Churches of Tasmania

St John’s Anglican church is Launceston’s oldest place of worship. The bicentenary of the first Divine Service, held on Friday 16 December 1825, is celebrated this year. Before the construction of St John’s was completed, religious services were conducted in various buildings which were prepared as temporary places of worship. One of these included a converted blacksmith’s shop in Cameron Street where parishioners were summoned to “Divine worship” by an iron drum. The early history of the Anglican church at Launceston (and George Town) is closely bound up with the life of Reverend John Youl (1773 – 1827), the first chaplain appointed in the north of Tasmania.  This blog entry reproduces a paper read by Rev. W. R. Barrett to the Northern Clerical Reading Union which he delivered in 1928. The paper focuses on the life of John Youl and his work in George Town and Launceston. The following extract was published in the Launceston Examiner: It is my purpose in this paper to put toge...

Tunnack is small rural town about 20 kilometres south of Oatlands which was predominantly settled by Irish migrants in the mid-19th century. The district was densely settled under the Waste Lands Act of 1863, which sold cheap land in small lots for clearing and farming. The settlement was officially proclaimed in 1871 and adopted the name ‘tunnack’ which is derived from the local Aboriginal word for cold. Religious life in the Tunnack district was dominated by Catholic and Presbyterian communities reflecting the significant numbers of Irish and Scottish settlers. Unlike most rural towns, an Anglican church was never established. However, the Methodists were active at Tunnack from the 1870s and a church was eventually built in 1903. Little is known about the small weatherboard church which functioned for only about five or six years. In August 1902 the Midlands News reported: “A public meeting was held here [Tunnack] to arrange for the erection of a new Methodist Church. The attendance...