No. 909 - Collinsvale - Seventh-day Adventist Church

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Collinsvale is a rural settlement approximately 12 kilometres west of Glenorchy. It is named after Colonel David Collins, first Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen’s Land. The area was originally known as Sorell Creek but this was changed to Bismarck in 1881. Following the outbreak of the Great War, the name Collinsvale was adopted given strong anti-German sentiment in Tasmania.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church was established in Tasmania in 1888. The denomination originated in the USA in 1863. In 1885 a group travelled to Australia and began preaching in Melbourne. After a community was established in Melbourne in 1886, some members moved to Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart. Public tent meetings were held in Sandy Bay in 1888, which lead to the establishment of a Hobart community.

Seventh-day Adventists arrived at Bismarck in February 1889 and began to preach in the local Wesleyan church. When the church was closed to them, they held meetings in the State school classroom before this too was closed. August Darko and his wife opened their home to the Adventists and a group of between 50 and 70 regularly met in their kitchen to listen to the preaching. The Bismarck Seventh-day Adventist church was officially established on 20 July 1889 with 34 members and they commenced building a church in August 1889. Services were first held in the new building on December 28, 1889. The original building was the first Seventh-day Adventist church in Australia.

A church school was begun in 1921. In 1933 extensions to the church and school were undertaken that were based on the design of the Moonah Seventh-day Adventist church and school which had opened earlier in the same year. The enlarged conjoined school and church was opened on Wednesday 31 October 1934.

* Unless indicated, all photographs are my own.






                              The original Seventh-day Adventist Church at Collinsvale c.1910
                              Source: State Library of Victoria  Accession no: H2005.34/105

Sources:

https://collinsvale.adventist.org.au/collinsvale-church-history/
https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/S/Seventh.htm

Mercury, Friday 2 November 1934, page 7

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