St John's Cathedral

About

St John's Cathedral is the cathedral of the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane and the metropolitan cathedral of the ecclesiastical province of Queensland, Australia. It is dedicated to St John the Evangelist. The cathedral is situated in Ann Street in the Brisbane central business district, and is the successor to an earlier pro-cathedral, which occupied part of the contemporary Queens Gardens on William Street, from 1854 to 1904. The cathedral is the second-oldest Anglican church in Brisbane, predated only by the extant All Saints church on Wickham Terrace (1862). The cathedral is listed on the Queensland Heritage Register. The cathedral is the centre for big diocesan events such as the ordinations of priests and deacons which attract large congregations; a parish church catering for a diverse congregation of worshipers from around the city of Brisbane; a major centre for the arts and music with its own orchestra, the Camerata of St John's, which holds several concerts in the cathedral each year; and an international centre of pilgrimage attracting over 20,000 visitors annually from around the world. The choir of men and boys sing the traditional Anglican repertoire as well as more adventurous...

William Webber – the third Bishop of Brisbane and previously a vicar in London – was instrumental in initiating the Brisbane cathedral project. In 1885–86, he commissioned John Loughborough Pearson to make sketch plans for Brisbane cathedral. The Brisbane cathedral movement began in earnest in 1887 as a celebration of Queen Victoria 's Golden Jubilee – St John's was to be paid for by public subscription but the construction of the cathedral in one campaign was found to be financially impossible. As a result, the building has been executed in three stages over two centuries between 1906 and 2009.

In April 1889, Pearson's plans for the cathedral were approved for the original site bounded by George, Elizabeth and William Streets.

It was a cruciform church with a wide nave, double aisles, apse and ambulatory, short transepts about halfway along the length of the building and an apsidal side chapel on the north. The west front had towers close to the end of the nave. The upper part of the west wall was supported by a relieving arch, which continued the line of the interior cross arches. The towers had massive buttresses. Their strong vertical lines carried on into corner turrets set before pyramidal spires.

Pearson died in November 1897, two weeks before Webber presented fresh plans to the cathedral chapter. In 1898, Frank Loughborough Pearson (John Pearson's son and partner) was entrusted to carry out his father's design. In 1899, the cathedral chapter approved Pearson's revised plans only to be forced to reconsider the entire cathedral when the state government bought the original intended site. The present Ann Street site was purchased in late 1899 because it was "central, commodious and had the natural advantage of being able to make the building erected on it a landmark for miles around". Frank Loughborough Pearson spent a year reworking his father's design and, on 22 May 1901, the Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V ) laid the foundation stone of the cathedral. In 1903, Bishop William Webber died and in 1904 Frank Pearson submitted his final plans to the cathedral chapter.

The first stage of construction began in 1906 and took four years to complete. This included the chancel, sanctuary and ambulatory, the quire and its aisles, the transepts and crossing, the Lady Chapel to the liturgical north of the quire, the double aisles and the first bay of the nave. This first stage was consecrated as the Anglican Cathedral of St John the Evangelist on Friday 28 October 1910. (The building was re-consecrated after each stage of its construction.)

After World War II money was raised in the hope of completing the cathedral as a war memorial. In 1947, Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein laid a foundation stone for a further two bays of the nave, but construction ceased after the laying of the foundations.

In 1965 the second stage was commenced. Work on the second stage proceeded for a further four years and consisted of the laying of foundations for the extensions, a two-bay extension to the nave and demolition and removal of the temporary west wall.

The third stage of construction commenced in 1989 and was completed in 2009 (with the exception of 29 life-sized statues on the west front and a set of cloisters on the north side of the cathedral which have yet to be commissioned). The third stage of construction comprised the erection of the south west porch, the final bay of the nave, the west front, the north and south towers and the central tower. This stage of work was overseen by Peter Dare, Master Mason of Exeter Cathedral in England and carried out by stonemasons from Wagners. To ensure enough supply of sandstone for the project, the cathedral authorities purchased a sandstone quarry at Helidon, 100 kilometres (62 mi) from Brisbane where each piece of stone was cut and finished and then trucked to the cathedral site in Ann Street. The quarry was sold in 2012 for $250,000.

The third stage of construction cost A$ 40 million which was raised by public donations, bequests and grants from the federal, state and local governments. [ citation needed ]

The copper-clad western spires were lifted into position on 1 March 2008 and subsequently blessed by Bishop John Parkes. [ citation needed ]

In 2009 as part of the Q150 celebrations, St John's Cathedral was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for its role as a "structure and engineering feat".

The Archbishop of Brisbane, Phillip Aspinall, officially reconsecrated the completed cathedral on 29 October 2009, attended by about 1,500 people, 108 years after the laying of the foundation stone.

On 27 November 2014, a hailstorm struck Brisbane causing widespread damage throughout the city totaling $1.1 billion. St John's Cathedral suffered extensive damage to its roof-tiles and leadlights, as well as damage to the copper sheeting on the front spires and the southern and eastern sides of the bell tower. The cathedral's eastern wall had also bowed approximately 2.5 mm from the force of the wind, leaving it in danger of structural failure. Restoration repairs commenced in early June 2015, and were not completed until November 2018.

In 2015, a series of statues carved by Rhyl Hinwood, costing $45,000 each, were purchased and blessed by Archbishop Aspinall before being installed on the cathedral's facade.

On 20 September 2022, St John's Cathedral held a service of thanksgiving marking the reign of Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia.

William Webber – the third Bishop of Brisbane and previously a vicar in London – was instrumental in initiating the Brisbane cathedral project. In 1885–86, he commissioned John Loughborough Pearson to make sketch plans for Brisbane cathedral. The Brisbane cathedral movement began in earnest in 1887 as a celebration of Queen Victoria 's Golden Jubilee – St John's was to be paid for by public subscription but the construction of the cathedral in one campaign was found to be financially impossible. As a result, the building has been executed in three stages over two centuries between 1906 and 2009.

In April 1889, Pearson's plans for the cathedral were approved for the original site bounded by George, Elizabeth and William Streets.

It was a cruciform church with a wide nave, double aisles, apse and ambulatory, short transepts about halfway along the length of the building and an apsidal side chapel on the north. The west front had towers close to the end of the nave. The upper part of the west wall was supported by a relieving arch, which continued the line of the interior cross arches. The towers had massive buttresses. Their strong vertical lines carried on into corner turrets set before pyramidal spires.

Pearson died in November 1897, two weeks before Webber presented fresh plans to the cathedral chapter. In 1898, Frank Loughborough Pearson (John Pearson's son and partner) was entrusted to carry out his father's design. In 1899, the cathedral chapter approved Pearson's revised plans only to be forced to reconsider the entire cathedral when the state government bought the original intended site. The present Ann Street site was purchased in late 1899 because it was "central, commodious and had the natural advantage of being able to make the building erected on it a landmark for miles around". Frank Loughborough Pearson spent a year reworking his father's design and, on 22 May 1901, the Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V ) laid the foundation stone of the cathedral. In 1903, Bishop William Webber died and in 1904 Frank Pearson submitted his final plans to the cathedral chapter.