St Mary's Anglican Church, Mount Morgan

About

St Mary's Anglican Church is a State heritage-listed church at 11 Gordon Street, Mount Morgan, Rockhampton Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed and built in 1888–1889 by Scottish-born Thomas Glen Cornes (1842–1903), superintendent of sawmills and carpenters at the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 25 August 2000.

In 1889 or earlier, English-born James Wesley ('Wesley') Hall (1839–1901), the first general manager of the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited (October 1886 – December 1891), and Mount Morgan's first mayor (1890–1891), donated the funds required for the erection of St Mary's Anglican Church, in Gordon Street, Mount Morgan. The Vicar at this time was Reverend G.L. Wallace, and the "first Confirmation Service was held at the end of 1889, forty-seven candidates being presented to Bishop Webber of Brisbane". This event taking place prior to the formation of the separate Rockhampton Diocese (in 1892).

The great benefactor of St Mary's Anglican Church was James Wesley ('Wesley') Hall (1839–1901). Wesley Hall was the general manager of the Mount Morgan gold mining syndicate from 1884 to 1886 and the first general manager of Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited from 1886 until he resigned in December 1891. He was also a brother to the Mine's other influential Hall brothers, Thomas Skarratt Hall and Walter Russell Hall.

Wesley Hall also took an interest in the Mount Morgan township when he became the first mayor of the Mount Morgan Borough Council in 1890.

He was also instrumental in instituting in 1894 the symbol of Central Queensland soccer – the Wesley Hall Cup – a challenge trophy for the Mount Morgan British Association Football [Soccer] Union. Wesley Hall bought the ornate-silver trophy in London (where he was living at the time) and had it shipped to Rockhampton in 1894. Beautifully engraved on the trophy is "Challenge Cup. Presented by Mr and Mrs Wesley Hall". His wife was Melbourne-born Mary Frederica Dora ('Dora') Hall (nee Dempster) (1864–1895).

With Wesley Hall's resignation from the Mine in December 1891, the first phase of the Mount Morgan Company's history has been said to have ended:

He had guided it through its formative years with skill and dedication until it achieved fame as the richest single gold mine in the world. Unlike his two brothers [Walter Russell & Thomas Skarratt Hall] who "dabbled" in mining, Wesley Hall was an experienced practical miner. He was responsible for building the Lower and Top Works which increased gold extractions to ninety-eight per cent. The Top works were probably the largest of their kind in the world at the time, so his pride in the mine was justified.

Though resigned as Manager, Wesley Hall still maintained an interest in the Mine as one of the Company's Board members. With his death on 7 January 1901 (aged 61) in Melbourne, his position on the Board was replaced by Kelso King. The extant St Mary's Anglican Church is a red brick building constructed from bricks made in Mount Morgan's own brick works. Other Mount Morgan buildings similarly constructed include the Grand Hotel (1901) on the corner of Central and Morgan Streets, and the Masonic Temple ( c. 1903 ) in Gordon Street. One heritage study detailed:

The church is built of red faced bricks and comprises two parts – the main church building, and a vestry addition. The building is unusual for its octagonal apse, which is roofed in sheet iron. The walls of the church have solid brick buttresses and small lancet windows. The interior remains relatively intact: the apse features a timber lined ceiling with exposed joists.

The first Church of England erected in Mount Morgan "was a wood and iron structure on the site of the present [St Mary's Church] hall". Besides the existing 1889 Church is a small timber belltower that is presumed to remain from the first church building. At the rear of the present church is located the St Mary's Church hall. This Church Hall was erected in 1902 on the site of the original church. This Hall has been described as "one of the finest timber halls in the town, both because of its design and also its integrity". The Hall's verandahs comprising alternating large and small timber dowelling balustrades, with a portico entrance with a small gable vent.

St Luke's Anglican Church in Mount Morgan was opened on Sunday 14 October 1888 by the resident priest, Rev. John Vosper. Despite being built of brick, on 22 December 1888, it was wrecked by a severe gale with repairs estimated at £400. Following a public fundraising, repairs were underway in July 1889. The church was re-opened as St Mary's Anglican Church on Sunday 8 September 1889 by the Bishop of Brisbane, William Webber.

St Mary's Anglican Church was consecrated by Bishop Nathaniel Dawes, the first Bishop of Rockhampton, on 5 October 1899. The Church's rector at this time was the Reverend H.T. Hainsselin.

The first Anglican cleric to reach nearby Rockhampton was Queensland's first Anglican Bishop, Bishop Edward Tufnell, in November 1860, though lay ministers held Anglican services in Rockhampton during the late 1850s. Following shortly after Tufnell's visit, The Rev. Thomas Jones arrived at Rockhampton, becoming the popular pioneer Anglican Rector. Jones encouraged his congregation to raise sufficient funds in 1862 to allow construction of a small timber church to be built on what later became the site of the present Cathedral Hall and Offices. Later more funds were raised for a new and larger church with plans drawn up and construction beginning on St Paul's Church in 1872, though this building was not completed and consecrated until 1883. In 1892 the Church of England Diocese of Rockhampton was formed and the St Paul's Church was upgraded becoming the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul the Apostle. The foundation bishop, The Right Reverend Nathaniel Dawes, was formally emplaced on 30 November 1892.

Reverend Arthur Augustuss Fellows' (1967) autobiographical history of life and service in the Rockhampton Anglican Diocese states work on the "initial beautifying of St Mary's Church in the Mount" was carried out during the residence of Rev. Farnham Maynard (1910s – resigned April 1920). It was during this period that there was "added the Rood Screen, the Baptistry and the Vestry at the west end of the Church". On these, and later additions to St Mary's interior decoration, Fellows pointed out that the:

"... Rood Screen in St. Mary's was a Memorial of World War 1 (although the Crucifix on the top of it did not arrive from England until the time of the Reverend W.B. Charles). As a Memorial of World War II, we put in the two stained-glass windows in the Sanctuary – the Annunciation and the Nativity – as well as the side chapel dedicated to St. Oswald, King Martyr."

During Canon E.A. Wight's residence (1939–42), the corrugated iron roof of the St Mary's Church was replaced by a fibro corrugated roof. The emergence of the Oxford Movement and its effect on the practice of the Church of England occurred during the early decades of the 19th century:

After the threat of liberalism had receded another challenge arose, with the growth of scientific discovery... In 1833, spurred by John Keble's Assize Sermon at Oxford, a group of [Anglican] theologians began to fight against liberalism and the new science. Their crusade became known as the Oxford Movement... They set out to create - or to re-create - a Church that was chiefly concerned not with social and political influence but with spirituality and its expression through ritual, as had been the concern of the Catholic Revival.

Although the Oxford Movement was largely concerned with doctrinal reform of the Church of England, it also affected "the interior arrangements of churches; older churches were remodelled and new churches built... with the focus on the altar rather than the pulpit."

The rood-screen is an example of the effect of this Movement on internal church architecture, often viewed "an open screen, often richly carved and painted, across the entrance to the chancel of a church, extending from floor level to the underside of the rood-beam." The rood-screen extant within St Mary's was erected after the end of World War I. Most rood-screens found in the Rockhampton Anglican Diocese were erected as World War I Memorials. Within the Diocese of Rockhampton, apart from the example in St Mary's in Mount Morgan, the only other extant examples of rood-screens are found in the Anglican churches at Jericho, Barcaldine, and St Mark's in Allenstown, Rockhampton.

Mount Morgan is a gold and copper mining town, that throughout much of its life has experienced only the effect of one major mine and one mining corporation involved in its activities at any one time. "The existence of a single mine and the longevity of the mine make Mount Morgan outstanding in Queensland mining history". And as part of this phenomenon, the fluctuations in the fortunes of the mine and its company have similarly affected upon the township itself, causing fluctuations in employment, town population and the town's size.