An Anglican Clergyman on the Frontier: Benjamin Glennie on the Darling Downs 1848-1860. (original) (raw)
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Historical Archaeology 45(4):1-19, 2011
Fieldwork undertaken at the mid-19th century residence, or ‘parsonage’ of the Reverend Willoughby Bean in Gippsland, Australia, provides new insight into the impact of the intertwined roles of church and state on the frontier of settlement of 19th-century colonial Australia. The extensive material culture recovered from the Bean site demonstrates a striving towards a status commensurate with Bean’s social standing as the sole local representative of a state church of the governing colonial power. Paradoxically, the very need to materially maintain his social role as a representative of the Anglican Church may have been one of the primary contributors towards the eventual financial failure of the Bean household.
The journalist in the rectory: Anglican clergymen and Australian intellectual life, 1788-1850
In the popular historical imagination, colonial Anglican clergymen have tended to be remembered more for their flogging than for their writing. The Anglican clergy’s contribution to public life has been assessed mainly in relation to their preaching to convicts and their sectarian battles over education. Yet several Anglican clergymen were columnists, editors or founders of major newspapers and literary journals before 1850, a contribution to intellectual life which has been obscured in part because many clergymen wrote anonymously or under noms de plume to avoid libel suits. Two issues to which clergyman-journalists made especially important contributions were the understanding of Australian Aborigines during a period of increasing conflict, both on the frontier and in intellectual enquiry, and public discussion of the scientific discovery and exploration of Australia. Their writings, I argue, reveal the ways in which they sought to frame intellectual debate on key concerns in terms of a distinctly Christian and Enlightenment-inflected vision of the social and moral order. At the same time, their journalism sheds light on both the intellectual underpinnings of public debate and a tension in clerical thought between humanitarian interest in Aboriginal peoples and a desire for colonial expansion and progress. The clergy’s attempts to refine the colonial life of the mind also reveal them at the heart of a nascent national literary culture, rather than as merely proponents of a nostalgic ‘literature of exile’. In turn, their journalism suggests a more influential role in public life than has generally been allowed.
The Cost of Catholicism: Catholic Leadership and Colonial Chaplains in Western Australia, 1852-86
The Australasian Catholic Record, 2019
There was a significant monetary cost associated with establishing Catholicism in colonial Western Australia. The bishops and clergy funded the development of the local Catholic Church through donations from European benefactors, offerings from the congregation, and sponsorship from the Colonial and British Governments. As donations from Europe were variable and the resident Catholic population were largely poor, the government grants were the most reliable income for the Diocese of Perth. The government issued grants to support the establishment of congregations, schools, and social welfare institutions. The development of congregations in new settlements was the Catholic Church’s core ministry and the government issued stipends to Catholic chaplains to administer spiritual care to settlers and convicts in particular districts. Government grants were based on the census results and the Catholic Church was required to establish local church congregations and recruit clergy, and demonstrate an ability to contribute towards the maintenance of both. From 1852 to 1886, Bishops Joseph Serra, Rosendo Salvado and Martin Griver took charge of establishing congregations, managing clergy and lobbying the governors and other civil officials to fund colonial chaplaincies. The government also expected that the chaplains would promote moral and social order among the ex-convicts transported from Britain. Throughout the mid-colonial period the colonial chaplains developed an important role in the frontier society of Western Australia, and Catholic and civil leaderships partnered to resource the establishment of Catholic congregations. Despite the significance of the chaplaincy to Catholicism and broader society, little attention has been given to these clergy and their work. Among the few who have considered the chaplains are Marian Aveling, who questioned whether civil officials preferred the Church of England over the Catholic claim to state aid, and D.F. Bourke, who stated that officials actively undermined applications by Catholics for funding. Exploring the work of chaplains and the engagement of Catholic leaders with officialdom will further the scholarly understanding of the role that Christianity and Christian leadership played within the social structure of the colony. It will also test the thesis of Renae Barker, that the colonial authorities created a plural Christian establishment, and Rowan Strong, who has argued that the Colonial Government implemented the principle of religious equality in the colony. Finally, it will provide insight into Catholic leadership, particularly in relation to its ability to access government resources and sustain the Catholic mission in providing spiritual care for settlers. The study of these themes in this article is based on an expansive survey of nineteenth-century ecclesiastical correspondence within the Colonial Secretary’s Office records, the colony’s peak administrative apparatus.