Churches of Tasmania

Davey Street Methodist Chapel was one of a number of Wesleyan-Methodist Sunday schools established in the greater Hobart area during the 1820s and 1830s. Sunday schools were sometimes also used as day schools and most served as places of worship. In fact a number of Hobart’s historic Methodist churches originated as humble Sunday schools. Hobart’s first Methodist Sunday school opened with 23 scholars on May 13, 1821. Robert Household and John Hiddlestone were the first superintendents. In 1824 a Methodist Sunday School Union was formed and schools were established at Liverpool Street; Sandy Bay; Kangaroo Point; O'Brien's Bridge and at the Penitentiary. A school was also established in a room near the corner of Liverpool and Harrington Streets. In 1832 a Sunday school and chapel was established in a house in Argyle Street. At a Sunday School Union meeting held on August 27, 1834, a motion was passed find suitable premises to rent for a Sunday school in either Davey or Macquarie ...

Westbury is a historic town situated approximately 30 kilometres west of Launceston. It was surveyed in 1828 and was developed as an administrative centre for the district. For most of its history Westbury has been served by only three religious denominations. The town’s Catholic, Anglican and Uniting (Methodist) churches all date back to the first half of the 19th century. The Uniting Church located on William Street is the second Methodist church built in the town. It replaced the original Wesleyan chapel which was built and opened in 1840. The origins of Methodist activity in Westbury is outlined in Reverend Max Stansell’s book, Tasmanian Methodism: “On 11 July 1937 Rev. J.A. Manton of Launceston was requested to visit Westbury with the idea of establishing a preaching place. Within a few months of his visit a Methodist Class was formed. One acre of ground was granted by the Surveyor-General under a Location Order to Revs. J. Orton, J.A. Manton and W. Simpson at Westbury on 15 Nov...

The suburb of North Hobart, as the same suggests, is on the northern fringe of the city. It has evolved into a mixed residential and commercial area since it was developed in the 1830s. Swan Street Methodist Church opened in 1905 as a new place of worship for a congregation which had previously met in a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel on High Street (now Tasma Street) [ see No. 966 ]. Plans were made to build the new church on Swan Street soon after the Methodist Union of 1902. Two foundation stones for the new building were ceremonially laid on Wednesday 7 September 1904. The first stone was laid by Mr William Freeman Brownell, a businessman and former alderman of the city. The second stone was laid by Mr Henry Smith Kirby, (Special Magistrate of the Children’s Court) on behalf of the High Street Street Sunday school children. The Mercury reported: “Mr. Brownell said he had very great pleasure in taking part in the ceremony……This structure was necessitated through the High-street building h...

The suburb of North Hobart, as the same suggests, is on the northern fringe of the city. It has evolved into a mixed residential and commercial area since it was developed in the 1830s. The lower end of Tasma Street (formerly High Street) was laid out in the late 1830s with the land on either side subdivided and granted to numerous settlers. In 1839 a Wesleyan chapel and Sunday school was opened on a site at 10 Tasma Street, close to the intersection with Argyle Street. The chapel’s site is now occupied by a warehouse. The chapel owes its existence to a quarrel and short-lived split amongst the Wesleyans. The High Street Chapel is also closely associated with the Swan Street Uniting Church which replaced it in 1905. When the chapel and its Sunday school opened in1839, it was one of eleven Sunday schools in Hobart: three Anglican; one Presbyterian; two Independent; three run by the Wesleyan Society and two by the Wesleyan Association. In 1838 a disagreement within the Methodist Church r...

Roseneath is the name of a former inn and property at Austins Ferry, approximately 15 kilometres north of Hobart. The inn was established by James Austin, a former convict. In 1816 Austin and his cousin James Earl established the first Derwent ferry service on the main route from Hobart to Launceston. The completion of the Bridgewater causeway in 1838 effectively bought this profitable enterprise to an end. Austin’s inn and farmstead (which he called Baltonsborough Place) was renamed “Roseneath” by Governor Macquarie while on a tour of Van Diemen's Land in 1821. Shortly after Austin’s death in 1831, Roseneath House, a large eighteen roomed sandstone building, was completed. In 1836 a small Wesleyan chapel was built in the vicinity of Roseneath House and Austin's Inn and ferry. The opening service, conducted by Reverend Joseph Orton, took place on Tuesday 13 December, with a collection taken to ‘defray the expense incurred by the erection of he building’. The chapel was a log...

On 25 April 1820, the Wesleyan Missionary, Benjamin Carvosso arrived at Hobart on route to Sydney from London. Carvosso preached the first Methodist sermon in Van Dieman’s Land on 28 April 1820 from the steps of the Hobart Town Court House. Carvosso’s wife Deborah, stood alongside him and led the singing of the first Methodist hymn in the colony. After his visit, a second missionary, Ralph Mansfield, spent a fortnight in Hobart, preaching almost every day before sailing for Sydney on 8 September 1820. On 29 October 1820, a meeting to form a Methodist Society was sponsored by two laymen, Benjamin Nokes and George Waddy. The beginning of regular Methodist services is dated from this occasion. On 12 February 1821 the first meeting in the Argyle Street chapel was held. This building was a rented carpenter’s shop owned by Charles Donn. The chapel was situated on land bounded on the north-east by Argyle Street and on the south-east by the Hobart Rivulet. The site, now occupied by the A...

New Town is a northern suburb of Hobart. It is also one of Hobart’s oldest suburbs and consequently the area contains many historic churches. New Town became a municipality in 1907 but was absorbed into Greater Hobart in the 1920s when its municipal status was relinquished. In the late 1850s, New Town’s first Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built at a site on Pirie Street. (At the time it was referred as the “Back Road”). The chapel has long disappeared and little information about it survives. It was used for only seven years before it was replaced by the landmark Cross Street Methodist (Uniting) Church in 1866. Methodist services were held regularly in New Town from the mid 1820s. In 1858 construction of a church began on land purchased from Mr and Mrs Bramwell. The building was officially opened on Sunday 5 June 1859 by Reverend W.A. Quick (of Horton College) and Reverend J. Cope, who preached at a morning and afternoon service. While local newspapers reported the chapel’s opening, n...

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. Collinsvale had two churches, a Seventh Day Adventist church (1888), which is still in use, and a Wesleyan Methodist church. Little is known about the early years of the church. It opened on Sunday 14 August 1881 and services were held until 1973. The only substantial reference to the church’s establishment is found in an article published in the Launceston Examiner by the newspaper’s Hobart reporter, who visited Bismarck in August 1881. While the reference to the church is slight, I have used most of the article as it provides interesting information and insights about the the early settlement: "The last ...