No. 722 - Wynyard Baptist Church

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Wynyard is a town on the North West coast approximately 20 kilometres west of the city of Burnie. The area around Wynyard was originally named Table Cape by the explorers Bass and Flinders. The name was changed to Wynyard in the 1850s, in honour of Edward Buckley Wynyard, Lieutenant-General of the New South Wales Corps. In his capacity as commander of troops in New South Wales, Van Diemen’s Land and New Zealand, Wynyard visited Table Cape in 1850-1.

Wynyard’s Baptist Church is located on the corner of Hogg Street and Dodgin Street. The church was built in the early 1970s, replacing an earlier building, which is now the Baptist Hall.
The Baptist church’s origins at Wynyard date back to 1905 when a branch of the church was established. In November 1905, Launceston’s Examiner reported:

“An endeavour is being made to establish a branch of the Baptist Church in Wynyard, and a mission conducted by Paster Williamson has been carried on during the past week. The meetings have been fairly attended, and the prospects are encouraging. Mr Short is to be the resident pastor, and meetings will be held every Sunday morning and evening…”.

Rapid progress was made towards building a church and by March 1908, Mr A. White was contracted to construct a small weatherboard church. The laying of the foundation stone took place on Wednesday 12 August in a ceremony reported by the North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times:

“A goodly number were present at the ceremony of laying the foundation stone of the new Baptist church in Dodgin Street on Wednesday afternoon. Rev. P. W. Cairns, of Burnie, presided at the meeting, and Pastor Fisher introduced the Rev. C. Palmer, President of the Baptist Union of Tasmania, who performed the ceremony. The building is to be completed by the end of August….”.

The church was officially opened on Sunday 6 September 1908:

“The Baptist Church at Wynyard was opened on Sunday. Rev. V. G. Britton, Deloraine, preached three very impressive sermons. The weather was perfect, and at each of the services the church was comfortably filled ; at night extra seats had to be procured. In the morning Mr. Britton took as his text, Upon this Rock will I Build my Church….”.

I have little information about the current building. Additional information about this church is welcomed as all articles will be updated. I can be contacted through this page or my Facebook page "Churches of Tasmania" which is linked here: <Churches of Tasmania>


The church in 2019 (my own photo)
The church in 2019 (my own photo)

The much modified original church built in 1908 - now the Baptist Hall (my photo)

The original church - photo credit: The Wynyard Historical Society (1999)


Sources:

Examiner, Friday 17 November 1905, page 3
Daily Telegraph, Thursday 5 March 1908, page 6
North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times, Saturday 15 August 1908, page 4
Daily Telegraph, Tuesday 8 September 1908, page 7
North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times, Thursday 10 September 1908, page 4
The Mercury, Wednesday 16 September 1908, page 3

Comments

  1. al30 August 2021 at 05:13

    i watched the current church built in 1972 ...my late father was the pastor there . better photos are avaible onfacebook ...

    ReplyDelete

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