St. Michael's Cathedral & Rectory

About

St Michael's Cathedral is a heritage-listed Anglican cathedral at Church Street, Wollongong, City of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. It is the principal Anglican church in the city of Wollongong and the mother-church of the Bishop of Wollongong (an assistant bishop in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney). It was designed by Edmund Blacket and built from 1858 to 1859. The property is owned by the Anglican Church Property Trust. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.

Aboriginal communities were present in the area, and first encountered Europeans in 1796. From the 1810s, cedar cutters operated in the Illawarra escarpment rainforests as the first European industry in the area.

Dr Charles Throsby used the coastal Illawarra grasslands as cattle fodder in 1815, opening the area to European settlement. He focused his herd behind the fresh water lagoon, then situated at the junction of the current day Harbour and Smith Streets where he built a stockman's hut and cattle yards.

The first settlement in the area now known as Wollongong was by Charles Throsby Smith, nephew of Throsby. He was one of the first to receive a land grant in the district and in 1822 was the first to settle on his 300-acre parcel. Smith's barn, located near Wollongong harbour, became the first school house in 1826 and then church building in 1828. A military presence was established in the area now known as Port Kembla in 1826. They were relocated to the area now known as Wollongong in 1830. They were replaced by a local magistrate in 1833. This activity was focused around the harbour. In 1834 Smith's land was nominated as the site for the township to be known as Wollongong.

In 1834 Surveyor General Major Thomas Mitchell surveyed the town with the centrepiece of land devoted to the Church of England. As there was no Crown land in Wollongong, Throsby Smith sold his land to the Government, and it was transferred to the church. The surveyed town was bounded by streets to be known as Harbour, Keira and Crown Streets. The St Michael's site was the centrepiece of the town layout.

St Michael's Church was built in 1859 and designed by Edmund Blacket for a church community that was small but had expectations of substantial growth. Serving a large region originally isolated by topographic constraints, St Michael's has served Wollongong throughout the most significant phases of the region's development. A focus of community activity and endeavour throughout that growth, the church has substantially contributed to the character of the township that was to become New South Wales' third largest city, and one of the main industrial centres of Australia.

Wollongong expanded in the 1880s and the railway which finally linked the area to Sydney, encouraged movement away from Mitchell's plan. The relative isolation of the Illawarra ended in 1888 when the Illawarra railway was finally introduced to link the area to Sydney. The town was transformed from a focus on the wharves to one on the railway and began to expand away from St Michael's central position. The rail allowed the area to ship milk, coal and coke to Sydney city, expanding Wollongong city's potential enormously.

Reverend Elder succeeded Reverend Ewing in 1892. At his arrival, the press began agitating for an on-site rectory. Dean Ewing had lived in "Cormiston" (demolished after 1960) which was possibly designed by Blacket. Despite the hardship of the times – the 1890s had brought years of depression to Australia – and no funds, the church bowed to the pressure and built the rectory in 1893–1894. A Mr Bevan completed the building. There is no mention of its architect.

By the turn of the century a smelting works and number of coke oven batteries were opened and the town's population rose from 1635 in 1881 to 3545 in 1901 (an average growth rate of 3.9%). A second and worse mining disaster occurred in 1902, when the Mount Kembla mine exploded, killing 96 men and boys, possibly Australia's worst land disaster. A state military funeral was held at St Michael's for Major MacCabe, who died rescuing trapped miners. Changes to mining practices were implemented as a result of this disaster and the Bellbird Mine disaster of 1923. More significantly, the unions were strengthened and formed the Miners' Federation in 1908. The strike of 1909 brought a rebuke in the form of the Industrial Disputes Amendment Act and prosecution of the Miners' leader, but over the next 20 years the miners would win improved conditions.

Elder's successor enjoyed a better period when the city was expanding its industrial base. Revered D'Arcy Irvine encouraged expansion of the parish and formation of new parishes. A conservative Anglican, he enjoyed the warm support of the Wollongong church. He left Wollongong in 1907 with a large and growing congregation, and would go on to become a widely loved Bishop Coadjutor of Sydney.

Irvine's successor entered at the end of the term of the great administrator, Bishop Saumarez Smith 's 19 years as Archbishop. Smith had been unable to resolve growing enmity between the Evangelicals and the Anglo-Catholics throughout this time. The incoming Reverend Lampard was regarded as something of an "extreme" Evangelical by the Anglo-Catholic group of the "Church Association", sufficiently so to motivate them to warn the congregation of St Michael's before his arrival. Lampard inherited a strong congregation from Irvine.

This time of expansion found expression in the Church Hall built on the corner of the site in 1908. In addition the rectory was fitted with the newly developing technologies, the telephone (1907) and town water (1909). The 1908 Hall is well built and true to the period, enhances the church by its form and siting without attempting to compete. The two form a strong urban relationship within the site and the hall's significance is derived more from its relationship with the church than its own individual merit. It features an interesting ceiling structure with exposed ornate trusses. It has been damaged by later work, and division of the building into offices makes appreciation of the interior difficult.

In 1909 the Church sold the Corrimal Street site and the Glebe land to the south to the city. They used the funds to make "extensive alterations" to the interior of St Michael's. These involved raising of the east end of the church, extension of the chancel platform, raising the choir stalls, with a step for the holy table, purchase and installation of a cedar reading desk and clergy seat. 1908 was a time of crisis between the two leading ideologies within the Church of England, concerning vestments of priests and formality of the liturgy.

At the end of Reverend Stubbin's ministry in 1922, Wollongong had all the hallmarks of a town about to grow into a very large city. Archbishop John Wright looked to put a strong Evangelical into the parish to see it through this growth. He found Reverend Knox, an outspoken Evangelical who had spent 10 years ministering in the High Church world of Adelaide. A highly intelligent and fine expository speaker, Knox confounded Wright's strategy by exchanging parishes with Reverend Walker of Chatswood in 1924, which led him to a leading role in Diocesan affairs. Knox initiated the second hall on the Wollongong site and whilst gathering funds found he was losing the struggle against inertia to achieve its completion before he left. His son Broughton Knox went on to become principal of Moore College, Sydney.

The period between 1900 and 1920 was one of substantial growth for the Illawarra region. Whilst the population of the area that is now Wollongong city easily outstripped all but Sydney and Newcastle in size, the area was still characterised by pockets of population over a wide area and was not rated as a NSW city. In 1907 the population was 17.172, large by NSW standards of the time. In 1911 it was 24.940 and in 1920 32.381, a sustained growth rate of 3.7% and 2.6%.

The 1940s boundary sandstone fences and retaining walls were dedicated as a memorial. A plaque is located in the northern boundary fence adjacent to the site entrance. Portable sandstone benches (also memorials) are located within the landscape to the south of the cathedral.

The one hundredth anniversary of the foundation stone ceremony in 1958 saw improvements to the church and the construction of the curate's cottage.

The growth of Wollongong in the post-war period is astonishing. The city grew from 62,960 in 1947 to 90,852 in 1954 (5.4%), and 131,754 in 1961 (5.5%). Wollongong was by this time amongst Australia's largest cities. In 1962 the role of Archdeacon became a separate position from Rector and Rural Dean, and Reverend Pitt was appointed Archdeacon of Wollongong. With two senior ministers overseeing the Illawarra region, the Sydney Synod purchased the Wollongong Fire Station for use in diocesan activities in Wollongong. St Michael's began work with the local court, and the curate became part-time Court Chaplain. A drop-in centre was initiated, a Home Mission Society opportunity shop opened and an aged-persons home was opened.

The grant of land to the Church of England made in 1842 was subdivided in 1963 and the corner of the site was leased to a service station. The site was consciously set apart in Mitchell's survey plan and this subdivision and development was a disturbing change to the urban environment of the historical part of Wollongong.

In 1967 some significant work was carried out to the church buildings. Funded by the lease of the service station, the most obvious change was the blonde brick kindergarten extension to the 1925 hall, originally built as a space to hold regional gatherings.