We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 February 2009
This winning and much-quoted declamation, made in Oxford in 1908 by G. H. Frodsham, the Anglican bishop of North Queens-land, enshrines the aura of romance which has ever since surrounded the Australian bush brotherhoods. The attraction of this form of community life, especially to younger English clergy, lay in its spirit of adventure and in the once magnetic appeal to empire loyalty: duty and sacrifice, for a limited term, in a not too foreign land.
1 Cited in Feetham, J. O. and Rymer, W. V., North Queensland jubilee book 1878–1928, Townsville 1929, 14Google Scholar; Berwick, G. T., The birth of the bush brotherhoods, Sevenoaks 1947, [14]Google Scholar; Webb, R. A. F., Brothers in the sun: a history of the bush brotherhood movement in the outback of Australia, Adelaide 1978, 46Google Scholar.
2 Church Standard (Sydney), 18 04 1924Google Scholar. The anonymous author of the article was one of the four, Reginald Halse, then warden of the brotherhood of St Barnabas.
3 Jeffery, Graham, Bush brother, London 1970Google Scholar; Shevill, Ian, Half time, Brisbane 1966, 78–9Google Scholar.
4 Symonds, Richard, Oxford and empire: the last lost cause?, London 1986CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Inglis, Ken, Churches and the working classes in Victorian England, London 1963, 144–62Google Scholar; cf. Rowell, Geoffrey, The vision glorious: themes and personalities of the Catholic revival in Anglicanism, Oxford 1983, 239–40Google Scholar.
6 Inglis, , Churches and the working classes, 29Google Scholar.
7 Ibid. 43–.
8 Year book of the diocese of Brisbane, 1898–99, Brisbane 1899, 14–19Google Scholar. The parishes of Charleville (population 9,975) and Cunnamulla (population 3,000), each 60,000 square miles, were worked together by one ‘mission-priest’.
9 StDonaldson, Clair, ‘Australia’, in Ellison, J. and Wilson, G. H. S. (eds), Church and empire, London 1907, 165–6Google Scholar.
10 Trollope, Anthony, Australia and New Zealand, London 1873, i. 225–6Google Scholar.
11 Innes, G. A. C., Church Messenger (Melbourne), 6 01 1880Google Scholar.
12 Untitled paper by the Revd Tucker, H. F., in Papers read at the church congress held at Sydney … 1889, Sydney 1889, 166Google Scholar.
13 Berwick, , Birth of the brotherhoods, [9]Google Scholar.
14 The year-book of Australia for 1901, London 1901, 474–93Google Scholar; Year-book of the diocese of Melbourne for 1900–1901, Melbourne 1901, 98–105Google Scholar.
15 Frappell, R. M., ‘The Anglican ministry to the unsettled districts of Australia, c. 1890 to 1940’, unpubl. PhD diss. Sydney 1992, i. 159–60Google Scholar.
16 Fenton, M. E., ‘Etona’ and the River Murray Mission 1891–1912, Lockleys, South Australia 1977Google Scholar.
17 In New South Wales, Grafton (1914); in Queensland, Rockhampton (1892), Carpentaria (1901); in Victoria, Wangaratta, Gippsland, Bendigo (1902); in South Australia, Willochra (1914); in Western Australia, Bunbury (1904), North-West Australia (1909), Kalgoorlie (1914).
18 Webber to E. W. Benson, 15 Dec. 1893, Benson Papers, Lambeth Palace Library, cxxiv, fo. 81; cf. Rayner, Keith, ‘The history of the Church of England in Queensland’, unpubl. PhD diss. Queensland 1962, 213–15Google Scholar.
19 Nathaniel Dawes (from the diocese of London), bishop of Rockhampton (1892–1908); G. H. Frodsham (Ripon), North Queensland (1902–12); R. S. Hay (Durham), Tasmania (1919–42); Henry Newton (London), Carpentaria (1915), British New Guinea (1922–35); Montagu Stone-Wigg (London), British New Guinea (1898–1908); Henry Dixon (London), coadjutor bishop of Brisbane (1932); J. W. Ashton (Peterborough), Grafton (1921–38).
20 Webber to R. T. Davidson, 20 Oct. 1897, Davidson Papers, Lambeth Palace Library, xlvii, fos 362–3; Gilbert White to Benson, 25 November 1891, Benson Papers, cxv, fos 250–1.
21 Winnington-Ingram, A. F., Holiday recollections of a world tour, London1928, 206Google Scholar.
22 Walsh, Walter, The secret history of the Oxford Movement, London 1897, 76, 125Google Scholar. Walsh claimed Dawes joined the Society of the Holy Cross in 1872.
23 Dawes to Webber, 9 Apr. 1892, cited in Webber's, synod address: Year book of the diocese of Brisbane, Brisbane 1892, 58Google Scholar.
24 Berwick, , Birth of the brotherhoods, [3]Google Scholar; Webb, , Brothers in the sun, 15Google Scholar.
25 Tomlin, J. W. S., The story of the bush brotherhoods, London 1949Google Scholar; Fraser, Ross, An historical sketch of the diocese of North Queensland, Townsville 1958Google Scholar; Rowland, E. C., The tropics for Christ being a history of the diocese of North Queensland, Townsville-Sydney 1960Google Scholar.
26 Inglis, , Churches and the working classes, 35–6Google Scholar.
27 Wilkinson, Alan, The Community of the Resurrection: a centenary history, London 1992Google Scholar.
28 Strahan, Lynne, Out of the silence: a study of a religious community of women: the Community of the Holy Name, Melbourne 1988Google Scholar. The community began c. 1885 as the Church of England Diocesan Mission to the Streets and Lanes of Melbourne.
29 Report of the proceedings of the general synod of the dioceses in Australia and Tasmania … published by order of the executive committee, Parramatta–Sydney 1891, 60–1Google Scholar.
30 Sydney Morning Herald, 29 Sept. 1891.
31 Montagu Stone-Wigg: Anson, P. F., The call of the cloister, London 1964, 441, 587–8Google Scholar.
32 Mason, Alistair, History of the Society of the Sacred Mission, Norwich 1993, 226Google Scholar.
33 The Revd A. E. Frost published a number of Anglo-Catholic manuals as ‘Fr Bede’ or ‘Bede Frost’: Clyde, Laurel, In a strange land: a history of the Anglican diocese of Riverina, Melbourne 1979, 206–7Google Scholar.
34 Frappell, , ‘Anglican ministry’, ii. 558Google Scholar.
35 Eddy, J. and Schreuder, D. M., The rise of colonial nationalism, Sydney 1988Google Scholar, passim; Teale, Ruth, ‘Frederick Campion’, Australian dictionary of biography, Melbourne 1979, vii. 554Google Scholar.
36 For example, Tomlin, , Story, 80Google Scholar.
37 Bush Brother (Dubbo, ), 12 1948Google Scholar; Philp, R. H. H., ‘George Dowglass Halford: an English bishop in the Australian bush’, unpubl. MLitt. diss. New England 1982Google Scholar.
38 Rodd, L. C., John Hope of Christ Church, Sydney 1972, 67Google Scholar; Rayner, , ‘Queensland’, 319–20Google Scholar.
39 Wand, J. W. C., Changeful page, London 1965, 124Google Scholar.
40 Frappell, , ‘Anglican ministry’, ii. 558Google Scholar.
41 Year book of the diocese of Bathurst, Bathurst 1940, 8–13Google Scholar. Archdeacon L. C. S. Walker was principal from 1944 to 1962.
42 Repor t of the Brotherhood, Charleville, Year book of the diocese of Brisbane, Brisbane 1925, 202Google Scholar; Tomlin, , Story, 99Google Scholar.
43 Wand, , Changeful page, 132Google Scholar.
44 Frappell, , ‘Anglican ministry’, ii. 543–4Google Scholar.
45 Webb, , Brothers in the sun, 134Google Scholar.
46 Witt, Howell, Bush bishop, Adelaide 1979, 21Google Scholar.
47 Druitt, C. H., bishop of Grafton, presidential address, 3 Sept. 1915, Year book of the diocese of Grafton for 1914–15, Grafton 1915, 49Google Scholar.
48 SPG Missionary Exhibitions Department, Handbook: Australia, London n.d., 34Google Scholar.
49 Brotherhood of Our Holy Redeemer, Broken Hill (1915), diocese of Riverina; brotherhood of St Aidan (1915–18) at Tailem Bend, diocese of Adelaide, founded by the Revd J. W. Clarke; brotherhood of Our Saviour (1915–20), diocese of Grafton; brotherhood of St Paul (1916–22) at Hastings, diocese of Melbourne, founded by the Revd Frederick Watts; brotherhood of St John the Evangelist, Sale (1920–4), diocese of Gippsland; brotherhood of St Paul, Pt Pirie (1922–4), diocese of Willochra, also founded by Watts; brotherhood at Margaret River, diocese of Bunbury (1922–4); brotherhood of St Stephen, Quorn (1926), diocese of Willochra; brotherhood at Broken Hill (again), in 1929, Archdeacon J. H. A. Chauvel, principal; brotherhood of St Andrew, Manangatang (1936–8), diocese of St Arnaud, founded by the Revd Francis Morton; brotherhood of St John the Baptist (1944–7), Murray Bridge (‘the Mallee Fathers’), diocese of Adelaide, founded by the Revd L. E. W. Renfrey.
50 Witt, , Bush bishop, 95Google Scholar. S. H. Davies, of the Charleville brotherhood, was bishop of Carpentaria from 1922 to 1950; W. E. Elsey, brotherhood of St Boniface, was bishop of Kalgoorlie from 1919 to 1950.
51 The Defender (Adelaide), 08 1924Google Scholar.
52 In Melbourne, the mission of the Holy Redeemer, Fitzroy (1889–93), parish of St Mark, Fitzroy, and St Mary's mission, Fitzroy (1921–31), parish of St Peter, East Melbourne; in Sydney in the interwar years, the inner city parishes of St James, King Street (the Sister Freda Rich mission) and Christ Church St Laurence conducted parish missions. The brotherhood of St Laurence, still known for its social service, was founded in the inner suburbs of Newcastle (NSW) in 1930 and moved to Melbourne in 1933.
53 Holden, Colin, ‘Awful happenings on the hill’: E.S.Hughes and Melbourne Anglo-Catholicism before the war, Melbourne 1992, 45–6Google Scholar.
54 Barrett, John, That better country: the religious aspect of life in eastern Australia, 1835–1850, Melbourne 1966, 29–44Google Scholar.
55 The Englishmen were G. D. Halford, bishop of Rockhampton 1909–20; J. O. Feetham of North Queensland 1912–47; W. E. Elsey of Kalgoorlie 1919–50; S. H. Davies of Carpentaria 1922–49; R. C. Halse of Riverina 1926, and Brisbane 1943–62; Richard Thomas of Willochra 1926–58; A. L. Wylde of Bathurst 1936–58; John Frewer of North-West Australia 1929–58; Hugh Otter-Barry of Mauritius 1931–59; Bryan Robin of Adelaide 1941–56; T. M. Armour of Wangaratta 1943–63; R. W. H. Moline of Perth 1947–62; W. B. Belcher of North Queensland 1948–52; W. J. Hudson of Carpentaria 1950–7, coadjutor of Brisbane 1957–74; H. T. A. Kendall, assistant bishop of New Guinea 1968; the five Australians are K. B. Mason of the Northern Territory 1968–83; L. E. W. Renfrey, coadjutor of Adelaide 1969; Keith Rayner of Wangaratta 1969, Adelaide 1975, and Melbourne 1990; B. R. Hunter of Riverina 1971–92; H. T. U. Jamieson of Carpentaria 1974 and Bunbury 1984.
56 Church Standard, 3 Oct. 1947; Bush Brother, Dec. 1947.
57 Tomlin, Story.
58 Puxley, H. L., ‘Bush brotherhoods in Queensland’, The East and the West v (1907), 265–8Google Scholar.
59 White, Gilbert, ‘Brotherhood ideals’, Bush Brother, 07 1910, 261–4Google Scholar; C. H. S. Matthews, ‘The short service system and the brotherhoods’, ibid. Apr. 1911.
60 Barclay, Cyril to editor, Church Standard, 6 06 1919Google Scholar.
61 Rowland, , Tropics for Christ, 139Google Scholar.
62 Church Standard, 11 Nov. 1938. The inventor was the Revd Vivian Redlich, brotherhood of St Andrew.
63 Matthews, C. H. S., A parson in the Australian bush, London 1908, 215Google Scholar. ‘Cocky’ is an Australian colloquialism for a small farmer.
64 Lovejoy, G. W., In journeyings often, Dubbo 1940, 43, 45, 67, 93Google Scholar.
65 McPheat, W. Scott, John Flynn apostle to the inland, London 1963, 271–7Google Scholar; for Bush Church Aid, see Frappell, , ‘Anglican ministry’, i. 266–70, 282Google Scholar.
66 Bilton, John and others, The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, Sydney 1961Google Scholar.
67 Webb, , Brothers in the sun, 109Google Scholar.
68 Hilliard, David, ‘Anglicanism’, in Goldberg, S. L. and Smith, F. B. (eds), Australian cultural history, Cambridge 1988, 15Google Scholar.
69 Webb, , Brothers in the sun, 66Google Scholar.
