335. Henry VARLEY,
Brethren evangelist (The War between Heaven and Hell In Melbourne) Baptist
"Henry Varley was born in 1836 in Lincolnshire, but moved to London at 13 to work as an errand boy. He became a Christian in 1851 while training as a butcher ..."
HENRY VARLEY (1835-1912)
VARLEY, HENRY (1835-1912) - by Margaret Yarwood Lamb
(b. Tattershall, Lincolnshire, England, 25 Oct 1835;
d. Brighton, England, 30 March 1912).
Non-denominational (Brethren) evangelist.
Henry Varley, whose father was a brewer and evangelical mother a headmistress, learned the butcher's trade. Converted under Baptist Noel's ministry in 1851 he sailed to Australia in 1854. Unsuccessful as a gold seeker, he prospered as a butcher in Geelong. Returning with his trade to London he married Sarah Pickworth and won an honest reputation. Varley commenced working with a mission to pig feeders at Notting Dale. Each Sunday he walked the streets which reeked of boiling pig wash, encouraging residents to meet for hymn singing and a short Bible message. From 12 adults, numbers quickly grew to 700. Though criticised for commencing an unaffiliated church Varley insisted his congregation would not feel at home in a traditional church.
Varley's persuasive premillennial preaching attracted Charles Spurgeon who invited him to preach to 5000 at The Metropolitan Tabernacle. Varley prayed for effectiveness in the 'wholesale business' of winning souls. Aware of his dependence on the indwelling Christ he strove for personal holiness; as his people prayed his ministry was inspired by God's Spirit and following his meetings in Brantford, Canada, there was a 'blaze of revival'. Varley's work as international evangelist commenced in Melbourne in 1877 with over 1000 responses; many employers remarked great change in converted workmen. Varley, always forthright, criticised Bp Moorhouse for encouraging Christians to attend the theatre. His Sin and Social Wickedness in Melbourne, (Melbourne, 1891) denounced gambling rackets, land boom swindlers and newspaper editors whose policy was 'serve God in such a way ... [that] the devil and bad men are not offended'. From 1888 Varley, who retained a lifelong passion for evangelism, regarded Melbourne as home; he rejoiced that many Australians converted in 1877 remained vital. One of the Youngs, a significant evangelical family, was converted through Varley's preaching. He had challenged Dwight Moody to become wholly committed for God's use; under Varley's preaching Gypsy Smith's father was converted. F B Meyer regarded him as one of the great evangelists of the Victorian era.
REFERENCE: -
R Torrey, Why God Used D. L. Moody (New York, 1923); H Varley, Henry Varley's Life-Story (London, nd); Willing Work, 3 Nov 1877.
MARGARET YARWOOD LAMB, - HENRY VARLEY (1835-1912) - Non-denominational (Brethren) evangelist. Australia Dictionary of Eveangelical Biography - online at alphacrucis.edu.au
335+. "EFFIE" Ethel Russell VARLEY - missionary to Nigeria - and grandaughter of Henry Varley
"EFFIE" Ethel Russell VARLEY - missionary to Nigeria - and grandaughter of Henry Varley' (b. Melbourne, Vic, 6 July 1900; d. Jos, Nigeria, 15 March 1966). Missionary in Nigeria.
FROM : - Australia Dictionary of Eveangelical Biography - online at alphacrucis.edu.au
VARLEY, Ethel Russel ('Effie') (1900-1966)
by
David Turnbull
VARLEY, ETHEL RUSSEL 'EFFIE
Effie Varley was the grand daughter of Henry Varley (q.v.) a world renowned evangelist. Frank Varley, her father, was a prominent evangelical in Melbourne. Whilst attending the Chapman Alexander Mission in Melbourne, she gave her life to Jesus Christ and was later baptized at the age of 11 or 12. Her church involvement was primarily with the Baptist Church, especially in East Malvern, and the Melbourne Gospel Crusade. She had three sisters and one brother. After completing her schooling at University High School, she, attended the Pharmacy College and became the first woman dispenser at the Melbourne Hospital. She also completed a short nursing course at Bethesda hospital, a Diploma in Sunday School Teaching and night classes at MBI.
Effie explained to a supporters' dinner in 1927 that 'at the age of 8 definitely wanted to be a missionary and as the years went on the desire increased'. Her cousin, Charles Hummel, who served in Nigeria, earlier directed her thoughts to West Africa. She applied in 1922 to Sudan Interior Mission in Toronto because this society was unrepresented in Australia. On arriving in Nigeria in 1923, she took up an appointment at Miango amongst the Iregwe people.
She received no formal language training but a facile tongue and the creation of a bush dispensary facilitated her reception. As a church developed and thrived there, she branched out into the surrounding countryside. She was famous for her trekking, 20 or 30 miles a day in the tropical heat, knitting as she walked, to seek out enquirers, encourage isolated believers, alleviate physical needs and assist local churches. In addition, Varley contributed to the translation of the Scriptures for the Iregwe people. She was also very supportive of attempts to rescue the second twin from being killed after birth, a local custom. Not surprisingly, Effie Varley was beloved by Nigerians and during her last illness an old pastor held her hand as she died.
SOURCES:
* W S Clack, We Will Go: The history of 70 years training men and women for World Missionary Ministry (Melbourne, 1990)
* SELECT WRITINGS: E R Varley, Stories from Miango (London: SIM, nd)
by DAVID TURNBULL
Electronic Version © Southern Cross College, 2004 - Content © Evangelical History Association of Australia and the author, 2004
336. John VERRAN (1856-1932), Primitive Methodist Labor Politicion, Premier of South Australia, Temperence campaigner
& son John Stanley VERRAN (1883 Moonta SA –1952 Unley SA) Rechabite, Temperence campaigner, people.
-From Ausralian Dictionary of Biography - ADB Online
Verran, John Stanley (1883–1952) - by Arnold D. Hunt
John Stanley Verran is a minor entry in this article
[His father] John Verran (1856-1932), miner and premier, was born on 9 August 1856, and baptized in the pit at Gwennap, Cornwall, England, twin son of John Spargoe Verran, copperminer, and his wife Elizabeth Jane, née Harvey. The family migrated to South Australia in 1857, living for eight years in Kapunda before moving to the Cornish settlement at Moonta. Having received only a few months elementary education, at the age of 10 John started work as a 'pickey-table boy' in the copper-mines. The ministers of the Primitive Methodist Church encouraged him to read and influenced him by their support of trade unionism. Through teaching in the Sunday School and through preaching, he learned to argue a case in public and was later to say, 'I am an M.P. because I am a P.M.' After a short spell gold-mining in Queensland, Verran returned to Moonta where he was a miner for over thirty years and a popular president of the Amalgamated Miners' Association (1895-1913). As a gradual reformist, he was suspicious of direct action. On 21 February 1880 at Moonta he had married Catherine Trembath (d.1914); they were to have eight children.
Defeated in the elections of 1896 and 1899, Verran was returned as Labor member for Wallaroo in the South Australian House of Assembly by-election of 1901. In 1909, on the death of Tom Price, premier of a Labor-Liberal coalition, Verran took over the Labor leadership and the coalition was dissolved. Labor won the subsequent election and on 3 June 1910 he became premier of the first all-Labor government in South Australia; he was also commissioner of public works.
His administration lasted less than twenty-one months. Shortly after taking office, it faced a drivers' strike which led to riots in the streets of Adelaide and to criticism of Verran's handling of the problem. The ministry spent considerable sums on railways and harbours, and its Advances for Homes Act (1911) allowed the State Bank of South Australia to grant loans to poorer people, but the Legislative Council thwarted the government's attempt to establish state brickyards and timber mills. Relations between the assembly and the council bedevilled the government; Verran petitioned the British parliament to legislate to override the council; in January 1912 he called an election over the Upper House's power to veto legislation passed by the Lower. Labor lost. One factor in his defeat had been the transport strike on the eve of the elections which divided the labour movement and frightened voters. Having lost support within his party, Verran resigned the leadership. He was excluded from Crawford Vaughan's Labor cabinet in 1915-17.
During World War I Verran became a vituperative critic of South Australians of German birth or descent. He made no allowances for those from pioneer families or for those who had been naturalized: 'They have German names and a German is a German. I have no bowels of compassion on this matter'. Wishing such persons to be removed from government departments, he also supported the closure of Lutheran schools and introduced a bill to prevent 'Germans' from voting in State elections, unless their sons had enlisted.
The bluff, flamboyant Verran was short and stout, with a goatee that had been full and black in his youth. While he often used Cornish idiom, his grammatical lapses gave a comical dimension to his repartee: 'Ef yore brains wuz dynamite and they wuz to iggsplode, 'twouldn't blaw yer 'at off'. His parliamentary speeches were replete with Biblical allusions and stories were repeated for years about his idiosyncratic sermons: 'There are no flies on God' was one of his comments on the divinity. 'Honest John' was an 'unconventional champion of the conventions' who was respected even when he espoused unpopular causes.
In the national debates over conscription in 1916-17 Verran supported W. M. Hughes and became a Nationalist. Campaigning for conscription, he alienated his Moonta constituency and lost his seat in 1918 to R. S. Richards, a fellow Methodist and future Labor premier. Verran lost when he again contested Wallaroo as an Independent in 1921 and a Liberal in 1924. President of the National Party in South Australia in 1922, he unsuccessfully stood for the Senate that year and for the House of Representatives in 1925. The South Australian parliament appointed him to a casual vacancy in the Senate in 1927; he was defeated at the elections next year. He found it hard to get work, but was employed briefly as a timekeeper for a construction company and as a supervisor on the wheat stacks at Wallaroo.
Apart from the Methodist Church and Freemasonry, Verran's main interest was the temperance movement. He had signed the pledge as a young man and joined the Rechabites. 'Your signboard has fallen down', he once said to a publican, pointing to a drunkard in the gutter. Verran often appeared on temperance platforms, especially during the State referendum on early-closing in 1915. Survived by three sons and four daughters, he died at Unley on 7 June 1932; after a State funeral he was buried in Moonta cemetery.
His son John Stanley (1883-1952) was born on 24 December 1883 at Moonta. With his brothers and sisters, he experienced a strict Methodist upbringing which was relieved by his mother's wit and flexibility. Having worked in the mines as a youth, he took a job as a clerk at Port Adelaide and became president of the State branch of the Federated Clerks' Union and of the Australian Government Workers' Association. On 21 April 1913 in the Methodist manse, South Terrace, Adelaide, he married Ethel Clara Watson; they were to have two children before they divorced. He was a Labor member of the House of Assembly for Port Adelaide in 1918-27, but failed in his bid to enter the Senate in 1931. Survived by his son and daughter, John Stanley Verran died of a coronary occlusion on 30 August 1952 and was buried in Moonta cemetery.
Select Bibliography
H. T. Burgess (ed), Cyclopedia of South Australia, vol 1 (Adel, 1907)
O. Pryor, Australia's Little Cornwall, (Adel, 1962)
D. J. Murphy (ed), Labor in Politics (Brisb, 1975)
D. Dunstan, Felicia, the Political Memoirs of Don Dunstan (Melb, 1981)
D. Jaensch (ed), The Flinders History of South Australia (Adel, 1986)
Parliamentary Debate (South Australia), 24 Nov 1915, 31 Oct 1917
Mail (Adelaide), 20 July 1912
Australasian, 8 July 1922
News (Adelaide), 7 July 1931
Chronicle (Adelaide), 16 July 1931
Advertiser (Adelaide), 8 June 1932, 2 Sept 1952, 16 June 1984
Australian Christian Commonwealth, 17 June 1932
R. J. Miller, The Fall of the Verran Government, 1911-12 (B.A. Hons thesis, University of Adelaide, 1965).
336.A John James VIRGO (1865–1956)
John James Virgo was a young Adelaide accountant in the early 1880s when he was taken to hear Emilia Baeyertz preach. The event was a spiritual turning point for him. A few months later Virgo attended a YMCA social. He joined this organisation and within two years became general secretary of the Adelaide branch. In 1900 he became secretary of the Australasian Union of YMCA, and in 1911 secretary of the London Central YMCA. In Adelaide Virgo's aim was to renew the organisation's spiritual focus. For 14 years he held evangelical services at the Theatre Royal on Sunday evenings, with between one and two thousand people regularly attending. At one time Virgo caused some controversy by inviting the Jewish Rabbi, Abraham Boas, to give a lecture at the YMCA about Shakespeare. Virgo realised that it took more than just religion to attract young men to the organisation, and so he also focussed on developing the YMCA's sporting facilities - he claimed to have introduced basketball to Adelaide. Virgo established Our Boys' Institute as a junior branch of the YMCA. He eventually settled in England, but did much travelling. On tour at the age of 70 he delivered 101 speeches in 80 days. Virgo died in Dorset in 1956. ~ State Library of South Australia
Virgo, John James (1865–1956)
by Jim Daly
This article was published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 12, (MUP), 1990
John James Virgo (1865-1956), administrator and evangelist, was born on 22 April 1865 at Glenelg, Adelaide, eldest of eight children of Caleb Virgo, carpenter, and his wife Mary, née Swan. Leaving Glenelg Grammar School, Jack worked as a clerk and joined the South Australian Literary Societies' Union. On 7 November 1886 in Adelaide he married Lucy Stapleton Crabb (d.1915); they were to have a daughter and three sons. He became acting secretary of the Adelaide Young Men's Christian Association; following the secretary's conviction for embezzling association funds, Virgo was confirmed in the position in 1887. Membership and activities increased.
He established the Our Boys' Institute as a separate branch and developed educational and sporting programmes with Christian emphases. He also began the famous Sunday-night Theatre Royal evangelical services which attracted between one and two thousand people. Virgo conducted the choir and led the singing in a fine baritone voice; a practised elocutionist, he delivered a spiritual message as the evening's climax.
His muscular Christianity suited the Y.M.C.A., Lacking the 'sissified complexes of the goody-goody', he had a gregarious nature and a gentle tolerance; he seemed incapable of indignation. In 1894 he attended the jubilee international Y.M.C.A. conference in London and in 1900 became secretary of the Australasian Union of Y.M.C.A.s. In 1903 he was appointed secretary of the Y.M.C.A., Sydney. Its new premises were extensive, with a large gymnasium ('build the man' was one of his mottoes), concert hall, accommodation, library and clubrooms. Virgo soon raised £15,000 to repay the association's debt. He promoted a fourfold programme involving physical, social, educational and spiritual activities, instituted Sunday-night evangelical meetings and took part in Christian crusades.
Virgo became general secretary of the London Central Y.M.C.A. in 1911. As national field secretary during World War I, he raised massive funds for the war effort and addressed a total of some two million soldiers on the Western Front. Two of his sons had enlisted. In 1918 he was appointed C.B.E. and next year became the English representative on the World's Alliance of Y.M.C.A.s. He retired in 1925.
On 12 October 1920 in the parish church of St Michael, Handsworth, Virgo had married Emmeline Dorothy Aston, a clergyman's daughter. They lived in the country where she bred champion bulldogs and he wrote his memoirs, 50 Years of Fishing for Men (1930). He was a corporator of the International Young Men's Christian Association College at Springfield, Massachusetts, United States of America. Wearing a homburg, Jack travelled widely, often revisiting Australia; at 70, on his tenth world tour, he delivered 101 speeches in 80 days.
In Melbourne he had declared: 'There is not enough of real Christianity … there is too much of the mushy type. Too much flowery beds of ease and singing oneself away to everlasting bliss, and too little laying hold on life'.
Survived by his wife, Virgo died on 2 August 1956 at Parkstone, Dorset. His estate was sworn for probate at £9016.
Select Bibliography
Young Men's Christian Association, Y.M.C.A. Who's Who and Annual (United Kingdom), 1934
J. T. Massey, The Y.M.C.A. in Australia (Melb, 1950)
Observer (Adelaide), 26 Mar 1921
Times (London), 18 Apr 1925, 4 Aug 1956
Herald (Melbourne), 17 Aug 1929
Table Talk, 29 Aug 1929
J. W. Daly, The Adelaide Y.M.C.A. (B.A. Hons thesis, University of Adelaide, 1972).
337. = Arthur James VOGAN (1859-1948) – Argus Newspaper, Rights campaigner, VIC
-‘Caught by the troopers’, 1890. From Arthur Vogan, The Black Police: a story of modern Australia, 1890. Arthur James VOGAN, (1859-1948) Artist (Draughtsman). Sketcher,
Sources: -
1. The Black Police : a story of modern Australia / by A.J. Vogan ; with illustrations and map by the author. London : Hutchinson, [1890] [The University of Melbourne. The University Library & other Australia libraries.]
2. Letters to A. J. Vogan from the Secretary of the Association for the Protection of Native Races - The Australian Women's Register - Fryer Library and Department of Special Collections, University of Queensland.
338. George Washington WALKER ((1800–1859), Quaker TAS
Birth: 19 March 1800 London, Middlesex, England
Death: 2 February 1859 Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Cultural Heritage: English
Religious Influence: Quaker
Occupation: banker, draper, shopkeeper, store owner
Mission: Quaker leader, penal reformer, benefactor (general), temperance advocate
George Washington Walker (1800-1859), by J. W. Beattie
Walker, George Washington (1800–1859)
by Mary Bartram Trott
This article was published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 2, (MUP), 1967
George Washington Walker (1800-1859), Quaker, shopkeeper and humanitarian, was born on 19 March 1800 in London, the twenty-first child of John Walker (1726-1821) by his second wife, Elizabeth, née Ridley. Because of the death of his mother and the absence of his aged father engaged in the saddle trade in Paris, he was brought up by his grandmother in Newcastle. He was educated by a Wesleyan schoolmaster near Barnard Castle, and apprenticed in 1814 to a linen draper. Impressed by the probity and wisdom of his Quaker employers and James Backhouse of York, a leading Quaker minister, he left the Unitarian persuasion of his family in 1827 and became a member of the Society of Friends. The next year he formed the first Temperance Society in Newcastle.
In 1831 he accompanied James Backhouse on a nine-year mission to the Australian and South African colonies. The partnership combined the initiative, imagination and adventurous spirit of James Backhouse and Walker's methodical organizing and secretarial skill. They investigated convict and Aboriginal conditions, returned statistical accounts to Quakers in England, and presented a picture of the emigrant's life and prospects. As they visited from house to house or presented to large gatherings their version of a simple practical Christianity, they encouraged schools for the poor, temperance, cleanliness and care in hospitals, humane treatment of the insane, and generally tried to arouse a social conscience among the inhabitants of every colony.
Walker returned from South Africa to Hobart Town in 1840 to marry Sarah Benson Mather, member of a Wesleyan family turned Quaker. Aware of his reputation for trustworthiness, friendliness and leadership, Walker strove to practise what he advocated and to support the organizations he and Backhouse had promoted. With the help of English Friends he set up a linen draper's shop in 1841 and made half of it available for the distribution of Bibles, religious tracts and temperance literature, with the 'pledge' always ready for signature. In 1845, to encourage thrift among the poor, particularly reformed drunkards, he organized the Hobart Savings Bank and managed it for some months without pay; it grew quickly, and soon required his full-time service. Because he thought that some of his merchandise catered only to luxury and fashion, he sold his linen drapery in 1848 at a loss and restricted his trade to the plainer woollen goods. In 1847 he was publicly thanked by a group of shop assistants for inducing other shopkeepers to adopt 7 o'clock closing, but in 1855 he was publicly threatened with tar and feathering for organizing his Temperance Committee into vigilante bands to enforce the law of Sunday closing of public houses.
In spite of derision his concern for transported prisoners remained active; he supported Alexander Maconochie's penal reforms, and continued to help many individual convicts. His wife was a member of Lady Jane Franklin's committee to visit the female prisoners. In 1843 he was appointed to a board of inquiry into conditions at the Female Factory, built by Lieutenant-Governor (Sir) George Arthur in 1827 in accord with Elizabeth Fry's recommendations. Worried over the growing number of prostitutes, he formed a committee to 'suppress vice' by finding employment for destitute women. In 1848 Lieutenant-Governor Sir William Denison asked him to share in the task of providing an asylum for these women, and noted in his journal: 'the very personification of a mild, benevolent, and excellent Quaker. Even here, where sectarian and religious party feeling run higher than anywhere I have ever known, men of all denominations unite in speaking well of George Washington Walker'.
He kept in close touch with the Aboriginal mission stations and gave valuable service as a member of the council which built the non-denominational high school on the Domain, of the colonial board of education, and of the council of the Royal Society of Tasmania. His friendship with learned men in every colony enriched his letters and made them invaluable to his scholarly eldest son, James Backhouse Walker.
A respected founder with Backhouse of the Society of Friends in Hobart, Walker was always ready to plead for any convict under punishment by solitary confinement or treadmill for refusing in Quaker custom to remove his hat in respect to authority, to explain to judges the Quaker aversion to oaths, or to reason against state aid to religion. Although unable to repeat his missionary journeys, he managed to visit Friends around the island and encouraged others to travel 'in the ministry' to help new Meetings on the mainland. He also corresponded with Friends in other colonies, supported one lone Quaker in Western Australia in her observance of Quaker testimonies, helped the Australian Meetings to win eventual recognition by the London Yearly Meeting, and assisted the organization of small schools for Friends' children, forerunners of the later Friends' School, North Hobart.
Overconscientious and, never robust, he maintained a calm cheerful manner that concealed his anxieties and the overtaxing of his means in support of his ten children and various charities. He died on 2 February 1859 and was buried in the Friends' burial ground in Providence Valley, West Hobart, mourned by citizens in every colony. Narryna, his home for two years, has become the Van Diemen's Land Folk Museum, and contains mementoes of his famous trip with James Backhouse. Of his benevolent organizations, the Hobart Savings Bank and the Temperance Society remain. His Quaker grey and 'thees and thous' were outward labels of a nineteenth-century puritan, but he contributed to the community the enlightened leaven of a Dissenter, the care for humanity of an Evangelical, and the gentle methodical persuasion of a Quaker resolved to effect a change in a vicious brutal world.
Select Bibliography
J. Backhouse, A Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies (Lond, 1843)
J. Backhouse and C. Tylor, The Life and Labours of George Washington Walker (Lond, 1862)
W. T. Denison, Varieties of Vice-Regal Life (Lond, 1870)
George Washington Walker papers (Friends House, London)
Monthly Meeting minutes (Society of Friends, Hobart)
Walker papers (University of Tasmania).
339. R. WALKER, Methodist Parramatta, NSW
339+. Pastor Peter Walker, Aboriginal Pastor, organised Praise Corroboree
340. Rev. Dr Sir Allan WALKER (1911-2003) , Sydney, Founder of "Lifeline"
OBITUARY for a "Tireless crusader for peace" - February 5 2003
Reverend Sir Alan Walker, Methodist minister 1911-2003
A picture in the foyer of Sydney's Wesley Central Mission, formerly the Central Methodist Mission, shows three men in relaxed pose. They are the Reverends Frank Rayward, superintendent from 1938 to 1957, Sir Alan Walker (1958 to 1978), and Gordon Moyes (1979-).
Three "skippers" in 65 years is not a bad record.
Rayward (at 102) died in December 1993, and Walker died at 91 on January 29 this year, of old age rather than the throat cancer which had sapped his vitality a few years earlier.
He told his eldest son at that time: "If I can't preach any more, I may as well be dead." Typically, his despondency was shortlived. On leaving hospital, with the worst of the cancer removed, he continued preaching, with diminishing frequency and with a marked husky voice, until shortly before his death.
Walker was the last of a band of larger-than-life Sydney clergy, of international as well as local and national renown, unafraid of political correctness, whose confidence in their cause is considered admirable by some and "arrogant" by others.
He had various nicknames: "Mister Methodist" (by co-religionists), "the Methodist Pope" (by journalists), and "that nice Alan Warble" (by Dorrie Evans in the '70s TV soap Number 96). Bill Hayden, while governor-general, called him the "conscience of the nation", chosen as the title for historian Don Wright's biography of Walker, which Hayden launched in 1997.
Even in old age he was physically impressive, a trim, upright figure, whose penetrating blue eyes were matched by blue suits, blue shirts and blue ties. He even had blue pyjamas.
He had other charming foibles. He totally lacked a sense of humour. According to his eldest son, Bruce: "In one of his early settlements he told a joke. It fell flat and he vowed he'd never tell another. And he never did."
He was a workaholic who made and received calls at all hours of the day or night. He bought a holiday home by Newport beach and refused to install a telephone. However, his first action on arrival was to check the location of telephone boxes in order to call the Mission.
Religiously, he was difficult to label, combining conservative theology, defence of family values, a horror of booze and gambling, with leftist political views rare at the time among Protestant clergy.
Walker was a fifth-generation Australian, whose ancestor, John Joseph Walker, was transported in 1807 for stealing a �10 note. The latter cohabited with a convict girl, Ann Gill, whose husband had been left behind in England, and having received a grant of land in the Macdonald Valley, near Wisemans Ferry, raised the first of what are now more than 2000 descendants.
At least 15 of those descendants have entered one or another form of Christian ministry. These include Alan and Win Walker's three sons - Bruce, minister of Bankstown Uniting Church; David, chaplain to Westmead Hospital, and Chris, a resource officer on the Parramatta-Nepean presbytery. There is also a daughter, Lynette Sue.
Methodists believe in the need for personal conversion. In Alan Walker's case this occurred one hot Sunday afternoon when he went with his father, also a Methodist minister, by sulky to the tiny Methodist church at Boolaroo, near Wallsend.
Walker didn't remember what his father preached that day, but when, at the close of the service, he appealed to members of the congregation to give their lives to Christ, the preacher's 11-year-old son was one of three who responded.
Alan Walker was ordained in 1935, having studied for the ministry in London, where he came under the influence of the Reverend Donald Soper (Lord Soper), embracing the older man's pacifism and fondness for Hyde Park soap-box oratory. Returning to NSW, he held various minor appointments, including a spell at Hornsby, where he met his bride-to-be, Winifred Channon.
The war made his pacifism, which he espoused openly, distinctly unpopular. As a result he was posted (against his will) to serve the needs of the coalminers in Cessnock. In this milieu his leftist socio-political views were further developed, putting him out of kilter with most Protestant clergy at that time.
The end of World War II allowed his superiors to "rehabilitate" him, resulting in a posting to Waverley, where he built up a reputation as an evangelist, preferring to preach in theatres and open spaces, on the grounds that "these are where ordinary people go". Venues included a soap-box pitch on what is now "Woolies corner" opposite the Sydney Town Hall. These activities led to his being appointed front person and chief evangelist in the (Australia-wide) Mission to the Nation program, followed by a similar program in the US.
In 1956 commercial television began in Australia. Walker launched and was the key participant in a Channel Nine series, I Challenge the Minister, in which workers in shops and factories were invited to pose "difficult" questions. It was for some years the highest-rated religious program on TV.
In 1958 Walker was appointed superintendent of the Central Methodist Mission, founded in 1884. In terms of outreach, if not physical size, he claimed it was the largest church in Australia.
Lifeline (40 years old next month) was among his better-known endeavours, inspiring other telephone counselling services throughout the world. Ethnic congregations, the Vision Valley conference centre, residential hostels, school for seniors, and a singles' society (whose first "single of the year" was Jim McLaren, a Catholic priest) were among other projects he introduced.
In 1971, a time of flower power and "Jesus freaks", Walker and a young minister, the Reverend Fred Nile (then considered a trendy), entered the world of hippiedom, launching the Newness NSW campaign, in which the young and not-so-young thought beautiful thoughts, sang beautiful songs, and pointed their fingers "one way" towards the sky.
I first met Walker then. A newcomer to Australia and to the Herald, I was asked to report on the opening of the Newness campaign. I wrote that Walker, addressing the multitude, "nearly jumped out of his shoes" with excitement. The Herald was more conservative then, and I was told the phrase was undignified and could not be used. However, Brian Johns, the chief of staff, intervened and the offending words remained.
That same night I had to cover a very different function - a citizens' dinner for Cardinal Gilroy. I found Walker in a corner, nursing a glass of orange juice (everybody else had wine or beer). I discovered that this mass orator was actually extremely shy.
At one gathering, finding himself with strangers, Walker in his agitation started wrapping his hands around a lace curtain. His minder, having briefly left the room, returned to find the pelmet almost down.
Journalists knew Walker as the original media cleric. Two or three times a week his sorely tried publicity officer, Harold Henderson, would visit the Herald news room, handing out press releases to individual journalists who he thought might be willing to give a particular story a go. An hour or so later, Walker himself would walk in, "just checking" that all had been safely received.
As he was a household name, and not averse to receiving calls at unearthly hours, reporters on the afternoon tabloids used him as a "good quote" on a variety of matters not directly concerned with religion. To beef up the story, he was invariably described as "spokesman" for the Methodist (later Uniting) Church, whereas the real spokesman - the president or moderator, whose tenure changed annually - couldn't get a word in. At least one Methodist Conference president was apoplectic at the mention of his name.
In late 1945 Walker wrote to the Herald objecting to the newspaper's decision to restore its racing section, following the ending of newsprint shortages.
The then chairman of the Fairfax company, Warwick Fairfax, intrigued rather than annoyed, asked the young minister to lunch with him and the newspaper's then editor, Hugh McClure-Smith. The meeting resulted in an invitation to Walker to write regular opinion-style religious articles for the Herald and to do "occasional" Christmas and Easter editorials. Walker took it as a godsend, writing highly personal articles on a host of issues. Having given him such freedom, Fairfax soon found himself disagreeing vigorously with the "left-wing" nature of many of the articles. Interestingly, the chairman chose not to censor the articles, but rather wrote ripostes to the worst of them. (According to Walker, only twice were his articles "censored". One involved removal of a sentence about pacifism, the other, removal of a paragraph querying the rightness of capitalism.)
After about eight years, these problems and Walker's busy life led to the end of his role as a special writer. It was just as well, given his increasingly strident views on fresh issues such as the Vietnam War, which he opposed. In a bizarre incident, the chairman of the NSW Council of Churches' broadcasting committee, Canon Broughton Knox, pulled the plug on Walker during a weekly 2CH broadcast from the Lyceum Theatre. It was claimed Walker had undertaken not to preach on Vietnam, but once on air the temptation had proved too strong.
In 1970, the Herald, editor John Douglas Pringle, who had given 12 months' notice of his resignation, made that resignation immediate when Fairfax complained about a secular humanist Easter editorial. This led to Walker again being asked to write Christmas and Easter editorials, which he did for the next 25 years.
Walker retired - a word he disliked - from the Wesley Mission in December 1978. He did not choose to go but at 70 it was compulsory. Actually, it was advantageous. Within Australia the Methodist Church was now part of the Uniting Church, towards which he had "reservations". He immediately found a job as director of World Evangelism for the World Methodist Council. The job is based in the US, but Walker gained a dispensation to work from his home in Beacon Hill.
Later, Henderson, the loyal lieutenant, revealed some facts about his ex-boss, one of them being that in 1967 Gough Whitlam, then Labor opposition leader, suggested Walker enter federal politics.
Bruce Walker says his father was flattered by the offer, but rejected it as compromising his independence. "Under the Westminster system he would have to abide by the party line, and that would inevitably go against his conscience."
Walker remained staunchly pro-Labor until the mid-'70s, but had a dramatic fall-out during the party's second term in office. He considered that secular humanist forces were taking over the party, and, in particular, resented the family law reforms undertaken by the then attorney-general, Lionel Murphy.
The Whitlam sacking possibly triggered a further change of mind. In June 1976, seven months after the event, Walker preached a sermon in the Lyceum, calling for Sir John Kerr's resignation. A demonstration against Kerr, in which an aide was slightly injured, was interpreted by some as a consequence of Walker's outpourings. Walker was subject to hate mail and hostility. He suffered a degree of remorse, and temporarily kept a low profile.
His personal republicanism did not impede his acceptance of a knighthood (in 1981) and his decision to use the title. Bruce Walker says his father did so following the example of Lord Soper, "who convinced dad that it would give him entre to another class of society for the proclamation of the Gospel".
Walker spent 10 years with the World Methodist Council, then at the age of 75 formed a new venture, the Pacific College of Evangelism, in Parramatta. He retired as head of the college in 1995, but continued to work as a lecturer until a year or so ago.
I once asked him how he would react to an armed invasion of Australia. His response was to the effect: "I don't think it would happen. But if it did, it would be part of a divine plan."
Alan Gill
A memorial service for the Reverend Sir Alan Walker was held on February 11 2003 at the Wesley Theatre, 210 Pitt Street, at 10.30am.
341. 'Doctor' Ernst Gottlob WANKE (1823-1897)
Leader of a Christian Settlement, Harkaway, nr Berwick, Vic
'Dr' Ernst Gottlob WANKE (1823-1897). Born c.1823 in Nieder Merzdorf, Silesia, Prussia, (then Deutschland, now in Poland). He studied medicine but needed to complete one term of practical work to gain his degree. Arrived at Melbourne on 21 April 1849 per "Dockenhuden" from Hamburg, Germany, with his wife, having acted as the ship's doctor on the voyage. Also referred to as a barber and a dentist. His wife Anna Maria Hahn and their infant son, Andreas Gottlob Wanke, died in May 1849. Dr E G Wanke acted as catechist and temporary pastor of the Lutherans in the Port Phillip Region. He preached to the Melbourne congregation of the Evangelical Lutherans from 1849 till the arrival of the Rev. Frederick Rupprecht in 1851. Then Wanke acted as a warden assisting Rev. Rupprecht.
He married a second time on 24 May 1850 at The Independent Church in Collins Street, according to the rites of the Congregational church at Melbourne to Pauline Wilhelmina Schurmann, widow of Herr Krumbiegel and daughter of Gottfried Schurmann. Wanke went to the Castlemaine goldfields. In 1853 he bought half a square mile (or 340 Acres) of land in Lot 9 of the Parish of Berwick, and settled and in part subdivided what he first called "Zion Hill," and later 'Hillcroft', at Harkaway, Victoria, which later at least in part became the pivot of a Germanic and sometime Christian religious-refugee settlement of that district, with its own Lutheran School and Church from the early 1850s, the cemetery of which survives. Wanke conducted Lutheran services at Harkaway in the absence of the regular minister. Farmer. He died on 7 August 1897 at Harkaway, Victoria and was buried on 11 August 1897 at the Harkaway Cemetery, Vic.
He was survived by his second wife Pauline Wilhelmine nee Schurmann-Krumbiegel Wanke, who died 9 Sept 1904 at Harkaway, and by their only child, Immanuel Gottlob Wanke, born 24 May 1856 Harkaway, Narre Warren, Berwick, who married the German-Australian girl on that land next door, Bertha Nathalie Aurisch (1857–1950), producing thirteen children, ten of them surviving their childhood to make large clan. Immmanuel Wanke died 24 June 1934 @ Harkaway, Berwick, having farmed like his father as trusted part of a faithful and staunch group of Christian stalwarts.
'Hier Ruhen in Gott'-Here Rest in God, Ernst Gottlieb & Pauline Wanke grave,
"Asleep in Jesus" -Harkaway Cemetery, Harkaway, near Berwick, Victoria.
342. Fr Gerald WARD (1806 ~ 1858) - Australia Pioneer of the St Vincent De Paul Society
Gerald Ward was born in London 1806 and arrived in Australia on 7 September 1850 after being recruited to work in the Melbourne mission by the pioneer priest Fr Patrick Geoghegan.
Fr Ward knew of the workings of the St Vincent de Paul Society and initiated its establishment in Australia on 5 March 1854 after witnessing the plight of people following the discovery of gold in Victoria
Fr Ward became the first president of the St Francis' Conference in Melbourne and began to address the problems he witnessed. One of his accomplishments was establishing the St Vincent de Paul orphanage in South Melbourne.
The foundation stone for the orphanage was laid in 1855 and the first children were accepted in 1857. In 1855, in a submission to the government of the day, Fr Ward stated that the new conference aimed at “the relief of the destitute, in a manner as much as possible permanently beneficial and the visitation of poor families.”
Gerald Ward died on 14 January 1858 (at Heidelberg, Victoria,) aged 52. -He was buried in the then 'new' Melbourne General Cemetery.
A newspaper noted that “he was one in whom many a widow and orphan had found a good friend.” His enduring legacy is founded in such friendship .
St Vincent de Paul Society .
A short book of biography of Fr Gerald A Ward by Kevin Slattery has also been digitally published online and can be found at
An Enduring Legacy: Fr Gerald Ward. Founder of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Australia.
by KEVIN SLATTERY St Vincent de Paul Society Victoria Inc.
Kevin Slattery writes: " No doubt Fr Ward had his faults. Resolutely defensive of the Catholic faith, at times he reacted in an intemperate manner when
he believed the faith was under threat. Yet those commenting on his life and work invariably refer to him as ‘saintly’ and as one of the ‘greats’ among Melbourne’s pioneer priests. "
"The Freeman’s Journal paid him this tribute shortly after his death: ‘This pious, zealous and unostentatious priest was noted for his most active benevolence and practice of charity, numerous, unassuming, and it may be said, universal. He was endeared to all who knew him, by the kindly simplicity of his generous heart, and geniality of his disposition, and the fervid anxiety he evinced for the poor of the mission. He suffered from a protracted illness that impeded him in his work for the orphan and the helpless. He was a great follower of St Vincent de Paul.’"
REBURIAL -In the Melbourne General Cemetery Fr Geraldus A WARD's "Burial took place in grave 384B, ‘H’ Section. However, in September 1871, following the building of the mortuary chapel for priests at the cemetery, Fr Ward’s remains were disinterred, placed in a new wood and lead coffin and removed to the (mortuary) chapel.
Fr Geraldus A Ward was finally interred in the mortuary chapel for Catholic priests – built in 1871 – at the Melbourne General Cemetery
343. = James Gibson WARD, English Moravian, Mapoon QLD martyr
& Matilda WARD, (née Barnes), Mapoon QLD
From Australian Dictionary of Evangelical Biography
WARD, James Gibson (1857-1895)
Bill Edwards
WARD, JAMES GIBSON (b. Fairfield, Jamaica, 14 May 1857; d. Mapoon, Qld, 3 Jan 1895). Moravian missionary to the Aborigines.
Born to Moravian (q.v. Hagenauer) missionaries, James and Anna Ward, he spent his first eight years in Jamaica before attending Fulneck School in England for seven years and Niesky College in Germany. He taught at Neuwied College in Germany for three years and at Ockbrook School in England. He was ordained deacon in the Moravian church on 20 May 1885 and ministered in Brookweir and Ballinderry in Ireland. He m. Matilda Hall Barnes on 15 Jan 1889.
While at Ballinderry he received a call to serve in a new mission station which the Moravians had been asked by the Presbyterian Church to establish in north Qld. His diary entry on receiving the call reflected his Moravian training and personal commitment: 'May the Lord make us that blessed aim attain of willingness to do His will, no task or trial to refuse; only to do what He shall choose'. The Wards and the Rev J N Hey (q.v.) left London on 5 June 1891 and arrived in Melbourne on 15 July. Following preaching and lecturing tours in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, they arrived at Thursday Island, where the government resident, John Douglas, supported the mission, hoping it would counter the breakdown in relationships between Aborigines and the multiracial population engaged in fishing, pearling and trading. Ward and Hey left Thursday Island on 27 Nov 1891 and arrived at Port Musgrave the following day. Ward returned to Thursday Island for his wife who had been ill and arrived back on the 20 Dec.
Ward and Hey built their houses, and encouraged Aboriginal people to settle at the new Mapoon Mission. Ward supervised fishing operations and Mrs Ward opened a school. Gardens and cattle work were developed to provide employment for the Aboriginal men. A church building was opened on the 24 Nov 1892. Ward and Hey were ill with fever in 1893 and financial recession in the southern colonies limited support for the mission. Ward travelled south to seek continuing support. In Sept and Dec 1894 Ward travelled on the Batavia River to search for a better site for the mission and on the latter trip developed a fever, from which he died at Mapoon. Although his period of service at Mapoon was short, his name lived on in the Ward Memorial Church, dedicated in 1896, and a lugger, the J G Ward, launched in 1901 to serve the needs of the Gulf of Carpentaria missions. His widow returned to Mapoon in July 1895 to join her sister who had married Hey, and to continue her work as a teacher until 1917. by BILL EDWARDS
Reference:
A Ward, The Miracle of Mapoon (London, 1908)
343.A. - ELIZABETH JANE GARLAND / WARD
Ward, Elizabeth Jane (1842 - 1908)
- Born
- 27 March 1842
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia - Died
- 29 May 1908
Sydney, New South Wales - Occupation
- Evangelist, Milliner and Philanthropist
- Alternative Names
- Garland, Elizabeth (maiden name)
Summary
Details
The 'good Mrs. Ward' published her autobiography, Out of Weakness Made Strong, in 1903 'at the earnest request of many friends'. From somewhat inauspicious beginnings, Elizabeth Ward came to spend much of her time doing 'good works' and campaigning for womanhood suffrage.
Ward's father, William Garland, was a farrier on George Street, Sydney. Her mother took Elizabeth and her three siblings to the Church of England three times on Sundays. By the age of fifteen, however, Ward was an orphan. In successive years, her father died, then her mother, then her younger brother, who drowned in a waterhole aged nine.
Ward married in 1863 and bore seven sons, but in 1882 one son, Arthur, was run down by the steamer Fairlight and killed with the paddlewheel, and ten years later a second son, Frank, fell to the bottom of a lift-well and died.
Remembering these events in 1903, Ward assured her readers that 'God who comforteth those that are cast down, comforted and upheld his servant, and after a while I resumed my usual Christian work'. That Christian work included district visits on Castlereagh Street - from Bathurst Street to Goulburn Street - while her husband taught at the local Sunday School.
Ward was a member of multiple committees. She was involved in the Sydney Woman's Prayer Union from 1883, petitioning Parliament with a request that theatres and concert halls be closed on Sundays (agreed), and that parliamentary sittings be opened with prayer (declined). She joined the Y.W.C.A. in Sydney from its early days, and inaugurated the Surry Hills branch in 1890, where she ran biblereading, prayers, and lectures.
Ward served on the committees of the Queen's Jubilee Fund and the third Australasian Conference on Charity, as well as the Sydney Ladies' United Evangelistic Association, the Women's Federal League, and the City Mission. She worked with the City Mission's Rescue Committee 'to reach the fallen women of the city' by holding midnight meetings.
Ward was not a wealthy woman. She established her own millinery business in King Street, later moving it to Oxford Street, Sydney, and advocated giving away a tenth of one's income - moreover, giving it away cheerfully. By 1903, she was living in the Blue Mountains and had retained her posts as vice-president and State press superintendent and correspondent for the Sydney Woman's Christian Temperance Union. She was media savvy, and well known for her letters to the newspaper in support of Federation.
Ward's father, William Garland, was a farrier on George Street, Sydney. Her mother took Elizabeth and her three siblings to the Church of England three times on Sundays. By the age of fifteen, however, Ward was an orphan. In successive years, her father died, then her mother, then her younger brother, who drowned in a waterhole aged nine.
Ward married in 1863 and bore seven sons, but in 1882 one son, Arthur, was run down by the steamer Fairlight and killed with the paddlewheel, and ten years later a second son, Frank, fell to the bottom of a lift-well and died.
Remembering these events in 1903, Ward assured her readers that 'God who comforteth those that are cast down, comforted and upheld his servant, and after a while I resumed my usual Christian work'. That Christian work included district visits on Castlereagh Street - from Bathurst Street to Goulburn Street - while her husband taught at the local Sunday School.
Ward was a member of multiple committees. She was involved in the Sydney Woman's Prayer Union from 1883, petitioning Parliament with a request that theatres and concert halls be closed on Sundays (agreed), and that parliamentary sittings be opened with prayer (declined). She joined the Y.W.C.A. in Sydney from its early days, and inaugurated the Surry Hills branch in 1890, where she ran biblereading, prayers, and lectures.
Ward served on the committees of the Queen's Jubilee Fund and the third Australasian Conference on Charity, as well as the Sydney Ladies' United Evangelistic Association, the Women's Federal League, and the City Mission. She worked with the City Mission's Rescue Committee 'to reach the fallen women of the city' by holding midnight meetings.
Ward was not a wealthy woman. She established her own millinery business in King Street, later moving it to Oxford Street, Sydney, and advocated giving away a tenth of one's income - moreover, giving it away cheerfully. By 1903, she was living in the Blue Mountains and had retained her posts as vice-president and State press superintendent and correspondent for the Sydney Woman's Christian Temperance Union. She was media savvy, and well known for her letters to the newspaper in support of Federation.
Sources used to compile this entry: Godden, Judith, 'Ward, Elizabeth Jane (1842-1918)', in Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 2006, http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A120427b.htm; Ward, Elizabeth Jane, Out of Weakness Made Strong: Being a Record of the Life and Labours of Mrs E.J. Ward, with Photos., Christian World Printing House, Sydney, 1903.
Published resources
The Australian Women's Register Exhibitions
- In Her Gift: Women Philanthropists in Australian History, Australian Women's Archives Project, 2009, http://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/wiph/home.html.
Books
- Ward, Elizabeth Jane, Out of Weakness Made Strong: Being a Record of the Life and Labours of Mrs E.J. Ward, with Photos., Christian World Printing House, Sydney, 1903.
Theses
- Lemon, Barbara, 'In Her Gift: Activism and Altruism in Australian Women's Philanthropy, 1880-2005', PhD thesis, School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne, 2008.
Online Resources
- Godden, Judith, 'Ward, Elizabeth Jane (1842-1918)', in Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 2006, http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A120427b.htm.
- 'Ward, Elizabeth Jane (1842-1908)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-744085.
See also
- Dickey, Brian (ed.), Australian Dictionary of Evangelical Biography, Evangelical History Association, Sydney, 1994.
344. Traugott Friedrich WARMBRUNN, Klemzig, Adelaide, > Harkaway VIC
345. Mr WATKINS, Mount Evelyn VIC
346. =Miss J. WATSON LaPerouse Mission NSW
347. =Ann WATSON Wellington NS=William
348. =William WATSON, Wellington NSW
349. Bäpa (Rev. Fr) James WATSON ~ pioneer missionary in Papua & New Guinea, also Goulburn Is. Northern territory (Methodist)
"Bäpa" on The Aborigines: "These are not vermin to be got rid of, but people whose lives should be enriched from the treasures of knowledge and especially the knowledge of God. people whose minds should be freed from superstition and fears of thee devil-devil. Strange that the Methodist Church should have neglected such interesting people all these years. I wonder why?" -from 'Ramblings in the Northern Territory' 1915
"Bäpa" James WATSON
Parents James WATSON , engineer & Margaret RYAN
Birth: 21 February 1865 Sandhurst Goldfield, Bendigo, Victoria
Cultural Heritage: Mediterranean-European Judeo-Christian, Anglo-Irish Inheritance, Victorian Goldfields Cosmopolianism, Colonial Indigenous Papua, Torres Strait & Arnhem Land Indigenous Australian
Education: Bendigo Schools, Methodist Training by Rev Dr W E Bromelow, NSW
Ordination: 1891 Ministry of the Methodist Church
Marriage: 21 July 1896 Emu Plains, NSW
Theatre of activity: 1. 1891-1893 Papua, British New Guinea; 2.1893 Mission deputation;
Wife: Isabella Duncan FRASER, daughter of shipwright, Daniel Fraser, & Jane Condon of Emu Plains, NSW (d. 1949 Ashfield NSW)
Minstry: 1896 Narrabri, NSW; 1897 Inverell, NSW; Broken Hill, NSW; Walleroo, SA, Kempsey, NSW.
Missionary Theatre: 1914 Appointed State Secretary for Overseas Mission in NSW & QLD
Initiative for Mission to aborigines: 1914 -
Immigration: 1915 Sailed on the ship 'ST ALBANS' to Darwin, visiting Bathurst Island, Fort Dundas, Melville Island, East Alligator River, Cahill's Landing, Oenpelli, Goulburn Island. Travelled overland by bicycle from Pine Creek to Katherine, to Mataranka, Elsey Station, and wrote a Report "Ramblings in the Northern Territory"
Appointment: 1916 Superintendant of Mission
Character: Diligence, Tireless Zeal, Sanctified Audacity, Unselfishness, Statesmanship
Death: 27 September 1946, Ashfield, NSW -
Burial: Sydney, New South Wales
Legacy:
"OBITUARY : Rev James Watson
The death has occurred in Sydney of Rev James Watson, a veteran Methodist missionary to Papua, where he was stationed in 1891. Later he was for many years a missionary to the aborigines of North Australia. Mr Watson was born in Bendigo, and for some time acted as state secretary for Methodist Missions in Victoria." [The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.) Saturday 12 October 1946]
MILLINGIMBI - " Milingimbi has a long history of contact and trade with the Maccassans who came each season to collect trepang. Tamarind trees on the beach and surrounding an old Maccassan well are an obvious legacy of this period. Traditionally the name Milingimbi belongs only to a small section of land surrounding this well, now known as Bush Camp.
Milingimbi was chosen as a mission site in 1916 by Rev. James Watson of the Methodist Overseas Mission. Building commenced in 1923. In 1940 the mission undertook a contract to build a landing strip for the RAAF on Milingimbi. As a consequence the mission was bombed by the Japanese on the 9th and 10th of May 1943. One Aborigine was killed, and others were wounded. The raids caused substantial damage."
From NORTHERN TERRITORY Dictionary of Biography Volume Three
WATSON, JAMES (1865-1946)
by Arch W Grant
WATSON, JAMES (1865-1946) Wesleyan Methodist Minister, was born in Bendigo, Victoria, on 21 February 1865, the son of James Watson, an engineer, and his wife Margaret nee Ryan. Little is known of his early life but he came to reside in New South Wales as a young man and offered himself for service in the ministry of the Wesleyan Methodist Church.
350. Francis WEBB , poet, Roman Catholic Orange, Sydney NSW
350.a/b -Ivy Lavinia Filshie WEBER (1892-1976), physical culturist, Campaigner for the primacy of Family, temperance advocate, Health Advocate Campaigner for Women as Mothers, Campaigner for Women in Public Life, Politician , with Clarence Alfred WEBER (1882–1930) - Methodist
WEBER, Ivy Lavinia (1892–1976)
by Geoff Browne
This article was published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 12, (MUP), 1990
Ivy Lavinia Weber (1892-1976), physical culturist and politician, was born on 7 June 1892 at Captains Flat, New South Wales, third child of John Filshie, schoolteacher, and his wife Elizabeth, née Seaman, both native-born. Educated at Dungog and raised as a Presbyterian, she worked in Sydney, possibly at Reuters newsagency, and on 11 December 1915 at the Sacred Heart presbytery, Mosman, married with Catholic rites Thomas Mitchell, a stock and station agent. He was killed in action in France in May 1917, leaving her with a baby son. Living with her parents in Melbourne, Ivy enrolled in the Weber and Rice Health and Strength College and on 7 March 1919 married its principal, Clarence Weber, a widower with seven young children—they were to have three of their own. Domestic help with the children allowed Ivy to run the women's classes at the college.
In 1930 Clarence Weber died suddenly. Ivy took a job with the Berlei Corset Co., lecturing on figure control. Subsequently she worked as an organizer for the United Country Party and for the Hospital Benefits Association. A woman of 'immense vitality', she gave radio talks on physical culture, served on the management committee of the Queen Victoria Hospital (1930-34) and by 1937 was an office-bearer of the Playgrounds Association and the Red Cross Society. She was president of the Local Option Alliance (1939-43) and of the Australian Temperance Council (1941-43). As an executive-member of the National Council of Women (1934-39), she played a leading part in the establishment of a physical education course at the University of Melbourne; she was also a member of the National Fitness Council in 1939-53.
In June 1937 the League of Women Electors had been formed to endorse women parliamentary candidates under the banner of 'Mother, Child, Family, Home and Health'. Ivy Weber was the league's president and its candidate for the Legislative Assembly seat of Nunawading at the 1937 State election. Standing as an Independent, she advocated free education and a national health scheme. Tall, 'very good-looking, with a pleasing voice and poise', she defeated the sitting member, becoming the second woman to be elected to the Victorian parliament and the first at a general election. In parliament she successfully argued for the appointment of a woman to the Housing Commission (1938). Re-elected twice, she resigned in 1943 to contest the Federal seat of Henty for the 'Women to Canberra' movement of which she was president. She polled fifth in a field of six; two years later she was decisively beaten when she stood for the State seat of Box Hill.
After leaving parliament, Mrs Weber held organizing jobs with the Department of Supply, the Country Party, the Australian Women's Movement Against Socialism and worked for the blind. Survived by her two sons and two daughters, she died at Camberwell on 6 March 1976 and was cremated. Ivy Weber believed that girls should put 'marriage and motherhood before any other career'; yet she also maintained that women should be active in public life. She managed to do both by 'working a tremendous lot of overtime'.
Select Bibliography
* A. Lemon, Box Hill (Melb, 1978)
* M. Bevege et al (eds), Worth Her Salt (Syd, 1982)
* M. Sawer and M. Simms, A Woman's Place (Syd, 1984)
* F. Kelly and M. Lake (eds), Double Time, Women in Victoria, 150 Years (Melb, 1985)
* V. Davies, Ivy Lavinia Weber (unpublished biographical study, State Library of Victoria).
351. Sarah WENTWORTH 1805~1880, The Damned Whore of Sydney
352. D’Arcy WENTWORTH c.1762-1827
353. William Charles WENTWORTH 1790-1872
354. Morris WEST 1916~1997
355. Reuben WEST (Melbourne City Mission)
356. Rev John WEST Launceston, VDL/TAS, Historian
357. Rev. John WESTACOTT, Methodist, Lilydale, VIC
358. William WESTGARTH VIC
359. =Thomas WILKINSON, Wybalenna, Flinders Is. VDL/TAS
359+. Dr Esther Marian WILLIAMS, Kongwak (Vic) & Fiji, missionary teacher & doctor 1901-2002
Doctor Esther Marian WILLIAMS
Heritage: from Westport, Somerset, England
Born: 19 February 1900 Kongwak, South Gippsland
Father: William John Williams [24 Oct 1858 New Town (Geelong)- 24 Sep 1935]
Mother: Euphemia Annie Downie [20 Nov 1862 - 1946]
Ministry: - Fiji, missionary teacher & doctor
Died: 29 September 2002 @ age 101, at Korumburra Hospital, South Gippsland, Victoria. [Herald Sun (Melbourne) -1 OCT 2002]
Buried: 3 October 2002 Korumburra Cemetery, South Gippsland, Victoria
360. John Williams of the South Seas, Martyr
Williams' Australian Declaration: 'Prosper, O Australia! in your mercantile pursuits, in the extent of your dominions, in the numbers of your flocks and herds, in the fineness of your fleeces; yet recollect, that in your prosperity you are neglecting the work that God, the author of all your prosperity, has assigned you.'
John Williams of the South Seas, Martyr
Parentage: Baptist John WILLIAMS and Hannah MAIDMENT
Birth: 27 June 1796 Tottenham High Cross, London, England
Cultural Heritage: Mediterranean-European Judeo-Christian, Lower Class English, Southsea Islander
Christianity: Baptist, Calvanist Temple Methodist, Congregational, Methodist
Occupation: Methodist minister, Missionary
Organisations: Tabernacle Church, Methodist Church, London Missionary Society
Australian: Hobart VDL (Tasmania); Paramatta, Sydney, NSW; Queensland
Martydom Death: 20 November 1839 Eromanga, New Hebrides (Vanuatu)
Burial:
Legacy:
FROM Australia Dictionary of Biography ADB Online _
Williams, John (1796–1839)
by Niel Gunson
John Williams (1796-1839), missionary, was born on 27 June 1796 at Tottenham High Cross, London, the son of John Williams and Hannah (?) Maidment. His ancestors on his father's side had been Baptists for many generations. His mother was influenced by the Calvinistic Methodist movement and brought her son up as a Congregationalist. Williams was taught writing and arithmetic at Lower Edmonton; he was apprenticed to an ironmonger in 1810 and was soon entrusted with the management of the business. In 1814 he underwent an Evangelical conversion and became a member of the Tabernacle Church (Calvinistic Methodist). He was taught grammar and exegesis by Rev. Matthew Wilks and in 1816 volunteered for missionary service with the London Missionary Society.
Williams was accepted and on 3 September 1816 was ordained at Surrey Chapel. On 29 October 1816 he married Mary Chauner, formerly of Denston Hall, near Cheadle, Staffordshire. Williams, Robert Bourne (1794-1871), David Darling (1790-1867), and George Platt (1789-1865) formed the third party of missionaries to arrive in the islands after the nominal conversion of Tahiti in 1815. They sailed in November 1816 and were joined by Rev. Lancelot Threlkeld at Rio de Janeiro. They arrived at Hobart Town in March 1817 and held the first Evangelical service conducted in Van Diemen's Land, Williams defying opposition by preaching in the open air. In May the party arrived in Sydney where already an itinerant Evangelical ministry had been established by earlier missionaries. William Ellis (1794-1872), who arrived in July 1816, had visited the 'interior', conducted regular services based on Parramatta, taught reading and writing in a Sunday school at Prospect, and set up the mission press in the home of Rowland Hassall. When Ellis left for Tahiti this work was carried on by John Muggridge Orsmond (1788-1856) and Charles Barff (1792-1866) who had arrived in the Surry in December 1816. Orsmond and Barff had taught many of the young Irish convicts to read and write and Barff continued this work in the country districts after Orsmond went to the islands in February 1817. Orsmond later returned briefly to New South Wales, and on 25 December 1819 married Isabella, daughter of Isaac Nelson, an emancipist farmer and the first schoolteacher at Liverpool. Orsmond was better educated than most visiting missionaries, and studied with the family of Dr William Redfern. He later became principal of the South Sea Academy in Moorea, and as a Polynesian scholar and educationist influenced John Dunmore Lang.
All these Dissenting missionaries were received favourably by Governor Lachlan Macquarie and assisted the evangelistic labours of both Anglicans and Wesleyans. Particular friendships were formed with Edward Eagar and Rev. Samuel Leigh. Williams, in particular, impressed Samuel Marsden with his ability. The entire mission party left for the islands in September 1817.
Williams was regarded as the most enterprising missionary in the islands. In December 1821 he and his wife paid a three-month visit to Sydney, where he preached and addressed public meetings. On his own initiative he also bought a ship with Marsden's reluctant approval, to trade between Raiatea and Sydney; and he engaged Thomas Scott to instruct the people of Raiatea in the culture of sugar-cane and tobacco. Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane was so impressed by Williams that he supplied stock to the mission and gave him magisterial authority for the islands.
In 1838, when Williams had become a public figure, he returned to Sydney in the mission ship Camden, and drew considerable crowds to his meetings. Having recently given evidence before the committee of the House of Commons on Aborigines, he was influential in the establishment of the local Aborigines Protection Society, and was also responsible for founding an Auxiliary Missionary Society in Sydney. News of his violent death at Eromanga in the New Hebrides on 20 November 1839 was received with much public sorrow and a new impetus was given to Australian Congregationalism. His widow died in England in June 1851. Their eldest son, John Chauner Williams (1818-1874), was for a time a produce merchant in Sydney before returning to Samoa where he was appointed British consul in 1858.
Besides the well known Baxter prints of Williams, including those of his landing and death at Eromanga, there is a miniature of Williams in the London Missionary Society archives, Westminster.
Several of Williams's colleagues, besides Threlkeld, returned to Australia. Bourne, who arrived in February 1827, went into partnership with Charles Appleton, merchant, in January 1829 before returning to England where he dissolved connexion with the London Missionary Society. He finally settled in Sydney and assumed full management of the business in May 1831. At the end of 1835 he opened a separate business, resigning his Sydney partnership to David Jones, then Appleton's London partner. With William Pascoe Crook and J. Hayward, he took a prominent part in the formation of the Pitt Street Congregational Church in Sydney and was also a prominent member of various philanthropic organizations. Later he moved to Brisbane where he helped to found the Wharf Street Congregational Church in 1859 and among other duties was secretary of the Board of Public Education. He died at Brisbane on 1 June 1871. One of his sons, George Bourne, was William Landsborough's colleague when he crossed the continent in 1862. A daughter, Harriet, married the parliamentarian, George Raff. Four of his grandsons held important positions in the Queensland civil service. Both Darling and Barff retired to Sydney and died there. Barff's grandson, Henry Ebenezer Barff (1857-1925), was registrar of the University of Sydney.
The presence of these missionaries in the colonies aroused public interest in missions and drew attention to trade with the Pacific islands. Williams, who had a dynamic personality, believed that the Christianization of the islands in the Pacific would lead to the greater prosperity of Sydney's business houses. But he also believed Australia had a duty to evangelize and civilize, and wrote to the Sydney Gazette, 22 March 1827: 'Prosper, O Australia! in your mercantile pursuits, in the extent of your dominions, in the numbers of your flocks and herds, in the fineness of your fleeces; yet recollect, that in your prosperity you are neglecting the work that God, the author of all your prosperity, has assigned you'.
Select Bibliography
* J. Williams, A Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands (Lond, 1837)
* E. Prout, Memoirs of the Life of the Rev. John Williams (Lond, 1843)
* J. E. Ellis, Life of William Ellis (Lond, 1873)
* J. J. Ellis, John Williams (Lond, 1890)
* J. King, Ten Decades, the Australian Centenary Story of the London Missionary Society (Lond, 1895)
* N. Bartley, Australian Pioneers and Reminiscences, ed J. Knight (Brisb, 1896)
* B. Williams, Memorial of the Family of Williams (np, 1904)
* LMS archives (Westminster).
FROM WIKIPEDIA -
John Williams (missionary)
John Williams (1796–20 November 1839) was an English missionary, active in the South Pacific. Born near London, England, he was trained as a foundry worker and mechanic. In September 1816, the London Missionary Society commissioned him as a missionary in a service held at Surrey Chapel, London.
In 1817, John Williams and his wife, Mary Chawner, voyaged to the Society Islands, a group of islands that included Tahiti, accompanied by William Ellis and his wife. John and Mary established their first missionary post on the island of Raiatea. From there, they visited a number of the Polynesian island chains, sometimes with Mr & Mrs Ellis and other London Missionary Society representatives. Landing on Aitutaki in 1821, they used Tahitian converts to carry their message to the Cook islanders. One island in this group, Rarotonga (said to have been discovered by the Williamses), rises out of the sea as jungle-covered mountains of orange soil ringed by coral reef and turquoise lagoon; Williams became fascinated by it. John and Mary had ten children, but only three survived to adulthood.[1] The Williamses became the first missionary family to visit Samoa.
The Williamses returned in 1834 to Britain, where John supervised the printing of his translation of the New Testament into the Rarotongan language. They brought back a native of Samoa, named Leota who came to live as a Christian in London. At the end of his days, Leota was buried in Abney Park Cemetery with a dignified headstone paid for by the London Missionary Society, recording his adventure from the South Seas island of his birth. Whilst back in London, John Williams published a "Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands", making a contribution to English understanding and popularity of the region, before returning to the Polynesian islands in 1837 on the ship Camden under the command of Capatin Robert Clark Morgan.
Most of the Williamses' missionary work, and their delivery of a cultural message, was very successful and they became famed in Congregational circles. However, in November 1839, while visiting a part of the New Hebrides where John Williams was unknown, he and fellow missionary James Harris were killed and eaten by cannibals on the island of Erromango during an attempt to bring them the Gospel. A memorial stone was erected on the island of Rarotonga in 1839 and is still there. Mrs. Williams died 14 January 1842 at age 85. She is buried with their son Rev Samuel Tamatoa Williams, who was born in the New Hebrides, at the old Cedar Circle in London's Abney Park Cemetery; the name of her husband and the record of his death were placed on the most prominent side of the stone monument.[2]
In December 2009 descendants of John and Mary Williams travelled to Erromango to accept the apologies of descendants of the cannibals in a ceremony of reconciliation. To mark the occasion, Dillons Bay was renamed Williams Bay.[3][4]
[edit]See also
"John Williams" (ship) – the missionary ship named in his honor.
References
* "Wills & Admons = Pt II, KÜCK, John". q.v. Public Record Office (PRO). Retrieved 2010-02-06.
* Walks in Abney Park Cemetery' by James French
* 18.817°S 169.008°W
* "BBC News - Island holds reconciliation over cannibalism". news.bbc.co.uk. 7 December 2009. Retrieved 2009-12-07.
* French, James. 1888. Walks in Abney Park Cemetery.
* Hiney, Tom. 2000. On the Missionary Trail: a journey through Polynesia, Asia and Africa with the London Missionary Society.
* Prout, Ebenezer. Memoirs of the Life of the Rev. John Williams, Missionary to Polynesia."
* Williams, John. A Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands: With Remarks Upon the Natural History of the Islands, Origin, Traditions, and Usages of the Inhabitants", George Baxter Publisher
Memorial to John Williams's wife and son, at the Congregationalists' pioneering nondenominational place of rest, Abney Park Cemetery (April 2006)361.Doctor Richard D'Alton Williams, Young Irelander, Writer, Poet, Editor, Newspapersman, Political prisoner in Van Diemens Land, Lousiana USA citizen
Doctor Richard D'Alton Williams,
From WIKIPEDIA :-
Richard D'Alton Williams (8 October 1822 – 5 July 1862) was an Irish physician and poet, "Shamrock" of the Nation.[1]
[edit]Life
He was born in Dublin, son of Count D'Alton and Mary Williams. He was educated at Tullabeg Jesuit College and St. Patrick's College, Carlow.[1]
He came to Dublin in 1843 to study medicine. He started contributing verses to the Nation in the 1840s. In 1848 he brought out a newspaper, the Irish Tribune, to take the place of the suppressed United Irishman, founded by John Mitchel. Before the sixth weekly publication, it was seized by Government, and proceedings were instituted against the editors, Williams and his friend Kevin Izod O'Doherty. On 30 October 1848, at a third trial, O'Doherty was convicted and transported to Australia; while Williams, tried two days afterwards, was acquitted. He then resumed his medical studies, took out his degree at Edinburgh in 1849 and emigrated to America in 1851.[1]
In the USA he practised medicine until he became ill and died of tuberculosis in Thibodaux, Louisiana in 1862. He is buried there in St. Joseph's Cemetery. His headstone was later erected that year by Irish members of the 8th New Hampshire Infantry Regiment, then encamped in Thibodaux.[2]
He was married to Elizabeth Connolly, with whom he had two children.
[edit]Bibliography
The Poems of Richard D'Alton Williams, edited with biographical introduction by P. A. Sillard, Third Edition, Dublin, 1901
[edit]References
- a b c Boylan, Henry (1998). A Dictionary of Irish Biography, 3rd Edition. Dublin: Gill and MacMillan. p. 448. ISBN 0-7171-2945-4.
- Irish-American Index
- "Williams, Richard D'Alton". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
361+. + Ronnie WILLIAMS(1940-2003) Aboriginal Pastor, Fatherhood Foundation, NSW
363. William John WILLS ~1861
364. Willie WIMMERA
- Illustrated London News, February 14, 1846'An Australian boy'
by Ralph Sanderson
On Wednesday March 10, 1852 an 11-year-old boy died in Reading from the effects of tuberculosis and peritonitis. Several days later his body was buried in the London Road Cemetery and a headstone placed upon his grave as a memorial by those who knew him. In part it read 'Sacred to the memory of William Wimmera an Australian boy...'
A century and a half has now elapsed since William 'Willie' Wimmera's death yet the headstone that was erected still exists and is today both a rare and poignant reminder of his short existence.
Rare, because the grave it marks shares a common history with only a handful of other known graves in cemeteries across Britain
- it contains the remains of an indigenous Australian.
The oldest burial site of an indigenous Australian in Britain is the grave of Yemmerrawanie (Yemmerrawanyea), a 19-year-old native of the Eora tribe who died on May 18, 1794. With Bennelong he was one of the first two indigenous Australians to visit England. They arrived in London from the fledgling Colony of New South Wales aboard the Atlantic in 1793 and were presented to King George III. Within a year Yemmerrawanie was dead and his body interred in the churchyard of St. John the Bapfist at Eltham, Kent.
The Warstone Lane (Church of England) cemetery in Birmingham is the final resting place of Edward Warrulan (Warru-loong). He was about nine years old when he arrived in London aboard the Symmetry in 1845. Warrulan was the son of a tribal chief in the Colony of South Australia and had been brought to England by Edward John Eyre, the noted explorer. He and a companion were presented to Queen Victoria in January 1846. Following Eyre's appointment and departure to New Zealand as LieutenantGovernor, Warrulan remained in England where his benefactors placed him in an agricultural school at Sibford, in Oxfordshire. He later moved to Banbury where he learnt saddlery and harness work before joining the harness manufacturing firm of J. Middlemore in Birmingham. He also was aged about 19 years when he died from the effects of exposure on October 23,
At a park in Tower Hamlets in London's East End lies Bripumyarrinin (also known as 'King Cole', Brippokei, and Charles Rose). He was a native of the Colony of Victoria and had the distinction of being one of the members of the first all-aboriginal cricket team to visit and play in England. The team surreptitiously arrived in London aboard the Parramatta in May 1868 and had already played several matches when 'King Cole' tragically succumbed to tuberculosis within a month of their arrival and died on June 24, 1868 in Guy's Hospital, London.
William Wimmera was not a cricketer or the son of a tribal chief. Nor was he ever presented to royalty or had a well-known patron or benefactor. He was the youngest known 'Australian boy' to die and be buried so far from his land of origin. 'Willie', as he was referred to by his benefactors and acquaintances in England, was a native of the Wotjobaluk tribe who occupied lands in the Wimmera district in the Colony of New South Wales. He was born about 1840, only four years after Major Thomas Mitchell and his expedition had first traversed the region and in whose wake came the eventual demise of its native inhabitants.
By the time the boy was six years of age, the Wotjobaluk country had been encroached upon by white squatters who brought with them thousands of head of sheep to graze the lands. Clashes between the Wotjobaluk and the European invaders became inevitable as both culture and commercial interests collided.
In a punitive measure for some unknown aggression or act, in February 1846, a party of white settlers set upon a camp of these aboriginal people by the banks of the Wimmera River. Amongst this native group was our six-year-old boy who, by the end of the attack, was left clinging to his dead mother - a bullet through her heart. The woman was buried on the spot and the 'orphaned' boy removed to the home of a Belgian settler, Horatio Ellerman, who had both participated in the raid and was reputed to have fired the shot that had killed the boy's mother.
At the home of Ellerman he was brought up and worked in the household as a servant. In December 1850, Willie's life took another dramatic turn. He was invited to join some men on a trip carting wood to Melbourne. But while in the city he became lost and wandered the streets.
He was soon discovered by a group of young white children and, either at the invitation of his young peers or through curiosity followed them home where he was both fed and allowed to sleep. Willie also accompanied the white children to their school and it was there he came to the attention of the 33-year-old Reverend Septimus Lloyd Chase, an Anglican clergyman and former curate of St. Johns Church, Reading.
After discovering the boy in the school it wasn't long before the Reverend Chase eventually took him into his own home. Chase was soon to return to England and so, with the thought of educating and evangelising the boy into the Christian Church, he asked Willie if he wished to accompany him. But Chase didn't realise that the boy was not an orphan, as his father and brothers were still alive in the Wimmera district, a fact that was realised many years later when his story was told to a local aboriginal congregation.
The barque Sacramento departed Melbourne on the March 29, 1851. A local newspaper recorded that among her passengers were the Reverend Chase and his 'servant'. It was a very long passage to England but it provided Chase with ample time to give the young aboriginal boy instruction in reading and writing and prayer. Following their arrival in London in September 1851 Chase and his young charge travelled to Reading, to the residence of Chase's father, Samuel. Over the next six months, the boy was cared for and educated by Chase's family and his acquaintances at Reading and at Iver nearer London. He was given lessons in writing and drawing and taught practical skills in plaiting straw and making shoes. His education into the Bible and Christianity also continued.
Whilst at Iver, the boy became ill with congestion of the lungs and so it was decided that he should return to Australia as it was considered that the English climate could prove fatal. He returned to Reading before Christmas but his condition continued to deteriorate. On January 8, 1852 Chase was married at St. Giles in Reading and because of this and other commitments was not able to provide the boy with his full attention.
Nevertheless, with Willie's understanding and acceptance of his new faith, Chase had the young Wotjobaluk boy baptized into the Church where he received the name 'William Wimmera' - a reflection of his origins because his traditional or given aboriginal name was probably never known or had been long forgotten.
Sadly, over the next few months the boy's condition scarcely improved. He lost a great deal of weight and he suffered great pain. Although his passage back to Australia in the company of Chase had been arranged Willie did not live long enough to make the journey home. Despite the efforts of his benefactor and carers he finally succumbed before dawn on that spring morning of Wednesday, March 10, 1852.
Plot 10, Row A, Section 44 of the London Road Cemetery, Reading holds more than the body of that eleven-year-old boy. It holds a glimpse into our history and although there may be none now who will mourn or mark the sesqui-centenary of his passing we can at least remember and reflect.
Bibliography:
Aborigines' friend and colonial intelligencer, London. V. 1, No. 1, January-December 1855.
Argus, Melbourne, 1895.
Christie, M. F. / Aborigines in colonial Victoria, 1835-86. Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1979.
The Encyclopedia of Aboriginal Australia: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, society and culture. Canberra: Australian Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 1994. Illustrated London News, London, 1846.
Massola, Aldo. Aboriginal mission stations in Victoria. Melbourne: Hawthorn, 1970.
Mulvaney, D. J. Cricket walkabout: the Australian aborigines in England. 2nd ed. South Melbourne: Macmillan in association with the Dept. of Aboriginal Affairs, 1988.
Scholefield, Mrs H. A short memoir of William Wimmera: an Australian boy who sailed from Melbourne, April 1851 died at Reading, March 10 1852.
365. Samuel Vincent WINTER (23 March 1843 –1904)
366. Joseph WINTER (26 October 1844 - 1915)
367. Hannah WISEMAN, née Parker b. 15 Jan 1832 Widford, Herts d. 22 Aug 1920 Broadmeadows Vic. - TRY
368. Albert WISEMAN, philanthropist b. 27 August 1838 Widford, Herts d, 22 Oct 1906 Glenroy Vic. - TRY B. MGC
369. Arthur & Elizabeth née Parker WISEMAN, Melbourne
370. Annie WISEMAN, Glenroy VIC, murdered at home,1932
371. =Edward WILSON, ARGUS Newspaper, Melbourne
372. =Rev & Mrs F.W. WOOD, Coolarenebri
373. Jean Clara nee Cox 'Jo' WOOLMINGTON (1927-2007) ~ Robust Christian Social Reformer
Photo; Jo Woolmington, Mary White College, 1979
More UNE (University of New England) Passings - Death of Jo Woolmington
- by Jim Belshaw, Monday, January 07, 2008
I was browsing around looking for information on the current floods in the North when I cam across some sad news, the death of Jo Woolimington (23-4-1927 to 6-12-2007 ).
The material that follows is largely drawn from John Farrell's obituary in the Armidale Express (27 December 2007). However, I have added my personal recollections to flesh the story out. You see, Jo spans many of the things that I have been talking about on this and other blogs.
-Born Jean Clara Cox at Essex, England, on April 23, 1927, Jo was a daughter of working class parents, Edward and Rose Cox, & a sister of Avis, Fred, Patsy & Celia.
Her secondary schooling was at Paddington & Maida Vale High School in London during World War II, when Jo experienced first hand the Blitz and other war time conditions, including rationing.
Possessing a strong social conscience, John records that Jo was greatly influenced by her robust Christianity which urged believers to go beyond personal moral reform to promoting social reform, & she was a prominent advocate for social justice while qualifying as a teacher at Whitelands College, London.
She graduated in 1947, and the following year married Eric Richard Woolmington, a geographer. As I remember Jo's stories, it was a whirlwind romance that essentially took place over one weekend!
n 1949 .the couple emigrated to Australia where Jo taught in Sydney at Abbotsleigh and Ascham. In 1956, Eric accepted a lecturing position in the Geography Department at the University of New England & the family moved to Armidale where Jo became an active member of the community.
She was active in the Armidale Association for the Assimilation of Aborigines and with the UNE Women’s Association which acted on their concerns about the social and economic conditions & discrimination experienced by Aboriginal people.
With like-minded people Jo was active in promoting education, employment, health & housing for Aborigines in Armidale.
She also used her dramatic talents, being a co-founder of the University Players which would produce two major productions each year in the Armidale Town Hall. Her production of East Lynn was the first to use the stage machinery at the UNE Arts Theatre. I also think that she was active first in the Armidale Theatre Club.
I must have met Jo soon after they arrived in Armidale, because she became friendly with my mother and used to drop in at home for coffee. I thought her a nice person, although I knew Eric better. At that point Jo was very much a compatriot of my mother's in my mind.
John Farrell notes that Jo enrolled at UNE, studying English in 1963 and History in 1964, while simultaneously teaching at NEGS from 1964 to 1967.
Now I think that John's dates are not quite right here, for Jo did History I with me in 1963. One of our first if not the first assignments was to prepare a summary of some work by Gordon Childe on prehistory - Jo did hers in poetry!
From then on I had a lot to do with Jo as she switched from Mum's to my friend. This was an interesting period to be at UNE in general, almost a golden time in the History Department.
The Department was very strong indeed. Mick Williams was one Professor, Russell Ward a second. Among others, Ted Tapp was pursuing his thoughts on the philosophy of history, Len Turner on military history, while Isabel McBryde had begun her pioneering work on the Australian Aborigines.
As a part time student with a family & a job, Jo could not join in all the things that we full time students did, including spending much time at our table in the Union arguing religion, politics, life and society. But she was there a fair bit of the time.
In 1965 Jo offered her house for seminars for the third year history honours group. There in the back room with its open fire, we held our seminars on the American Revolution, often side-tracking into other topics. In 1966 we all did honours together. Somewhere I have a photo of our table at the 1967 Graduation Ball, including Jo.
I mentioned that at first I knew Eric better.
On Sunday 23 February 1958, the Belshaw Block at UNE burnt down. Poor Eric. His PhD thesis was due to be submitted the following day. All copies were stored in the Belshaw Block & all were lost.
He started again. His new topic was an examination of the geographical scope of support for the New England New State Movement. This was finally finished in 1963 & the degree awarded.
In 1961 I did geography honours for the Leaving Certificate, getting into the top group in the state. As part of this, I had to do a local study. Eric helped me here. But as a strong New England New Stater, I was also interested in his geographic analysis of the movement.
Eric's central thesis was that New England was a marchland area, an area of economic competition between Sydney and Brisbane. Using a variety of techniques, he attempted to measure the natural economic boundary and then compared this to the actual boundary. The natural economic boundary lay far to the south of the actual boundat. He suggested that this area of overlap, contested territory, represented the natural heart of the movement.
He then looked at a whole variety of measurements to test movement support, relating this to his original thesis. In doing so, he painted a very accurate picture of the voting patterns that were to happen four years later in the 1967 New State Plebescite.
Eric's thinking was very influential on my own work.
In my 1966 honours thesis on the economic basis of Aboriginal life in Northern NSW. I used his model to postulate that the Northern Tablelands were a marchland area between the powerful and expanding Kamilaroi to the west & the strong Northern Coast tribes.
Later, his work formed an integral element in my own analysis of New Engalnd history. It remains powerful today when I look at the economic fragmentation and decline of Northern New South Wales, despite its apparent natural advantages.
Eric was not a new state supporter. He thought the dream unachievable, some of the logic flawed. But as he said in 1967, nobody in their right mind should vote no because it was the only thing that forced Governments to consider New England interests in any integrated way. I fear that he was right.
At the time that I am writing about, Erica and Jo's marriage was breaking up & Eric would leave Armidale, dying in 1995.
In 1968 Jo successfully applied for appointment as tutor in the History Department. By then, I was living in Canberra. However, on most of my regular visits back to Armidale I took time to visit her, sometimes meeting with others like Brian Harrison. In fact, the last time I saw Brian was at Jo's house.
In 1972 Jo took up an active role in the Women’s Electoral Lobby. I remember this well, because I ran for Country Party pre-selection for Armidale in that year. Jo therefore interviewed me in my new role as pre-selection candidate.
I actually supported WEL, but I also knew that Jo's support for the Labor Party verged on the theological.
After talking for a bit, I said: "Jo, no matter what I say in answer to your questions, am I right in thinking it doesn't matter so far as your vote is concerned?" She laughed & said "James, I think that's right." We proceeded on that basis.
In 1973 Jo became acting principal of Mary White College at UNE , & was the principal from 1978 to 1982. Here I came in contact with her again while back in Armidale as a postgraduate student.
Jo's sensitivity to the Aboriginal cause, and its ambivalent relationship with Christianity, focused her research for two decades on the Aboriginal situation & the state of religion in the first half of the 19th century.
In 1973 Jo published a book of collected documents, Aborigines in Colonial Society, 1788-1850, still an excellent resource for anyone studying in the field. Her PhD thesis, ‘Early Christian Missions to the Australian Aborigine: a study in failure’ was completed in 1979.
In 1985 Jo was appointed a lecturer, then senior lecturer. She tells her own story up to 1987 in a chapter in a book titled The New England Experience, edited by Margaret Ann Franklin.
Jo joined with Dr Bruce Mitchell in 1988 – the bicentennial of white settlement in Australia – to present the first course on the history of Aborigines & their interaction with whites.
In this last period I was back in Armidale yet again, this time running a consulting business. Busy with business & family, I saw far far less of her than I had in the past.
After retiring from UNE Jo remained in Armidale. The last time I saw her was by accident in the main street on a fleeting trip.
She is survived by her two children, Jonathan and Nicola, as well as some members of her own family. I will remember her.
Postcript: - Gordon Smith kindly sent me a link to the obit on Jo (Jean Woolmington) on the UNE site. This presents the same picture, but provides more information on her role in Mary White College.
Posted by Jim Belshaw at 10:54 pm
BOOKS:
1. Jean Woolmington, 1973 'Aborigines in Colonial Society: 1788 -- 1850. From "Noble Savage" to "Rural Pest".'
2. Jean Woolmington, 1976 'Religion in early Australia: The problem of church and state' (Problems in Australian history
374. = Ernest Ailred WORMS (1891-1963) Priest, Missionary Linguist, Anthropologist
E.A. WORMS holy work was mainly applied on the quiet of the dust of camps in The Kimberley, WA, and the Top End of the Northern Territory. Worms was best known for his classic authoritive work first published in Stuttgart in German by the W. Kohlhammer Verlag, in 1968, as "Australische Eingeborenen Religionen" in 'Die Religionen der Menschheit' series" or as it comes into English as "Australian Aboriginal Religions by Ernest Ailred Worms ; 1986, translated by Charlesworth, Max, 1925-2014; Wilson, Martin J. (Martin James), 1930- ; O'Donovan, David. ;Nelen Yubu and the Missiological Unit in Northern Australia. Also in French as "Les Religions du Pacifique et d'Australie".
Also, Ernest Ailred Worms with Hermann Nekes, "Australian Languages" ~ Mouton de Gruyter, 2006 - (Review : "Australian Languages is the magnum opus of Hermann Nekes and Ernest A. Worms, two missionary linguists who undertook pioneering investigations of a number of languages spoken in Dampier Land and the Kimberley (far north west of Australia) and to a lesser extent further afield, in Queensland and New South Wales during the 1930s and 1940s. William B. McGregor has revised, annotated and updated the original text of Australian Languages. Presenting a wealth of information on many now extinct or moribund languages, the book and its accompanying CD-ROMare of enormous value to descendants of speakers as well as to linguists, including Australianists, descriptive linguists, typologists, and historians of linguistics.")
In his book "Aboriginal Health and History: Power and Prejudice in Remote Australia" Ernest Hunter writes:
Even a liberal Catholic skeptic and critic like Paul Collins can praise Father E A Worms at the same time as he lays rare blame on his more beloved State. In his juvenile pilgrimage along the cliffs in heresy-brinkmanship Collins writes in his book 'Believers: Does Australian Catholicism Have a Future?" -
375. + Fred WOWINDA (c.1836-1911), Yelta Mission, Victoria, Opposite Darling Junction, Wentworth, NSW Fred Wowinda is credited with being the first Christian of the Aboriginal culture in Victoria. When the Yelta mission closed, Fred Wowinda agreed to go to Poonindie Mission, on the Eyre Peninsula, in South Australia, and was soon joined by Robert Holden, also from Yelta, who took up the post of Superintendent there.
Frederick WOWINDA -b.abt 1836 Yelta, Murray~Darling Junction, Victoria --d.4 Nov 1911 Point Pearce, Yorke Peninsula, South Australia @ 75 yrs
Fred WOWINDA Married Mary Amelia McDENNET - child, Annie Magdalene Wowinda born 1888 Poonindie, Flinders, South Australia.
A Bit of History - Yelta Mission - The First Anglican Settlement
Kulnine Station an area of 57,600 acres, was taken up in 1845 by 18 year old John Hawdon, nephew of Joseph Hawdon who was the first to drive a herd of cattle from the known area of the Goulburn River in Victoria, along the Murray River into South Australia, and then overland to Adelaide in 1839 In 1848 John Hawdon, fell from his horse. He was taken to his tent where he later died.
He is buried in the cemetery at the northern end of the Old Mildura Homestead, among the saltbush and box trees that were his home. His grave is beside that of his bushman friend, Armourer Forster, who died in 1889. In 1850 the Station was purchased by Crozier & Rutherford and then in 1857 it was divided into Kulnine Upper and Kulnine Lower with the boundary at Wentworth.
Robert McFarlane son of Margery and Peter McFarlane, was listed twice as baptised, 1843 in Melbourne and 1844 in Portland Presbyterian churches. The first white woman to settle on the banks of the Darling River is believed to be Mrs Peter McFarlane. Her husband and small son Robert left with a flock of ewes and made a hazardous journey through little known country to a spot near Wentworth.
In 1846 Dr Fletcher brought his sister, wife and two daughters to Tapio after his sons had built a residence for them. In 1856 Elizabeth Styleman Fletcher wed George Murray Perry, and is resident at Moorna In 1859 Anne Frances Lilbourne Fletcher wed Stephen Cole, Land Commissioner based at Euston. Eliza Williams arrived in 1847 when her uncle Frank Jenkins arrived with Eliza and her husband John Williams, 2 other men and 900 head of cattle.
He crossed the Murray to select land in Victoria, then went to Adelaide to claim title. He found the land was in Victoria and arrived in Melbourne after the land had been claimed by Hugh and Bushby Jamieson. He was obliged to cross back to NSW where the Fletchers sold him a square mile at Lower Boeill Creek, opposite Merbein. In Sep 1853 Elizabeth Williams saluted the first two paddle steamers, Lady Augusta and Mary Ann, as they puffed by her land.
In 1855 Dr F E Renner came to Wentworth as town doctor and stayed till 1870. Dr Frederick Renner and his wife Emilie or Anne registered 7 children born at Wentworth from 1859 to 1870. The Argus (Melbourne, Vic., Saturday 15 December 1855, Page 5, column headed Mission to the Aborigines, describes the formation of Yelta Mission, sending Mr Goodwin and Bulmer out on 21 May, to arrive at Yelta on 3 Aug, repair a hut they found on the spot, and set
about making contact with local residents. John Harris in 'One Blood' page 164 writes - Early in 1855 John Bulmer saw an advertisement for the public meeting at St Mark's Fitzroy where Thomas Hill Goodwin reported his findings. John offered himself for the work, and after some discussion about his being Methodist and not Church of England, he was accepted.
Goodwin and Bulmer took an immediate interest in learning the local language, although the Aborigines had already acquired some use of English. While most Aboriginal people came and went, one couple, Nanwitchero and his young wife, stayed and taught the missionaries about local languages and customs. Bulmer proved particularly adept, learning to speak Maraura fluently within six months, which gave him a high degree of acceptance. The Argus Thursday 28 January 1858 printed on Page 6, the 4th Annual Report - progress but number of Aborigines is decreasing. The Argus Thursday 30 June 1859, Page 5, noted the
government stores promised to the Mission, had not arrived, causing extreme hardship to those who depended on the continuation of supplies.
John Bulmer was given permission to visit Melbourne January 1858 and married 1858 to Marian Stocks, a school teacher interested in helping the mission school flourish. At the Annual Meeting held at St Paul's School Room on 27 Jan 1858 it was reported that the Government had sent a large quantity of stores. The missionaries sadly reported that during the time they had been at Yelta twelve adult Aborigines had died, and that the few babies born during this period had all died shortly after birth. While the adults helped the men with farming and building jobs, about 14 children were learning to sing hymns, to read, and other school lessons, followed by games and either helping Marian in her garden, or checking on the plants in their own garden The Mission Report for 1860, shows that Thomas Hill Goodwin and John Bulmer built a windmill and developed a carefully designed mission area.
A well-fenced, spacious stockyard was enclosed on three sides by comfortable cottages for the Missionaries and the school children, the schoolroom and the store-room; other buildings were to the rear, amongst which was a hut used by the natives. Between the cottages and the steep bank of the river was a pleasant garden, well stocked with flowers and vegetables; and at a quarter mile distant on either side of the mission premises was a camp of blacks, whose mia-mias presented a substantial appearance, being thatched with reeds and perfectly secure from the weather.
Marian Bulmer developed consumption, she and John retired to Melbourne in Dec 1860 and she died 14 Feb 1861 aged 37. John did not return to Yelta, going to start his own Mission at lake Tyers with his new wife Caroline Blay. Francis and Eliza Kerridge arrive about 1856 from Suffolk, settle at Rufus River then move to Wentworth about 1865 and purchase Yelta when it was decommissioned and Thomas Hill Goodwin moved his family to Wentworth.
Fred Wowinda is credited with being the first Christian of the Aboriginal culture in Victoria. When the Yelta mission closed, Fred Wowinda agreed to go to Poonindie Mission in South Australia, and was soon joined by Robert Holden also from Yelta, who took up the post of Superintendent there.
In 1870 Goodwin was fully ordained in the Anglican Church by Bishop Perry and after serving in Wentworth, he also held livings at Bacchus Marsh,
Gisborne and Heathcote before being appointed Chaplain of Melbourne General Cemetery till he retired aged 67 in 1891 At 79 years of age he learned
Braille and was made life governor of the Institute for the Blind, for his Braille transcription work. He died on 7 Oct 1917 aged 93, and is buried at the Melbourne General Cemetery.
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But at Yelta Mission Fred WOWINDA had been taught to read and write and there was little throwback to traditional culture after such a life-changing embrace of new mindedness. Wowinda soon became a sometime evangelist and Christian missionary along with Martin Simpson and and Daniel of Lake Hindmarsh. In "Black Gold: Aboriginal People on the Goldfields of Victoria, 1850-1870" author Fred Cahir writes:
In Poonindie, though, came long years of negelct, Fred Wowinda's status and situation gradually reduced back into disregard by the latterday whitefellas. In fact by the 1890s when that Aboriginal Reserve was under threat, then being closed, Wowinda was denied the right to take up land, in favour of the self-serving even cupiditous ex-Superintendant J. D. Bruce. In "Outback Ghettos: Aborigines, Institutionalisation and Survival:- the author Peggy Brock writes:
The older white-haired man at left may be Fred Wowinda. He was moved on from Poonindie in the 1890s and died across the water at Point Pearce on the Yorke Peninsula on 4 Nov 1911 .
373. Florence YOUNG (1856 Motueka, NZ -1940 Sydney, NSW, Missionary IN QLD & China
from ADB ONline
Young, Florence Selina Harriet (1856–1940) by Helga M. Griffin
Florence Selina Harriet Young (1856-1940), missionary, was born on 10 October 1856 at Motueka, near Nelson, New Zealand, fifth child of Henry Young, farmer, and his wife Catherine Anne, née Eccles, both Plymouth Brethren from England. Educated at home and for two years at a boarding school in England, at the age of 18 Florence experienced 'a crisis' during a prayer meeting at Dunedin: perceiving God's powers of forgiveness, she asked to be baptized.
Settling in Sydney in 1878, after the death of her parents Florence moved in 1882 to Fairymead, a sugar plantation near Bundaberg, Queensland, run by two of her brothers. With timidity, she began to hold prayer meetings for planters' families and, with one assistant, established the Young People's Scriptural Union which eventually attracted 4000 members. Her attentions were increasingly devoted to the Melanesian sugarworkers whose responsiveness to kindness she applauded and whose 'heathen' customs and 'addictions' to 'white men's vices' she abhorred. Asking that God instruct 'the teacher and the scholars', she conducted classes in pidgin English, using pictures, rote biblical phrases and a chrysalis to explain the resurrection.
Under Miss Young's guidance, the Queensland Kanaka Mission was formally established at Fairymead in 1886 as an evangelical, non-denominational church. Relying on unsolicited subscriptions and stressing 'salvation before education or civilization', it spread to other plantations and won considerable approval. The Q.K.M. aimed to prepare the Melanesians for membership of established Christian churches after their repatriation and employed paid missionaries and members of Florence's extended family. Reassuring in its message of hope, its open-air hymn singing and its mass baptisms in local rivers, at its height in 1904-05 the Q.K.M. engaged nineteen missionaries and 118 unpaid 'native teachers', and claimed 2150 conversions. As she embraced departing converts, Florence exhorted them: 'No forget 'im Jesus'.
Tall and slender, with her hair worn austerely, the clear-eyed evangelist dressed in well-cut suits and bore herself confidently. Between 1891 and 1900 she had spent six precarious years with the China Inland Mission. Despite a nervous breakdown, she recognized her work as a preparation for the South Sea Evangelical Mission which became a branch of the Q.K.M. in 1904 in response to appeals for help from repatriated Q.K.M. teachers. That year, singing hymns during the crossing, she helped to settle White missionaries on Malaita in the Solomon Islands in the hope of nurturing an indigenous church.
Miss Young administered and dominated the expanding S.S.E.M. from Sydney and Katoomba, New South Wales, and made lengthy annual visits to the islands until 1926 when her modest autobiography, Pearls from the Pacific, was published in London. She regarded universities as 'hot-beds of infidelity' and was opposed to women entering them. Inflexible though serene in later years, she died on 28 May 1940 at Killara, Sydney, and was buried in Gore Hill cemetery with Presbyterian forms. By then, the S.S.E.M. had recorded over 7900 conversions.
Select Bibliography
H. I. Hogbin, Experiments in Civilization (Lond, 1939)
A. R. Tippett, Solomon Islands Christianity (Lond, 1967)
P. Corris, Passage, Port and Plantation (Melb, 1973)
D. Hilliard, God's Gentlemen (Brisb, 1978)
R. M. Keesing and P. Corris, Lightning Meets the West Wind (Melb, 1980)
QKM and SSEM, Not in Vain (Annual Report), 1887-1940
Pacific Islands Monthly, 15 June 1940, p 70
Journal of Pacific History, 4, 1969, p 4
private information.
376. Rev. Robert YOUNG (1796–1865) Wesleyan Minister, Famous for his Sermons: "A View of Slavery in Connection with Christianity"; Early Missionary and Christian Inspector travelling Australia, new Zealand, Tonga & Fiji.
Reverend Robert YOUNG
Birth: 14 November 1796 Ryton, Durham, England
Death; 16 November 1865 Truro, Cornwall, England
Cultural Heritage: English
Religious Influence; Methodist, anti-slaver
Occupation: Methodist minister, preacher, autobiographer, memoirist
Young, Robert (1796–1865)
by S. G. Claughton
This article was published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 6, (MUP), 1976
Robert Young (1796-1865), Wesleyan minister, was born on 14 November 1796 near Ryton, County Durham, England, son of practising Methodists. Early in 1820 he was received by the British Conference of the Wesleyans as a missionary candidate. He was ordained on 9 November and appointed to Kingston, Jamaica, where he showed preaching and administrative abilities. One of his sermons, A View of Slavery in Connection with Christianity, was published in Jamaica in 1824. He was in Nova Scotia in 1826-29 and visited the United States of America, but returned to England in 1830. In 1837-44 he published a series of religious tracts and ministered until 1852 in British circuits, 'where his zeal was tempered by sound judgement and unsual self-control'.
In 1852 the British Conference appointed Young and Rev. John Kirk as a deputation to visit Australasia to examine the feasibility of uniting the missions of New Zealand and Polynesia with the Australian Conference as a separate, self-supporting body. Unseaworthy ships separated them and Kirk returned to England. Young went on alone and after a voyage marked by delays, gales and fire, he arrived at Port Adelaide in the Adelaide on 4 May 1853. He preached in the Pirie Street Methodist Chapel and continued to Melbourne where he took notice of 'the substantial edifices of worship' and immigrants at the Wesleyan Home in Drummond Street. Amazed by the spread of Methodism in the colony, he preached several times in the Collins Street chapel to over 1000 people, three-fourths of whom 'were interesting young men'.
On 11 June Young arrived in Sydney where he was met by Wesleyan ministers and Rev. W. B. Boyce. At a tea meeting in the York Street chapel solidarity between Methodists in Britain and Australia was affirmed and he found support for the deputation's objects. On 20 July he attended a meeting of the Australasian Board of Missions and later spoke at Windsor, Richmond and Parramatta, everywhere collecting statistics. At the District Meeting on 29 July the New South Wales Wesleyan ministers approved the constitution of the Australasian Conference proposed by Young.
In September he left for investigation and talks with Methodists in New Zealand, Tonga and Fiji. Young returned to Sydney and Melbourne, spent Christmas Day on the Victorian gold diggings and travelled to Van Diemen's Land before returning to England in 1854, well satisfied with the Australasian Conference's ability to be financially independent. In eighteen months he had travelled 40,000 miles (64,374 km). On 3 April Young reported favourably to the British Conference at Birmingham on his assignment and on 9 August the plan for a 'distinct and affiliated connexion' for Australasian Methodism was signed. He published a record of his travels, The Southern World (London, 1854), and two years later the conference elected him as its president. For the next six years he ministered in London and Newcastle.
In 1860 paralysis forced Young to become a supernumerary; with his large family he retired to Truro, Cornwall, where he died of exhaustion on 16 November 1865.
Select Bibliography
J. Colwell, The Illustrated History of Methodism (Syd, 1904)
E. G. Clancy, ‘ “Christianity in aggressive action” ’, Australasian Methodist Historical Society, Journal, Dec 1969
Register (Adelaide), 2 Mar, 5 May 1853
Nathaniel Turner journal (State Library of New South Wales)
Wesleyan Methodist Australian District, Minutes, 1851-54 (State Library of New South Wales)
Notes from Methodist Archives and Research Centre, London.
377. Helga Josephine (1909-1980) & Pastor Alfred Freund ZINNBAUER (1910 - 1978)- Jewish Lutheran refugee Pastor to Internees, Sailors, Refugees, Tatura Internment Camp, Victoria, & Adelaide, South Australia
378. ZUNDOLOVICH, Paul Ephraim (1865 Maishad, Russian Lithuania - 1935 Moama, NSW, Catholic Missionary, Priest, WWI Australian (AIF) Army Chaplain
ZUNDOLOVICH, Paul Ephraim
Roman Catholic Pries
Captain Chaplain 4th Class
Born 15 May 1865 in Maishad, Russia
NOK Dean Andrew KILLAIN
Resided Hay, NSW
Aged 51 years
Enlisted 01 December 1916 for Voyage Only
Embarked 19 December 1916 per 'Orontes' from Sydney, NSW
Returned to Australia 17 March 1917 per 'Beltana'
Appointment terminated 17 May 1917
Died 07 May 1935 at Moama, NSW
The Rev. P. E. Zundolovich, who has recently returned from an extended visit to Europe, has been transferred from the Wilcannia White Cliffs Roman Catholic mission to Bourke in succession to the Rev. Father Maguinne, who has sailed for Europe by the R.M.S. Orontes. Father Maguinne will probably be absent from the diocese for a year.
The Chronicle Saturday 03 April 1909 page 53
Picture
Picture
DEATH OF FATHER P. ZUNDOLOVICH.
Zealous Priest of the Great Outback.
THE LATE FATHER PAUL ZUNDOLOVICH.
The death of Very Rev. Father Paul E. Zundolovich, at the presbytery, Moama, on Tuesday, 7th inst., removed one of the most picturesque personalities of the Church in Southern Riverina. During the past 18 years 'Father Paul,' as he was affectionately known, was in charge of the Moama parish, and his unexpected demise has cast a gloom over the large district in which he acted as parish priest.
Following medical advice, Father Paul was taken to Melbourne for treatment in February, and was under the care of the Sisters of Charity at Mt. St. Evin's Private Hospital until his return to Moama on the Thursday before his death. Arriving in apparently good health, the venerable priest immediately arranged to take over his former parish duties, which during his absence were carried out by Rev. Father T. M. Stokes.
But he experienced a relapse, and the end came with tragic suddenness. The last rites of Holy Church were received at the hands of Very Rev. Prior Doyle, O.S.A., of Echuca.
Born of Jewish parents about 70 years ago, ho spent his early years in his native land, Lithuania. He was converted to Catholicity in his youth, studied for the priesthood, and was ordained in Borne.
He came to Australia in 1892 as a missionary priest. Parochial responsibilties at Wilcannia and Whitecliffs, N.S.W., absorbed his religious labours for some years, when his priestly work necessitated the use of horse-drawn vehicles. Always holding an honoured position amongst his far-flung parishioners, Father Paul made many friends in all spheres of outback life, and he was loved by Catholics and non-Catholics alike for his personal charm and devotion to his holy religion.
A noted linguist, he was able to converse in many languages, and was a reputed Hebrew scholar. Numerous letters from foreign countries were referred to him for translation, and his wise counsel was sought by many prominent members of his Church. He numbered amongst his scholastic class-mates the present Archbishop of Hobart (Most Rev. Dr.Hayden). The present Bishop of Wilcannia-Forbes (Right Rev. Dr. T. M, Fox) had the distinction of receiving the Sacrament of Baptism from his hands.
Typical of his love for his parishioners and Church, one of the last expressions of the departed priest on his return to Moama from Melbourne was his delight at being back in the field of his labours - Solemn Requiem Mass and Funeral. Beginning with the arrival of his Lordship Bishop Fox, at St. Mary's Church, Echuca, on Thursday, at 10 a.m., the obsequies in connection with tho late priest took place.
A large congregation, comprising parishioners from all parts of the district, on both sides of the Murray, filled the spacious church, where Solemn Requiem Mass was celebrated by Rev.Father T. M. Stokes, acting parishpriest of Moama. The deacon was -Rev.Father Glancy, of Barham, N.S.W.; subdeacon, Rev. Prior Maddbck, ? Kyabram(Vic), and master of ceremonies, Rev. Father Tehan, of Rushworth (Vic). His Lordship Dr. McCarthy (Bishop of Sandhurst) was specially represented by Very Rev. Father Kelly, Adm. of St. Kilian's, Bendigo.The Moama and Echuca Borough Councils were represented by their respective Mayors, Messrs. L. Martin (Moama) andJ. H. Broderick (Echuca). Music for the Mass was sung by a choir of visiting priests, comprising Very Rev. Prior Meredith, Rev. Fathers Ryan (Elmoro), Kelly, Carroll and Ryan (Balranald), Cremin, Armstrong,Murphy, McGoldrick, Stokes, and Doyle,and Priors Roche arid Doyle. The Final Absolution was performed by his Lordship Dr. Fox.
Dr. Fox's Inspiring Discourse. At the conclusion of Mass, Dr. Fox, in the course of an inspiring discourse, said:'. 'We are gathered here today to pay a tribute of respect to, and pray for, the soul of one whom to know was to love. Father Paul was a friend to all with whom he came in contact, and although no longer a member of the Church Militant, he is still a member of the Church beyond the grave.
'In relating the life of the late priest, Bishop Fox referred to his ordination in Rome in 1891, and his arrival in Australia in 1892. The greater part of his 43 years of religious service was spent in the great Australian outback, in a parish with an area of 40,000 square miles. The nearest priest to his headquarters at White Cliffs was 120 miles away, at Broken Hill, which place he visited once yearly for his retreat. Father Paul was often away from home for months at a time, travelling the vast territory and ministering to his people. Unlike many young Irish priests who came to Australia in the early days, Father Paul arrived as a complete foreigner, unable to speak the language, and unaccustomed to the life and standards of Australians; but the faith was so deep within him that he early overcame these difficulties.
Although he had been in Moama for 20 years, his name was still fondly remembered, and mentioned in the outback as a true man of God. The late priest's life work included establishing convents at Whiteeliffs, Mathoura and Mildura, and building the first Catholic churches at Whitedliffs, Mildura and Womboota. The Bishop concluded his address by thanking the priests of the Bendigo Diocese, and particularly the Augustinian Fathers of Echuca for their kindly help and co-operation in the day's sad ceremonies, and asked all to remember Father Paul in their prayers.A large crowd assembled about St.Mary's Church gates to view the remains being borne from the church. To the tolling of the bell the cortege moved off across the Murray Bridge to the Moama cemetery, making a detour to pass the Moama church. The large number of cars that followed the funeral procession testified to the great love and esteem for the late priest,many travelling great distances to be present. The prayers at the graveside were recited by his Lordship Bishop Fox, assisted by Rev. Father T. M. Stokes. Tho pallbearers, selected from amongst parishioners of Moama, included the following: Messrs. P.Holschen, J. Malone, J. Farrell, M. Fleming, P. Harrison, G. Holschen, J. White, W. Rip:per. J. Harrison, E. Hood, M. Maguire andS. Holschen.— R.I.P.
The Catholic Press Thursday 16 May 1935 page 17
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