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History of Australia (view source)
Revision as of 16:03, September 29, 2009
, 16:03, September 29, 2009→=Religion: add
===Gold===
===Gold===
The 1850s saw the discovery of gold and large number of people moved to Australia to find new wealth. Most of these people were British, although there were also many dispossessed by the "land clearings" in Scotland and the [[Irish Potato Famine]], and there was a significant number of Chinese immigrants during this rush. Americans were drawn to Australia to participate in various enterprises such as the gold fields <ref>[http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/statistics/comm-summ/textversion/usa.htm| Australian Dept of Immigration and Citizenship]</ref>
The 1850s saw the discovery of gold and large number of people moved to Australia to find new wealth. Most of these people were British, although there were also many dispossessed by the "land clearings" in Scotland and the [[Irish Potato Famine]], and there was a significant number of Chinese immigrants during this rush. Americans were drawn to Australia to participate in various enterprises such as the gold fields <ref>[http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/statistics/comm-summ/textversion/usa.htm| Australian Dept of Immigration and Citizenship]</ref>
===Religion==
===Religion===
The first ministers of religion in Australia were essentially convict chaplains. All were Anglican clergy, employed by the state, and as such they were subject to the orders of the governor. This situation began to change in the 1820's. By then there was a substantial population of free settlers, including Catholics and members of other Protestant denominations, who wanted to appoint their own clergy. During this same period, new lay religious and philanthropic organizations were founded, religious newspapers and magazines began to appear, and the evangelical movement, missionary societies, and religious tract societies also began to make themselves felt. All these developments relied heavily on private donations. This in turn allowed free settlers to supplement and extend the work of the clergy. Religion was thus established as an essential ingredient of colonial society by 1840.<ref>Brian H. Fletcher, "Christianity and Free Society in New South Wales 1788-1840," ''Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society'' 2000 86(2): 93-113 </ref>
From 1813 efforts were made to supply the religious needs of British colonists in Australia, first by the Wesleyan Methodists in New South Wales, then by the Anglican Church in alliance with the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), the London Missionary Society (strongly Congregational), the Congregational Union, and the Baptist Colonial Missionary Society. After 1840 there was a new phase of energy on the part of the Anglicans, culminating in the establishment of seven new episcopal sees in Australia by 1863. These activities represented a commitment to Britain's imperial role and reinforced cultural ties with the mother country. Education and the Church of England were inextricably connected in 19th century Australia. <ref>J. D. Bollen, "English Christianity and the Australian Colonies, 1788-1860" ''Journal of Ecclesiastical History'' 1977 28(4): 361-385 </ref>
From 1813 efforts were made to supply the religious needs of British colonists in Australia, first by the Wesleyan Methodists in New South Wales, then by the Anglican Church in alliance with the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), the London Missionary Society (strongly Congregational), the Congregational Union, and the Baptist Colonial Missionary Society. After 1840 there was a new phase of energy on the part of the Anglicans, culminating in the establishment of seven new episcopal sees in Australia by 1863. These activities represented a commitment to Britain's imperial role and reinforced cultural ties with the mother country. Education and the Church of England were inextricably connected in 19th century Australia. <ref>J. D. Bollen, "English Christianity and the Australian Colonies, 1788-1860" ''Journal of Ecclesiastical History'' 1977 28(4): 361-385 </ref>
The ideas of the Anglican clergy were effectively an importation of British liberal values from the second half of the 19th century when William Ewart Gladstone set the tone for British imperial policy and church-state relations. In questions of colonial/dominion autonomy the Anglican bishops were virtually to a man 'Gladstonian liberals' for whom the empire presented a God-given opportunity to spread the Gospel under its protection.
John Wollaston was a Cambridgeshire Anglican clergyman in Western Australia from 1841 to 1863. British metropolitan culture was central to the construction of the identities of the colonizers in Australia. Religion was often central to these Australian colonizers, though this requires that religion be identified more broadly than the clergy were prepared to recognize. Wollaston, like other clergy, was a cultural transmitter of British values to Australian colonists. He judged the existence of religion by church attendance, which made him unable to recognize the more domestic religious practices among settlers, who used the church as a secondary religious resource in their lives. His institutional standard of religion also made it almost impossible for him to accept the religion of the Aborigines he encountered as having legitimacy.<ref>Rowan Strong, "The Reverend John Wollaston and Colonial Christianity in Western Australia, 1840-1863" ''Journal of Religious History'' 2001 25(3): 261-285 </ref>
The Anglican clergy were poorly paid, and many of them struggled to make a living. They all received a stipend from the government, and the government also gave them glebes and other forms of land grants which they could farm or use for grazing purposes. However, few had any farming skills, and, in any case, most of the land granted to them was of poor quality. Some additional funds came from surplice fees, paid for conducting marriages, baptisms, and funerals, but this was only a significant amount for those in larger communities. A few clergymen also received fees for serving as magistrates. Out of these funds they had to support their own families and give charitable relief to the poor. Few could afford to keep a horse, and so they either had to borrow one or walk around their parishes. Even if a clergyman did somehow manage to save some money by farming his glebe, he would then be criticized for putting mammon before God.<ref>Brian Roach, "'Neither Bread Enough nor to Spare': Paying the Anglican Parson in Early Colonial New South Wales," ''Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society'' 2004 90(1): 1-21 </ref>
The Anglican clergy were poorly paid, and many of them struggled to make a living. They all received a stipend from the government, and the government also gave them glebes and other forms of land grants which they could farm or use for grazing purposes. However, few had any farming skills, and, in any case, most of the land granted to them was of poor quality. Some additional funds came from surplice fees, paid for conducting marriages, baptisms, and funerals, but this was only a significant amount for those in larger communities. A few clergymen also received fees for serving as magistrates. Out of these funds they had to support their own families and give charitable relief to the poor. Few could afford to keep a horse, and so they either had to borrow one or walk around their parishes. Even if a clergyman did somehow manage to save some money by farming his glebe, he would then be criticized for putting mammon before God.<ref>Brian Roach, "'Neither Bread Enough nor to Spare': Paying the Anglican Parson in Early Colonial New South Wales," ''Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society'' 2004 90(1): 1-21 </ref>
Australian women organized the Presbyterian Women's Missionary Association (PWMA) of New South Wales in 1891 and obtained funding, often from other women's organizations, to support women missionaries overseas. The association's members were middle-class women for whom missionary work was a natural extension of women's domestic responsibilities. Noting the PWMA's successful fund-raising, the men in the Presbyterian Church's governing general assembly asked the women to raise funds to support the church's missions generally. Unable to identify their objectives as part of the female realm of domesticity, the women deferred to the men in the power structure of the Presbyterian Church.<ref> Judith Godden, "Containment and Control: Presbyterian Women and the Missionary Impulse in New South Wales, 1891-1914," ''Women's History Review'' 1997 6(1): 75-93 </ref>
===Religion at University===
In the six years following the opening of the University of Queensland in 1911 residential colleges were established by the Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Catholic Churches, along with the nondenominational Women's College. Such colleges, which already existed in other Australian universities, had been strongly opposed in the Queensland Parliament during debates on the establishment of the university, where they were seen as against the spirit of secular education in Queensland, but they were supported by the university senate as essential in attracting students to Brisbane from country districts, reassuring parents, and building a sense of collective identity. The colleges were considered particularly important by Catholics as a sign of religious equality, and by women as a means of attracting women students.<ref> Philip Raymont, "Different Things to Different People, That's What Colleges Are: The Affiliation of Residential Colleges at the University of Queensland, Brisbane." ''History of Education'' 2001 30(6): 547-569 </ref>
==20th century==
==20th century==