July 1966 School Magazine

Brisbane Girls' Grammar School Magazine

July, 1966

Brisbane Girls' Grammar School Magazine

July, 1966

In 1929 , John Frewer became Bishop. The See city is now at Broome wher e a small pro-cathedral, the Church of the Annunciation, stands. Hostels for children as well as a Missions to Seamen have been established at Geraldton but there are no large schools in the district and in the last forty years the Diocese generally has not progressed satisfactorily. With the discovery of gold at Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie in the 90's the P?P!-!lation of. the area gre~ rapidly. Distai:ice made episcopal supervision' very d1ff1cult and m 1914, the D10cese of Kalgoorlie was created, covering the Western portion of Western Australia. The first Bishop of the diocese , the Rev. Cyril Henry Golding-Bird , was consecrated in St. Andrew's Cathedral , Sydney by Archbishop Wright, the Primate . . Kalgoorlie was "310,000 square miles of endless red sand, scraggy gum trees .. .." whose inhabitants lived "a hand to mouth existence and generally speaking had not much conscious religion" . By 1914 the first glory of the Golden Mile had faded and with the nearness of war ; men were leaving the goldfields for the financially safer occupation of farming. The first Synod met in 1914, but the North-West was not represented until 1921. The Diocese of Kalgoorlie is prospering-attendance at services is excellent and one of its more interesting activities is the "Navvy's Mission" established in 1915 on the Trans-Australian Railway where services are held at various camps along the line and correspondence classes are also organized for the children. With the construction of Mundaring Weir and the consequent solving of the water problem-Sir Cornthwaite Rason remembered "when hosts looked anxiously at their guests, not to see how much whisky they might drink but at how much water they might take with it"- the economic situation of the land has improved and Kalgoorlie has grown no smaller as she had been doing for some years. The clergy of Kalgoorlie were many and faithful over the years of its existence but one man contributed much without ever setting foot in the country-Viscount Chewton, a sufferer from infantile paralysis who contributed £200 per annum for the necessities of Kalgoorlie's Bishop . Unfortunately, com- munities which depend on mineral wealth often tend to flourish and fade. Kalgoorlie has suffered from this; Coolgardie is now but a shadow of the town it once was. In 1950, there were only three priests in the diocese, and the Bishop, C. E . B . Muschamp, became Assistant Bishop of Perth to ease the financial situation in Kalgoorlie, but the need for this has now passed and Perth has its own Assistant to the Archbishop . From the days of John Bussell and John Wollaston, throughout the history of the Province of Western Australia, the leaders of this unendowed Church in "this remote wilderness" -have tried to lay sound foundations "in spite of inevitable mistakes and weakness incident to our mortality .... and one and all would say to their successors of the future : 'Let every man take heed now he build thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than is laid , which is Jesus Christ'. " The first Divine Service held in South Australia was conducted on Kangaroo Island, on 27th July, 1836, by Captain Morgan of the "Duke of York", 'one of the first ships to bring settlers to this ·colony . The Church of England 5ervice was used , and the service concluded with a prayer of thanksgiving for the saf<. arrival of ship and settlers. Later, during Colonel Light's explorations, · Divine Service was held each Sunday, beginning on 11th December, 1836, in the tent of Kingston, the surveyor, when a temporary camp was made at Holdfast Bay (Glenelg). The first colonial chaplain, Rev . Char'es Beaumont Howard, arrived with Governor Hindmarsh. On December 28th and on 1st January, 1837, in a govern- ment hut, Howard held his first two services, preaching "an excellent and impressive sermon". Howard accompanied the move of the settlers to Adelaide, conducting services there "under the shelter of a large sail", near the site of the present Trinity Church. Services were held in a rush-and-boughs building in fine weather and a room in the courthouse in rainy seasons, until the permanent church could be built . Its foundation stone was laid on 26th January, 1838, and the building completed and dedicated to the Holy Trinity in August, 1839. By this time, services were also held in a customs shed at Port Adelaide. In 1848, the church was consecrated by Bishop Short and became the pro-cathedral when a diocese was formed, until the Bishop 's seat was transferred to Christ Church, North Adelaide .

As settlement spread, other churches were opened-St. John's Adelaide, the wooden church of St. Paul' s-on-the-pi les at Port Adelaide and St . Mary's-on-the- Stuart in 1841; St. James', Blakiston, was dedicated in 1847 and by 1848, the Woodford, Gawler and Walkerville districts had built churches . In July, 1843, Howard, earnest, active and popular, died from overwork. His assistant, the Rev. James Farrell, who had arrived in 1840, succeeded him and in 1846, two more ministers, the Revs. William James Woodstock and James Pollitt, arrived and were appointed to St. John' s, Adelaide, and Blakiston, respectively. Later, in 1846, Rev. Newenham and the Rev. Coombes arrived to serve Port Adelaide and Gawler. The Governor (Lieut.-Colonel Robe) decreed a grant-in-aid to be allotted to the various denominations on tl1e basis of membership. This was to prove of considerable benefit to the growing church. It continued until 1851, when the Legis lative Council repealed it and it has never been revived . Also , apart from the Colonial chaplain, ministers were to be supported by their congregations ; th is did much to put the church on a level with other denominations. Through the monetary aid of Angela Burdett-Coutts, the diocese of South Australia (Western Australia included) was set up in 184 and Dr. Augustus Short was chosen as first Bishop. He was at once confronted by difficulties. The local Supreme Court, supported by the Privy Council, deprived him of the Cathedral site reserved . by the two previous governors and also annulled his Letters Patent, which had conferred certain territorial and ecclesiastical juris- dictions on him. Lack of church organization involved him in two rather unpleasant law suits which showed how lacking in effective power his position was. He found himself at tl1e head of "a voluntary society wi th no privileges" and set to work to give his diocese a " dignified and unassailable position". He tried to provide effective organization and to put it on a sound financial basis . Farrell became Dean of Adelaide and Matthew Hale his Archdeacon. The diocese was visited a synod established by consensual pact and a chapter for the cathedral founded. Church officers were elected and a diocesan library set up . Farrell also accomplished the founding of St. Barnabas' theological college and two grammar schools for boys-St. Peter's Collegiate School and Pulteney School. The Cathedral of St. Peter was a lso begun. At the time of his resignation in 1881, Adelaide had progressed from five to fifty pries t s and had 212 lay readers. Bishop Short was succeeded by Bishop George Wyndham Kennion. ' During his episcopate, a Home Mission Society, similar to that foun~ed by B_1s~op Barker in Sydney, was set up to provide funds for church expansion. A m1ss10n steamer was also · bought and p roperly equipped to serve the needs,_ both spiritual and material, of the settlers along the banks of the M1:1rray River, In 1894, having added more than forty churches to the d10cese, Bishop Kenmon be~ame Bishop of Bath and Wells in England and was succeeded by . John Regmald Harmer. Bishop Harmer was a well known scholar and also the hterary executor of Bishop Lightfoot of Durham. In Bishop Harmer's time, the Cathedral Church of St. Peter was completed. In 1947, the Society of the .Sacred Mission C?f. Kelham, England, e_stablished a house at Crafers, near Adelaide, to be a trummg _college fo_r candidates. for Holy Orders. It is the_ onl)I monastic o_rder for me!' 10 Austraha and has smce received several Austrahans mto the Society. Two similar orders for women, the Sisters of the Church and the Community of the Holy Name, have branch houses in Adelaide . In 1915, the northern archdeaconary. was constituted an. ipdep':'ndent diocese, Willochra. By this, it was hoped to give more regular mmistrat1ons and_ over- sight to the scattered settlements in the _north and on t~e E_yre Pem!'sula. Bishop Gilbert White having done outstandmg work as a priest m the D10cese of North Queensland' and later as first Bishop of Carpentaria, was chosen as first Bishop . Richard Thomas, a fellow North-Queenslander, founded the Bush Brotherhood of St. Stephen in 1928 to try to meet the needs of the more sparsely settled areas . With two other priests to help him, the Rev. A. S. K. Barker became first Warden. Headquarters were at Quor_n and th<;! breth~en ministered in the Quorn district, and along the Transcontmental Railway Lme and the Cockburn Railway Line. Further brothers . ~oined t he staff and the_ Bush Brotherhood continued until 1942, when war c~nd1t10ns p~event~d the gammg of further recruits. To-day, the Bush Churc~ Aid Society 1s. domg much of the work previously done by the Brotherhood m Soutl1 Australia.

. J. .,

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