INTRODUCTION - University Of Tasmania

1INTRODUCTIONThis thesis is the result of a long held desire to document the history of theBaptists in Tasmania and to understand how in the second half of thenineteenth century the entry of men from Spurgeon‘s College in London, toTasmania, brought about a remarkable transformation of Baptist persuasionin Tasmania and the formation of the Baptist Union of Tasmania in 1884. Todo so it has been necessary to draw upon Baptist history in the colony since1834 and up to and just beyond 1884. As the thesis progresses, it will also benecessary to seek to advance an understanding of the interconnectednessbetween the Tasmanian Particular Baptists in the second half of theNineteenth Century and the Spurgeon‘s College men (who confessed tobeing Particular Baptists when they entered Spurgeon‘s College), and thetransition which occurred in the colony at that time when Nonconformistchurches were coming into their own.Of all the major denominations, the Baptists were the last to attempt toestablish themselves in the colony of New South Wales early in thenineteenth century. The first recorded Baptist service of worship wasconducted on 24 April 1831 in the ‗Rose and Crown‘ Hotel in Sydney by theerratic Rev John McKaeg (c1790-c1844?), a Highlander from the BaptistChurch at Lochgilphead, Argyllshire. 1 McKaeg also conducted the first Baptistbaptism in the colony at Woolloomooloo Bay on 12 August 1832, 2 but a1Alan C Prior, Some Fell on Good Ground: A History of the Beginnings and Development ofthe Baptist Church in New South Wales, Australia, 1831–1965 (Sydney, Baptist Union of NewSouth Wales, 1966), pp. 19ff.2Prior, Some Fell on Good Ground: A History of the Beginnings and Development of theBaptist Church in New South Wales, Australia, 1831–1965, p. 22; Ken R Manley, Shapers ofour Australian Baptist Identity (in the holdings of the Victorian Baptist Historical Society,Camberwell), pp. 2f.

2chapel had to wait for he resigned and began business as a tobacconist.3 TheBaptists in the colony made a second start with the arrival of the Rev JohnSaunders (1806 - 1859) on 1 December 1834. Saunders responded to arequest for help from McKaeg‘s congregation.4 On 23 November 1835 thefoundation stone was laid for the chapel in Bathurst Street on the same landthat had been granted to McKaeg. On 23 September 1836 the building wasopened and the church constituted on 15 December 1836.5The Baptist Churches' official presence in Van Diemen‘s Land began on 2December 1834 with the arrival of the Rev Henry Dowling. Dowling had beenpastor of the Colchester Strict and Particular Baptist Church in England.Based in the north of the island, he became pastor of the Launceston YorkStreet Chapel which opened in December 1840. A group of Hobart TownBaptists had previously constituted the first Baptist Church in the Australiancolonies on 14 June 1835. Their Hobart chapel in Harrington Street wasofficially opened in March 1841.By 1878 the work which the Rev Henry Dowling had commenced in HobartTown fifty years earlier was slowly dying. It too had been a Strict andParticular work, ‗Strict‘ in that the church was conducted on principles of strictcommunion - the Lord's Table was closed against any who had not been3Michael Petras, Extension or Extinction, Baptist Growth in New South Wales 1900-1939(Sydney, Baptist Historical Society of New South Wales, 1983), pp. 16f. Following hisbusiness failure, McKaeg turned to alcohol and, later, spent time in the debtors‘ prison.4Saunders, trained as a solicitor, was sent out the colony by the Baptist Missionary Society(BMS) even though the Society did not regard Australia as within its sphere of responsibility.Saunders was a member of the Baptist Church at Cold Harbour Lane, Camberwell. SeePrior, Some Fell on Good Ground: A History of the Beginnings and Development of theBaptist Church in New South Wales, Australia, 1831–1965, pp. 14, 26ff; Manley, Shapers ofour Australian Baptist Identity, pp. 6ff.5In Sydney, Saunders preached his first sermon for the Methodists but within a month of hisarrival he had rented a room in York Street and had it fitted out with pulpit, seats and otherfurnishings. By April 1835 the congregation had grown and moved to a room attached to StJames Church of England which was known as the Court House. See Prior, Some Fell onGood Ground: A History of the Beginnings and Development of the Baptist Church in NewSouth Wales, Australia, 1831–1965, pp. 38 and 42 and Rod Benson, ‗The Ministry of theReverend John Saunders in Sydney, 1834-1847, Part 1‘, The Baptist Recorder, Number102, pp. 2-10.

3baptised as believers, and ‗Particular‘ in that it was held that God is Particularin whom he has chosen - God has elected some to everlasting life,predestined others to everlasting death. The later doctrine was commonlyknown in derogatory terms as Hyper-Calvinism.In the north Dowling‘s work was only holding its own. Dowling was never astrong close communionist and, on his retirement in 1867, the York Streetchapel became open communion. Two years later, Dowling was dead and formany years thereafter the church was bereft of real and lasting leadership.The York Street work struggled on until 1916.In the south, the membership of the Baptist chapel in Hobart Town wrote intotheir Trust Deed the principles of strict communion and so it was to remainuntil the Church's final days in 1886. Its leading elder and lay preacher,Henry Hinsby, was Hyper-Calvinist. Its life-long trustee, Francis SmitherEdgar, was an avowed strict communionist. In the lead up to its close, agedand incapable leadership had been theirs for over twenty years. After yearsof disorder, division and dissolution, the cause died a slow death. The othertwo small Baptist causes at Constitution Hill and Deloraine, both lapsed intime. It was at Perth, under William and Mary Ann Gibson, wealthypastoralists of Native Point, that there was reason for hope in a Baptist futureon the island.6It was at the beginning of the 1870s that Baptist work began a new chapter.The eminent London preacher, the Rev CH Spurgeon,7 had begun sendingout men from his Pastors' College. The active interest and generosity of theGibsons made this possible, as the Gibsons paid for their passage. The6Laurence F Rowston, Baptists in Van Diemen’s Land: The Story of Tasmania’s FirstBaptist Church (Hobart, Baptist Union of Tasmania, 1985), chapter 7.7For Spurgeon see L Drummond, Spurgeon, Prince of Preachers (Grand Rapids, Kregel,1992) and lain H Murray, The Forgotten Spurgeon (London, Banner of Truth, 2 ed, 1973).

4Gibsons also built churches, chapels, halls and manses. Spurgeon's son,Thomas, visited the island five times between 1878 and 1890. In 1884 theBaptist Union of Tasmania was formed with a combined membership of 305.By 1901 there were sixteen men from the Pastors' College working inTasmanian Baptist churches.The thesis will seek to show that by the end of 1880s the appeal of Calvinismhad all but disappeared in Tasmanian Baptist circles. Context will also beprovided by setting the arrival of men from Spurgeon‘s College against thehealth of the Non-conformist churches at the time thus furnishing somethingof the non-Baptists‘ interaction with these newly arrived migrants.This thesis draws greatly upon source material which has never before beenfully accessed. It directs attention to such sources as the Baptist references inthe Northern Tasmanian newspapers until 1890, to Harry Wood‘s memoriesand to Peter Grant‘s extensive and recent collection of newspaper cuttings onAlfred W Grant. The Baptist references in newspapers were obtained frommicrofilm readers as digitisation of newspapers did not take place until thethesis was virtually complete.Arguably, this study is unique because it opens up as never before a historyof the Strict and Particular Baptists in Tasmania and the life and fortunes ofSpurgeon‘s College men in the colony, neither subject ever having been thefocus of any thorough scholarly investigation. This is the first time that acomprehensive study of a group of Spurgeon‘s College men in NSW, Victoriaor elsewhere has been considered in detail. What has been previously writtenof Spurgeon‘s College men in Tasmania has been written in a chronologicaland uncritical style with a somewhat biased and celebratory emphasis. Thisthesis adds greatly to what little had been known about Samuel Cozens(1820-1887), the author of two small Tasmanian publications published in the

5memory of the Rev Henry Dowling: A Tribute of Affection and Tracts of Truthand Incidents in the Life of the Rev Henry Dowling.8In numerous books and articles the decline of High-Calvinism among theEnglish Strict and Particular Baptists in nineteenth century in England is welldocumented.9 This thesis documents the decline of both the Strict andParticular Baptists in Tasmania. This thesis explores in depth for the first timetheir sectarian nature and shows just how perilously close was the demise ofthe Baptist name in the colony by the 1870s.8Samuel Cozens, Tribute of Affection (Launceston, Hudson and Hopwood, 1869) and Incidents in theLife of the Rev Henry Dowling. Formerly of Colchester, Essex and More recently of Launceston,Tasmania (Melbourne, Fountain Barber, 1871).9K Dix, Strict and Particular. English Strict and Particular Baptists in the Nineteenth Century(Didcot, Baptist Historical Society, 2001) and GR Breed, Particular Baptists in VictorianEngland and their Strict Communion Organizations (Didcot, Baptist Historical Society, 2003).Strict and Particular Baptists grouped around their magazines – mainly the Earthern Vesselor the Gospel Standard - and were divided. Seventeenth century Baptists were generallyCalvinistic Baptists who admitted believers on their declaration of their faith in baptism intocongregationally ordered churches. High-Calvinists were not confined merely to the Baptistdenomination, but had been espoused by Anglicans and Independents separately butconcurrently. The initiative in salvation is of God, sovereignly, from election onwards. HenceChrist died to redeem no more and no less than the elect. The sinner is seen to becompletely helpless: he cannot be exhorted as this would imply creature faith. So far assalvation is concerned, he can only be told to sit and wait for the Spirit of God to convict ofsin and then give some token in this experience that he is indeed an elect soul. Faith is thegift of God and the unbeliever ‗cannot believe till it be given him to believe‘. After devotionalstudy of Scripture, it was personal experience and profound reflection upon it that was mostimportant in their doctrinal formulation, rather than study of a Particular corpus of theologicalmaterial.In this experience, a point of crisis was reached, leading to an urgent search for a sense ofassurance and acceptance by God, although this remained mixed with many fears. Thepersonal anxiousness demanded a radical solution, which High-Calvinism provided. Theauthenticity of their call was judged by their lives from then on. True, folk were encouraged toattend the means of grace, in the hope that the Lord would speak to them. They were sozealous to maintain the sovereignty of God that they denied that preachers had the right 'tooffer Christ' to unregenerate sinners. It was only legitimate to pray for the well-being ofbelievers and not the conversion of sinners. In the second half of the nineteenth century, themajority of Baptist churches in England were moving on to a view called ‗evangelicalCalvinism', most notably taught by Baptist Andrew Fuller. This was a more moderate form ofCalvinism which fully encouraged evangelism. On the other hand GR Breed in ParticularBaptists in Victorian England and their Strict Communion Organizations tells of thephenomenal growth of Particular Baptist churches in the first half of the nineteenth century,from 361 to 1,574 churches (p. 10).