Commission on the Status of Women 223–4 Commonwealth Crusade for Christ 146 Conference 4–5 influence 35 role in union 123–4 in South Australia 63 congregationalism 120–21 congregations class distinction 50, 51, 54, 68 decline in attendance 56, 135–6 Connexionalism 62–4 conscientious objectors 162–3 conscription 99–100, 140, 162–4 see also military training; war conversion experiences 177–80 convicts 22, 93, 95 see also penal colonies Cornish congregations 62 Cornish influence 64–5 Cornish miners 50

Subject Index ‘cottage religion’ 215 covenant services 190 Croker Island Mission 205 deaconesses 222–3 Defence Act (1909) 138 demographics of Methodism in NSW 33–5 in Queensland 79 in South Australia 59–60 denominational divisions 38–9, 121, 123 see also union Dig Tree 255 disabled, care for 101 dispossession of Indigenous peoples 92 dissention 21, 273–4 Dorcas Societies 52 Easter Rebellion (1916) 140 ecumenism 38–9, 70–71, 141, 156, 272 education 162 in goldfields 48–9 Irish system 18 in NSW 41–2 in South Australia 68–9 state funding 18 in Victoria 55–6 in Western Australia 99 Elcho Island 205 Empire Britain’s imperial mission 116–18 consolidation 108–9 Methodism strengthening ties 111–12 Methodist contribution to 2–3, 114–16, 117, 197 religious experiences in 175 Empire of the Spirit (David Hempton) 255 entire sanctification, doctrine 173–6, 265 evangelical churches 272 see also Charismatic movements evangelism 32, 61, 66–7, 104–5, 170–73 in NSW 36–7 post WWII 145–6 in Western Australia 102–3

295

Expansion of England, The (Sir John Seeley) 112 Federal Council 127–8 fellowship tea, see love feasts Festal Songs for Sunday School Anniversaries (E.H. Sugden) 195 Fiji 203, 208 Forward Movement 56–7 ‘fraternal workers’ 206 fund raising 20 General Conference (1894) 125–7 George Brown Missionary Training College 207 gold rush 46 goldfields 48–50, 96–7 ‘goldfields’ Methodism 45, 46–50, 58 Good Samaritan Industries 101 Goulburn Island 204–5 governance, denominational 35, 48, 53, 62–3, 77, 169–70 lay involvement 120–21 Great Depression 144–5 Greater Britain (Charles Dilke) 112 historians 237–9 Holiness Association 174 Holiness ministry 266–7 Holiness movement, American 174, 265 Holy Communion 181, 185–7 home, role of women 212–14 Honest to God ( John Robinson) 152 hymns 71, 191–2 Idea of Perfection in Christian Theology, The (Robert Newton Flew) 175 immigration 30–31, 134 imperial mission of Empire 116–18 Indigenous peoples 22, 29, 67, 84–7, 100–101, 102 mission to 93–4, 154–5, 197, 199–202 Nazarene church planting 267 industrialisation 134–5

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isolation 93, 94–6 Labour movement in NSW 42–3 in Queensland 88–9 see also Australian Labour Party (ALP) labour trade 84–7, 86 Ladies Auxiliary to the Foreign Missionary Society 209 Ladies Auxiliary (Wesleyan Missionary Society) 39 laity 61–2 involvement in denominational governance 120–21 land rights 154–5 lay ministry 6, 15–16, 35–6, 92 lay preachers 35–6, 61–2, 183 influence in goldfields 48–9 significance 15–16 lectionary 185 Lectures on Revivals of Religion (Charles Grandison Finney) 172 ‘Legal Hundred’ 4, 6 Letters and Papers from Prison (Dietrich Bonhoeffer) 152 Lifeline 156–7 liturgical worship 181–2, 187, 188–9 LMS, see London Missionary Society (LMS) local preachers 35–6, 61–2, 183 influence in goldfields 48–9 significance 15–16 London Missionary Society (LMS) 198 London Peace Society 139 ‘long prayer’ 184 Lord’s Day Observance Society 43 love feasts 171, 190 Making of the English Working Class, The (E.P. Thompson) 167–8 media, use of 36, 63, 142 Melanesian Mission 204 Melbourne 51–4 Men’s Own Movement (Sydney) 144 Methodism conservative tendencies 244

dissenting status 18 and Empire 2–3, 111–12, 114–16, 117, 197 flexibility of organisation 1–2, 4, 31–2, 164, 258–9, 278 governance 35, 48, 53, 62–3, 77, 120–21, 169–70 growing prestige 112–13 historiography 2–4 joyful religion 167–8 legacy to Uniting Church 276–7 masculine image 139, 140–41 relations with Anglican Communion 107–8 relations with Church of England 15, 17, 18–19, 20 relevance in twentieth-century life 146–7 religious experience 168–9 respectability of 217–18 root doctrines 169 social message 245 spirituality in twentieth century 176–9 and WWI 137–41 see also American Methodism; Australian Methodism Methodist Girls’ Comradeship (MGC) 144, 221 Methodist Hymn Book 192 Methodist Inland Mission (MIM) 100 Methodist Ladies College (MLC) 99, 217 Methodist New Connexion 6–7, 25, 59–60, 121 Methodist New Connexion Missionary Society 6 Methodist Order of Knights (MOK) 143–4 Methodist Overseas Mission (MOM) 220–21 Methodist scholars 229–33, 237 MGC, see Methodist Girls’ Comradeship (MGC) military training 138–9 see also conscription; war

Subject Index MIM, see Methodist Inland Mission (MIM) mining religion, in South Australia 64–5 ministers candidates 143 changing roles 55 characteristics 19–20 taking up arms 139, 140 wives 55, 216–17 ministry, equality in 221–4 missiological scholars 239–41 Mission to the Nation 102, 146 missionaries 206–7, 208 as scholars 227–8 women 209, 219–21 missionary societies 198, 204, 206 see also individual mission society entries missions affecting society 207 to convicts 198 effect of war 205 finance 208 to Indigenous peoples 197, 199–202, 203–6, 252–3 work of 134–5 MLC, see Methodist Ladies College (MLC) modern society challenges of 149–50, 221 social alienation in 156–7, 159–61 Mogumber Methodist Mission 102 MOK, see Methodist Order of Knights (MOK) MOM, see Methodist Overseas Mission (MOM) Moonta Mines Wesleyan Church 65 music 191–5 mystic scholars 232–3 natural scientists 236–7 New Mind for a New Age, A (Alan Walker) 153 New South Wales (NSW) commemorative history of 250–51 demographic split of Methodism 33–5 governance of Church 35

297

Methodist church buildings 29 Sunday Schools 40–41 union achieved 130 Newington College, see Wesleyan Collegiate Institution Northern Territory 275 Northern Territory Mission 67, 204–5 NSW, see New South Wales (NSW) Nyungar people 92–4 ordination of women 100, 103, 104, 221–4 organists 193 outback outreach 66–7, 100 Pacific Islanders impact of missions 209–10 labour trade 84–7 ministers 104 mission to 197, 203–6 in Uniting Church 262 pacifism 139, 231 Pan-Anglican Congress (1908) 107 pastoralism 202 penal colonies 8, 45, 213 see also convicts Pentecostal movement 175, 178–9 pietism 76–80 Pleasant Sunday Afternoon 142 poor relief 134–5 prayer, extempore 181, 183–4 preacher-scholars 229–30 Presbyterian Australian Inland Mission 100 Primitive Methodist Missionary Society 6 Primitive Methodists 7, 25, 50, 119–20 in goldfields 48 in Melbourne 51 in NSW 29, 33 and Pacific Island labourers 87 in Queensland 80–81 refusing union in New Zealand 125 and revivals 170 in South Australia 59–60 in Western Australia 97 worship 71 Prince Alfred College 68–9

298

Methodism in Australia

Protectorate, Port Phillip 201 Protestant union 103–5 providential histories 246–8 Providentialism 245–6 Queen’s College, Melbourne 55 Queensland commemorative history of 251 demographic split of Methodism 79 interdenominational nature 76–7 political affiliations of Methodists 78 union achieved 128 racial discrimination 153–4 reflexive histories 251–6 religious life, discipline 69–70, 216 Revivalism and Social Reform in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America (Timothy L. Smith) 172–3 revivals 32, 36–7 content 170–73 early 20th Century 134 economic factors leading to 173 in goldfields 49 in South Australia 61 Roman Catholic Church and Australian Labour Party (ALP) 88n53 relations with Methodism 38, 70, 136, 140 Rotuma 203 rural churches 66–7 rural religion 53, 64 Sabbatarianism 43, 83–4 sacraments 181–2, 185–8 Samoa 203, 208 science and religion 162 scripture readings, in worship 185 sectarianism 6, 38, 70, 136, 140 Secular City, The (Harvey Cox) 152 secularism 37, 151–3 sermons 72, 182, 185 Sharpville Massacre 153 Sisters of the People 96–7, 99, 219–20

social alienation in modern society 156–7, 159–61 social mobility 34–5, 52, 88–9 social reform 43, 173 social responsibility 81–3 social work 134–5, 141–5, 156–7 socialism 65, 144 ‘solidarity’ pledge 43 soloists 194 Solomon Islands 204, 207 Solomon Islands Christianity (Alan Tippett) 240 South Australia Anglican Church 60–61 demographic split of Methodism 59–60 education 68–9 history of 253–4 rapid growth 23–6 religious free market 60–61 rural churches 66–7 rural religion 64 suburban churches 67–9 union achieved 128 women in Methodism 73–4 worship 71–2 South Australian Conference, formation 63 state aid to churches 24–5, 51 in education 18 suburban churches 67–9 suffrage movement 217, 218 Sunday Schools 157 anniversaries 194–5 in NSW 40–41 teaching singing 194–5 ‘Swan River Mania’ 91 Tasmania influence of Wesleyan Methodism 45–6 rural religion 53 union achieved 129–30 Teenage Cabaret (Brisbane) 156, 158–9 temperance 43, 50, 164 temperance movement 39, 53, 73, 214 testimonies 177–9

Subject Index

299

theologians 233–6 theological training 55–6, 99, 103, 142–3 This Side of Heaven (Arnold Hunt) 253–4 Timor 206 Tonga 203, 208 Topographical Dictionary to the Works of Shakespeare and his Fellow Dramatists (Edward Sugden) 228 trade unionism 42–3 see also Australian Labour Party (ALP); Labour movement Triton (mission ship) 203

Victoria education 55–6 formation of colony 46 influence of Wesleyan Methodism 45–6 rural religion 53 theological training 55–6 union achieved 129–30 Victoria and Tasmania Conference, ‘Jubilee History’ 249–50 Victorian Methodist Home Mission Department 53 Vietnam War 162–4, 232, 237

UCA, see Uniting Church in Australia UMFC, see United Methodist Free Church (UMFC) union 43–4, 274 achieved 130–31 in Canada 121, 124–5 church life after 259–60 factors leading to 119 full Protestant 141 inter-church conference (Brunswick) 123 in Ireland 121 in New Zealand 125 in NSW 130 objections to 125–7 in Queensland 128 in South Australia 128 in Victoria and Tasmania 129–30 in Western Australia 97–8 United Methodist Free Church (UMFC) 120–21 in NSW 29, 33 in South Australia 59–60 Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) 104–5, 277–8 historiography of 255–6 Methodism’s legacy 257–9, 262–3, 276–7

war

Van Diemen’s Land 45 see also Tasmania

attitudes to 162–4 effect on mission 205 justified 137–8 preservation of Christian morality 138–9 recruitment activities of ministers 138 see also conscription; Vietnam War; World War I; World War II watch-night services 190 Way College 69 Wayside Chapel 159–61 WCTU, see Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) Wellington Valley Mission 200 Wesley Church, Melbourne 52 Wesley Heritage Conference 255 Wesley Mission, Sydney 277 Wesleyan Church Extension Fund 63–4 Wesleyan Collegiate Institution 41–2 Wesleyan Methodism attitudes to union 122 and Australian born generation 54 conservatism 57 disputes with minor Methodists 25–6 in Melbourne 51–2 in NSW 29 in Queensland 80 in South Australia 59–60 in Victoria and Tasmania 45–6

300

Methodism in Australia

in Western Australia 91–2 worship 71 Wesleyan Methodist Association 7 Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australasia 95 Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia 268–72 Wesleyan Methodist Conference 4 Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (WMMS) 109–10 attitude in mission 203 missions to Aboriginal peoples 199–200, 201, 202 Wesley’s house, dedication 112–13 Wesley’s Influence upon Australia (Edward Sugden) 229 Wesley’s sermons, legacy 276–7 Wesley’s Standard Sermons (Edward Sugden) 228 Western Australia commemorative history of 251 convicts 93 education 99 evangelism 102–3 goldfields 96–7 isolation 93, 94–6 union achieved 97–8 Wesleyan Methodism 91–2 Western Australia District 95–6

WMMS, see Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (WMMS) women in Methodism 39–40, 52–3, 135, 224 church and home dichotomy 211–12 ‘cottage religion’ 215 in goldfields 49 ‘good mother’ 221 ministers wives 55, 216–17 missionaries 209, 219–21 ordination 221–4 preachers 183, 217–18 role in home 212–14 self-mastery 216 in South Australia 73–4 Women’s Auxiliary for Foreign Missions 220 Women’s Auxiliary to Overseas Missions, see Ladies Auxiliary to the Foreign Missionary Society Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) 39, 53, 73, 218–19 World Methodist Council 257 World War I 137–41 World War II 145 worship 71–2, 181–5 Yirrkala Methodist Mission 154, 205 Yolngu people 154–5, 240 youth outreach 143–4, 157–9

Name Index This is a personal name index covering all people mentioned in the text of the book. Subjects, places and organisations are covered in the Subject index. Adamson, John 82–3 Addison, J. 80 Ahlstrom, Sidney E., on the 1960s 150 Albiston, Edward 233 Alexander, Charles 134, 192 Allan, Thomas 97, 100 Allen, Jane 213 Anderson, Benedict, on nationalisms 8 Angwin, Thomas 32 Armstrong, Francis 93 Asbury, Francis 6, 7, 170–71 Ashender, Harriet 74 Austin, J.S. 174 Auva’a, Fa’ato’ese 104 Bailey, Anne, on rise of Launceston 45 Baker, Stan 271 Bangs, Nathan 265 Barber, Bruce 236 Barber, Calvert 234 Barclay, Arthur 100, 103 Barnett, Dorothy 220 Barnett, Oswald 54 Barton, John 123 Bath, Henry 129 Battye, John Sykes 96 Bayley, Thomas 120 Beale, William H. 138 Bell, Duncan, on Empire 108 Belshaw, Mary 101 Benson, C. Irving 10, 46, 229–30, 250 Berg, Albert Anthony Erikson 265, 266 Berry, Henry 52

Betts, Walter 175 Bickford, E.S. 53 Bickford, James 71, 248–9 Billing, Marian 96 Billing, Minnie 209 Birch, Charles 236–7 Black, Alan, on membership decline 258 Blacker, John 226–7 Blainey, Geoffrey 226, 232, 256 Blamires, William 122, 129, 249–50 Blatchford, James 26 Blythe, Thomas J. 271 Bogle, Archibald 67, 275 Bollen, J.D. 252 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 152 Bonython, Langdon 68 Bonython, Phyllis 223 Booth, Catherine 217 Bourke, Richard 18 Bourne, Hugh 120, 170 Bowden, Jane 213 Bowden, Thomas 15, 18 Bowes, Euphemia Bridges 40, 217, 219 Bowes, Joseph 202 Bowling, Gordon 179 Bowmer, John 36 Bowring, J.A. 174 Boyce, William Binnington 23, 26–7, 110, 225–6, 248 Bray, Alec 143 Brentnall, Elizabeth 217 Brentnall, Frederick T. 77, 82, 86 Brenton, William C.H. 177

302

Methodism in Australia

Bresee, Phineas F. 265 Breward, Ian 254 on charismatic movements 179 on history of Australasian churches 3 Briggs, Asa, on Melbourne 54 Brisbane, Thomas 17–18 Bromilow, Lilly 209 Bromilow, William 204 Brookes, William 84, 85 Broughton, William 18 Brown, Barry, on women preachers 183 Brown, Callum G., on the 1960s 150 Brown, George 1, 40, 137, 197–8, 204, 206, 207–8, 227–8 Brown, Mary Elizabeth 40 Bruntnell, Albert 136 Buckle, J. 80 Buckley, William 249 Bunting, Jabez 35 Burgess, Henry 91, 127–8 Burgess, William 36 Burke, Robert O’Hara 255 Burnett, Matthew 49 Burt, Arthur 97 Burton, John W. 206 Butters, William 46, 47 Cable, Ken 252 Cameron, Lindsay 271 Cameron, Rosalea 271 Carruthers, James E. 36, 107–8, 113, 133–4, 138 Cartwright, Richard 15 Carvosso, Benjamin 20, 21, 23, 198 Casley, Robert 126 Cato, Fred 54 Chadwick, Henry 235 Chapman, J. Wilbur 134, 181 Chaseling, Wilbur S. 240 Chesswell, G. 125 Chiew, Albert 264 Clancy, Eric 238, 255 on Empire 108 on evangelism 36 on history of Methodism in NSW 3

Clarke, A.A. 266 Clarke, Ern 102 Clarke, Michael 120 Clewes, Catherine 20, 213 Clipsham, Paul 36 Clowes, William 120, 170 Cocks, Kate 222 Coke, Thomas 5–6 Cole, G.D.H. 56–7 Cole, George William 25 Cole, Henry 26 Coles, John Cowley 10, 174 Colley, Linda, on Empire 108 Colley, W. 80 Collins, Thomas 30 Colton, John 68 Colton, Mary 219 Colwell, Frederick 137, 138 Colwell, James 1, 228, 246, 250–51 Cook, Joseph 1, 43 Cook, Thomas 103, 172 Copeland, Thomas 123 Cox, Harvey 152 Cross, W.R., on revivals 173 Cruikshank, Joanna, on emotional call of Methodism 2 Currie, Robert, on ecumenism 258 Dalgarno, Isabella 214 Daniel, George 121 Danks, Benjamin 206, 210 Darling, Lieutenant H.F. 98 Dart, William 85 Davey, Arnold 68 Dawe, Bruce 222 Delves, John 36 Dempsey, Kenneth on church governance 35 on rural Methodism 178 Dicker, Gordon 206, 236 Dilke, Charles 108 Dingle, John 97 Dow, Lorenzo 170 Draper, Daniel 23, 24–5, 48, 51–2, 172 Drayton, Dean 258

Name Index Dredge, James 201 Dudley, Hannah 204 Dunn, John 68 Eager, Edward 1, 15, 17, 18, 20, 252 Earnshaw, Beverley, on Sunday Schools 195 East, Samuel 24 Eccles, John 236 Edgar, Alexander 56 Edwards, Jonathan 169 Eggleston, John 24 Erskine, George 20, 21, 246 Evans, Harry 72 Evatt, Herbert 232 Everingham, George 36 Fahey, Charles, on Cornish miners 50 Faulding, Francis 68 Fegan, John 42 Fellowes, S.B. 204 Fennell, H.H. 100 Ferguson, Charles, on American Methodism 8 Ferguson, Ronald Munro 137 Finney, Charles Grandison 172 Fitchett, William H. 1, 55, 126, 134, 137, 234, 275 on union 125, 129–30 and Wesleyan Methodism 57 on women in Methodism 217 works by 114 Fletcher, Brian, on Australian Hymn Book Committee 192 Fletcher, M. Scott 234 Flew, Robert Newton 175 Forrest, John 99 Forsyth, P.T. 152 Forsyth, Samuel 144 Foy, Loie 67 Francis, Laura 219 Fraser, Dorothy 220 Garlett, Sealin 102 Garner, Keith V. 277 Garrard, Jacob 38, 42

303

Gartell, James 68 Geddes, Margaret 103 George, Mary 74 George, Raymond, on worship 185 George Topou, King of Tonga 197 Gibson, William 273 Giese, Roland 103 Gill, Silas 31, 36 Gillingham, J.W. 68 Goldie, Helena 209 Goldie, John Francis 204 Goldring, Harriet 97 Goold, Stephen 38, 120 Gough, John George 42, 43 Graham, Billy 232 Graham, James 35 Green, James 117 Green, Joseph 103 Greenwood, Elizabeth 216 Gribble, Cecil 154–5, 206 Griffith, Edward 77 Grimmett, Ian 234, 236 Guthrey, Neville 261 Ha, James 263–4 Halévy, Elie on conservative non-conformity 244 on evangelical religion and revolution 2 Hall, John 160–61 Hancock, Henry Lipson 65 Hancock, Henry Richard 65 Hancock, John 56 Hardey, Joseph 91–2, 95 Hardey, Sarah 99 Hardgrave, Don 270 Harris, Edwin Gordon 177 Harris, George 68 Harris, John, on Edgar Wells 155 Hartley, Frank 237 Hartley, Marshall 117 Hartley, Raymond Wesley on church architecture 190 on form of worship 184–5 on Holy Communion 186 on liturgy 182, 188

304

Methodism in Australia

on local preachers 183 on union and worship styles 195 Hartley, Robert 79, 80, 87 Hasluck, Paul 155 Hassall, Ann 212 Hassall, Mary 19, 213 Hassall, Rowland 212 Hastings, Adrian 257 Heighway, Mrs 209 Hellewell, Elizabeth 220 Hempton, David 255–6 on hymn singing 191 on spread of Methodism 16 on women in Methodism 211 Henry, William 212–13 Hilliard, David on the 1960s 150 on revivals 171 Hirst, John, on Australia’s nation builders 11 Hobart, S.J. 221 Holden, A.T. 10 Holder, Frederick 68 Hollingsworth, Meredith T. 266 Horne, Robert 179 Horton, William 199–200, 246 Hosking, Ann 213 Hosking, John 15, 18 Hoss, Elijah 137 Howard, John 1, 11 Howe, Renate 239, 252 on historical accounts of Methodism 11 on Methodist demographics 177 on social mobility 34 Hughes, Hugh Price 56, 116, 219 Hughes, William 82, 100, 140 Hunt, Arnold D. 161, 238, 253–4, 255 on the 1960s 149–50 on church architecture 189–90 on Holy Communion 186–7 on Methodism in South Australia 3, 26 on Methodist union 259–60 on prayer 183, 184 on sermons 182 Hunt, Ralph, G. 177

Hurst, Benjamin 201 Hutchinson, A.J. 86 Hutchinson, Mary 214 Hyndell, Cissy 34 Jackling, Noel, on church architecture 189 Jago, John 154–5 James, Philip H. 177 James, William 124–5 Jenkins, Charles 251 Jessep, Thomas 38, 136 Jewell, Arthur G. 177 Johnson, Raynor Carey 232–3 Keen, Samuel 26 Kelly, Ned 10, 174 Kelynack, William 111, 113–14 Kilham, Alexander 6 King, Martin Luther, Jr 151, 232 King, Robert 88 Kinghorn, Kenneth 274 Kwang, James 264 Lalor, Peter 46 Lamilami, Lazurus 205 Lancaster, Janet ‘Mummy’ 178–9 Lane, William 22 Lang, Gilbert 77 Lang, John Dunmore 76, 80 Lawry, Walter 19–20, 21, 198–9, 213 Lawson, Ronald on Brentnall 82 on social composition of Methodism in Queensland 81 Lee, Mary 219 Lees, Samuel 38 Leigh, Samuel 7–8, 15, 137, 198–9, 213, 273, 277 early ministry 16–17 in England 20 relations with Anglicans 18–19 relations with Lawry 19–20 Lewis, Frederick 22 Lidgett, John Scott 257 Lightbody, William 23

Name Index Lightfoot, Daryl, on influence of Thomas Collins 30 Lilley, W. Osborne 77, 84 Linder, R.D., on Australian Labour Party 43 Ling, Reverend 50 Linley, Clement 121 Lloyd, Jennifer, on women in Methodism 211 Lock, Annie 100–101 Lockwood, Frederick 123 Loiterton, Susannah 215, 216 Longbottom, William 24 Lowe, Beulah 241 Lowe, William 94 Lowry, E.O. 98 Lucas, Glenn 255 McCrea-McMahon, Dorothy 223–4 McGavran, Donald 240 McGregor, Athol 100 Macgregor, William 204 Mack, Phyllis on emotional call of Methodism 2 on women in Methodism 211 McKenny, John 22 McKernan, Michael, on ministers’ war recruitment activities 138 McKibbin, Sam 146 Macky, Dill 136 McLachlan, N.D. 252 McLaren, G. 143 MacLaren, Gilbert 175 Macleod, George 151 McMillan, William 42 Macquarie, Lachlan 17 McRidge, May 101 Maddox, Graham 237 Maddox, Marion, on John Howard 11 Maddox, Robert 235 Madge, M.H. 68 Mallison, John 239 Malseed, Herbert W.R. 177 Maltby, W. Russell 178 Mannix, Daniel 140

305

Mansfield, Lydia 213 Mansfield, Ralph 20, 21, 198 Manton, J.A. 41 March, Jessie 205 Marsden, Samuel 20, 198, 245–6 Marshall, Brendon, on goldfields Methodism 49 Martin, George 36 Martin, James 68 Matters, T.J. 68 Maughan, James 121 May, Jim 193, 194 Melville, Ninian 42 Meyer, Arthur 104 Miakowah 97 Mitchell, D.F. 77 Mitchell, Joseph 42 Mol, Hans, on Methodist union 259 Moore, William 80 Moorehouse, Bernice 101 Morphy, Howard 253 Morton, Harry O. 151 Murcutt, Ada 97 Neild, J.C. 42 Nelson, Hugh 88 Newcomb, Caroline 216 Newman, William 54 Newton, Arch 179 Nicholls, Elizabeth Webb 73 Noffs, Ted 152, 159–61 Nolan, Sara 40 Norwood, Mary Jane 216–17 O’Bryan, William 7, 74, 120 O’Kane, Thaddeus 81 Oram, Joseph 246 O’Reilly, Mary 220 Ormandy, W.J. 100 Orton, Joseph 21–2, 24, 171, 183–4, 200, 246, 249 Orton, Sarah 213 Osborn, Eric 235 Osborne, John 37 Osmond, George A. 177–8

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Overend, Harold 230 Owen, Michael 276–7 Pardey, Norman G. 161 Paton, John G. 85 Peake, Arthur S. 275 Peck, Jesse 265 Pepper, T.J. 77 Philip, Robert 88 Pickford, Pauline 155 Pidgeon, Nathaniel 214 Piggin, Stuart, on revivals 32 Pinch, Doug 267 Pinch, Maysie 267 Powell, Walter 46 Powell, William 80 Preston, Arthur 158–9 Price, Tom 68 Pritchard, Mrs 216 Quong, Paul Soong 97 Rankin, Thomas 170 Rayward, F.W. 156 Reed, Henry 46, 249 Reeson, Margaret 240 Rentoul, T.C. 178–9, 230 Reynolds, Thomas 24 Richey, Russell 245 on American Methodism 3, 5 Ride, John 120 Ridgway, Kingsley M. 268–9, 270 Rigby, Rex 271 Robe, Frederick 24 Robinson, George Augustus 1, 201 Robinson, John 151 Robson, William 136 Rooney, Isaac 210 Rooney, Rabone 204 Rowe, Elizabeth 73 Rowe, George 96–7 Rowe, James 26, 120 Rowe, Kenneth, on American Methodism 3 Royden, Maude 221

Russell, Alexander 71 Rutledge, Arthur 88 Rutledge, William W. 136 Sanders, Margaret 104 Sangster, William 175, 229 Sankey, Ira 192 Scaddan, John 100 Schmidt, Jean Miller, on American Methodism 3 Schneider, A.G., on American Methodism 8–9 Schofield, Ellen 209 Schofield, W. 23, 171, 174, 246 Scholes, Lillian 222 Scott, John 20 Scott, Rose 139 Scotter, Roy 194 Seeley, J.R. 108 Sellors, Richard 126 Serle, Geoffrey, on goldfields Methodism 46–7, 48 Sharpe, John 36 Shenton, George 95, 96 Skuse, Jean 223–4 Smith, Fanny Cochrane 215 Smith, Gervase 111 Smith, John B. 249–50 Smith, Timothy L., on revivals 172 Smithies, John 92–4, 95, 202 Snell, Merle 103 Sobukwe, Robert 153 Somerville, Margaret 205 Soper, Donald Oliver 229, 231 Spence, Catherine Helen 72 Spence, William Guthrie 1, 50 Spicer, Edward 68 Stead, Charles 81 Stephens, Edward 24 Stephens, John 24 Stephenson, Jabez 122, 126, 127–8 Stephenson, Thomas B. 112 Stewart, James 83–4 Stirling, James 92

Name Index Stranger, Elijah 52 Sugden, Edward H. 1, 55–7, 174–5, 195, 228–9 on the settlement of Australia 243–4 Sullivan, Presage 103 Sutcliffe, Joseph 19 Sutton, Ralph 101 Swinburne, George 54 Symons, John 47, 202 Tack, Joseph Tear 67 Tassell, Gladys van 83 Taylor, Isabella 97 Taylor, Theophilus 182 Taylor, William ‘California’ 37, 49, 172, 174 Taylor, William George 37, 137, 138, 174, 219 Thatcher, Thomas 80 Thom, William 6 Thomas, John 203 Thomas, William 201 Thompson, E.P. on nature of British Methodism 78, 167 on women in Methodism 211 Thompson, Isola Florence 40 Thompson, John Day 72 Thompson, Roger C., on the 1960s 150 Thorne Lake, Serena 1, 74, 218–19 Threlfall, Neville 255 Tinney, Jeannie 209 Tippett, Alan R. 240 Tom, William ‘Parson’ 36 Tong, Leon On 50 Torrey, Reuben A. 134 Towers, Noreen 158, 223 Townend, Joseph 120 Towner, Denis, on Methodism in NSW 31 Trudgen, N.W. 68 Tuckfield, Francis 201–2 Udy, Gloster 238–9 Udy, James 238–9, 255 on Methodist heritage in Uniting Church 260–62

307

on Methodist union 259 Udy, Richard 238–9 U’ren, David, on goldfields Methodism 49 Valenze, Deborah, on women in Methodism 211 Varley, Henry 172 Verran, John 65 Vickery, Ebenezer 37, 42 Vidler, John 36 Wade, Margaret 40 Wakefield, Gordon S. 178 Waldeck, Frederick 93 Walker, Alan 1, 254, 255, 276 and the Charismatic movement 179 on Church and State 152 as evangelist 102–3, 146, 156–8, 159 life and career 230–32 and politics 161–2 on racial equality 153–4 on Vietnam War 163 Walker, Eleanor 209 Walker, Eliza 213 Walker, Frederick T. 144 Walker, R.B. 252 on entire sanctification 174 Walker, William 199 Ward, Russel, on national image of Australia 9 Waterhouse, George Marsden 25 Waterhouse, T.G. 68 Watford, James 23 Watkin, Edwin 122, 123, 126 Watsford, Frederick 126 Watsford, John 32, 174 Watson, James 205 Watson, Ray 149 Watson, Richard 21–2 Watts, George 120 Watts, Robert 103 Way, James 26, 120 Way, Samuel 68, 115–16, 117, 127, 129 Wearne, Joseph 38 Weatherhead, Leslie 229, 232–3

308

Methodism in Australia

Weatherstone, John 24 Webb, B. Linden 139 Webb, Thomas Theodor 205 Webber, Elizabeth 66 Weber, Max, on sociological theories of Methodism 2 Weeks, Ian 236 Wells, Anne E. 240 Wells, Edgar 154–5, 240–41 Wesley, Charles 1, 191 Wesley, John 1, 167 on hymns 191–2 and local preachers 183 mission to America 7 as record keeper 243 style of worship 181–2 on women in Methodism 211 Wesson, Alfred 103 Wheen, John G. 206 White, John Charles 24 White, Samuel 66 Whitefield, George 1, 169 Whitlam, Gough 232 Widney, Joseph P. 265 Wilberforce, William 108 Wilkinson, Reverend 115

Williams, Colin W. 152, 234–5 Williams, Ella 104 Williams, J. 80 Williams, William 122, 125, 129 Williamson, G.B. 266 Wills, William John 255 Wilson, Bryan, on ecumenism 258 Wood, Harold 188–9, 192, 239–40, 257, 262 Worral, Henry 204 Wright, Don 238 on Empire 108 on F.W. Rayward 156 on history of Methodism in NSW 3 on post-war missions 146 Wright, John Gibbon 26 Wright, June 223 Wylde, Thomas 17 Wyly, Isabella 215 Young, Gordon 206 Young, Norman 234, 235–6 Young, Robert 26–7, 47, 94–5, 246–8 Zachary, E.F. 266 Zayan, Margaret 104