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IN PREPARATION

ST STEPHEN'S ANGLICAN CHURCH,

WYNYARD, TASMANIA

HISTORY

THE CHURCH (this section still is in preparation)

St Stephen's has its own historian. In 1995, with the help of the Ladies' Guild, Mrs Sue Jacobson compiled A Brief History of St Stephens Wynyard and Thrifty Recipes from Parishioners. Two hundred copies of this 59-page booklet were produced to distribute locally as a fund-raising project. Sue compiled the historical record from a number of sources, including the 1919 Souvenir history, published by the Advocate newspaper, to commemorate the laying of the Foundation Stone of the new brick current building in the early English and Gothic style. A copy of her own book is held in the Heritage Collection at the State Library of Tasmania in Hobart. If you click here, you can see the history pages (22,582kb) (with the consent of the author). This is a large file, so it takes a long time to download. Alternatively, you can see .jpg scans of the pages here. You can click on the thumbnails to read the pages, again with the consent of the author.

A second source of information was The Wynyard Historical Society's booklet, Recollecting the Past, and Jubilee 70 by Rector W R Paton. Canon David Langley, along with Rector John Pearce, also contributed. The author also talked to parishioners about their memories of the Parish.

In brief, there was a 'congregation' in the area (known then as Table Cape) of around 30 as early as the 1840s. As the community developed on the east side of the river, demand grew for somewhere to worship in that area. Rev. G Wilkinson, who lived along the coast to the east (at Seabrook) conducted services on Sundays at the sawmill (Gibbon and Hills). This was where the Spencer Hospital was later built. The first church, financed by collections made by Mr George Shekleton of Tollymore, was built in the cemetery grounds off Jackson Street.

Around 1862, when the new church was completed, the Bishop appointed Mr Richard Smith as Catechist. Mr Smith held services in Wynyard and in Burnie. He was ordained in 1864, continuing to hold services in the church at the cemetery off Jackson Street in Wynyard.

In 1870, the parishioners acquired land on Dodgin Street next to the police buildings. The new church building cost ₤233. It was opened on Christmas Day in 1873, free of debt. The old building from Jackson Street was sold to the Salvation Army then resold, converted and moved to Hogg Street, probably behind the current Baptist Hall.

For three years the parish had no clergyman, even though there was a parsonage. In due course Mr C J Mackenzie was appointed Lay Reader. Seven further appointments took place with Wynyard sharing them with Burnie. In around 1908, Wynyard became a separate parish. Fundraising went on towards the costs of a brick building until in 1919, the foundation stone was laid for the church as it now stands.

The old building, shown above, was moved to Natone. This rather poor copy of a photograph by Alfred Bock of Wynyard in 1901 shows the pretty little building. The copy below shows the interior. Inscribed on the arch are the words:

Come unto me ye weary and I will give you rest. (William C, Dix, 1837-1898)

Across the altar are the words: Christ Our Passover. These words come from 1 Corinthians 5:7 (Paul). Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed to atone for our sins.

The new church, built in classic Early English and Gothic style, was to cost ₤2000. The photograph below, provenance as yet unknown, shows it nearing completion, with the scaffolding still up, and a man standing on the tower. The Church was consecrated on 2nd December 1920.

The chapel is dedicated to St Alban. The fine organ, built in 1980, is a Laurie Pipe Organ.

There were several 'outcentres' of Wynyard:

Glebe, a farm and Parsonage east of Mt Hicks road on the Bass Highway

Yolla (which became part of Cooee Parish in the early 1950s

Oldina, in the old school from 1924 to 1965 (the land still belongs to St Stephen's)

Rocky Cape, part of Wynyard Parish until the 1950s. Converted to a house in 1985, it later burned down.

Myalla 's Chapel of St Paul is described on its own webpage here.

WYNYARD BEFORE ANY CHURCH WAS BUILT

Contrary to a claim on the Internet, Wynyard was not given the name of 'Wynyard' in 1798 by the two explorers Bass and Flinders when they were circumnavigating Tasmania, surveying the coast as they went. They only named large features of the coast, such as Table and Rocky Capes, and the rivers.

The surveyor Henry Hellyer, who worked for the Van Diemen's Land Company (VDL) between 1826 and 1832, never referred to the town as such, rather to the river Inglis and the treacherous tides, in which he lost a man who was trying to cross the river, one trusts not by trying to walk on the surface of the water!

Similarly, James Bischoff¹, writing not long before Henry Hellyer died, mentioned the river Inglis, which flows through the town. Nowhere in his book does he mention Wynyard, while Emu Bay (Launceston), with its population there and in the Hampshire and Surrey Hills of 62 men, 7 women, 5 boys and 5 girls (page 148) got the drawing by an unknown artist, shown below. This image can be seen, and downloaded, on Google books.

Mr Goldie's report 1826 (shown in Bischoff's 1832 book, see footnote 2) on page 156 does not mention Wynyard, rather Table Cape, and the difficulties in making progress west of that point to reach 'Circular Head'.

It seems the name Wynyard was not well known for a considerable time, being known until then as Table Cape. Wynyard was first gazetted as a town with that name in 1861², being named after Major General Edward Wynyard, Commander in Chief of British forces in Australasia c1850. When the land was originally surveyed it was called 'Wynyard Plains'.

As for the naming of the Inglis river, Brian Rollins, surveyor and local historian had this to say (4 March 2009) on the question of how it got its name:

From memory the first reference to the Inglis River that I have found is in Henry Hellyer's 1827 diary (Friday 27 July), where he crosses out the name "Chary" and inserts "Inglis" above it. Was it his idea to alter the name? And if so when, as he could have made the correction much later when reading back over the diary.

I recall that in about April of that year James Inglis' brother (Robert?) was visiting from China and he and Curr stopped there to inspect the river on their return from Circular Head to Launceston. At that time Curr and Hellyer had intended to inspect the coastline in this vicinity for a port to access the Hampshire and Surrey Hills, but Hellyer was delayed at Circular Head and could not accompany them.

I have often wondered if Curr [manager in charge of the Van Diemen's Land Company enterprise, based at Circular Head] suggested the name but logic does not support this as there is not even a vague reference in official correspondence from Curr. As he and Hellyer did not meet again until October there was no other way to communicate the thought.

It is possible that Adey, then in charge of Circ Hd, suggested the name to Hellyer when HH was visiting in the week preceding 27 July (1827).

Although Hellyer seems to have been responsible for much of the other nomenclature along the NW coast, was this name his idea alone? We'll probably never know. However I feel the name Inglis was used to commemorate the family, rather than either James or Robert in isolation.

Although it seems that Wynyard (known at the time as Table Cape) was not settled until 1841 (online Encyclopaedia Britannia), there were Europeans in the area before this, in the early 1830s, working for the Van Diemen's Land Company. The native population ̶ the 'North West Tribe' ̶ had long spent time around the Wynyard area. Their tribal area stretched from Table Cape to Cape Grim, and from there south to Macquarie Harbour. Indeed, aboriginal fish traps can still to be seen at low tide on the beach west of Fossil Bluff at Wynyard. There are caves in the cliffs there that would have given shelter along the shore.

The earliest written record of settlement on the banks of the Inglis relates to John King, although there is no evidence of this in the Tasmania Archives online index, rather in references to the history of the Anglican Church. According to Bischoff (1832), King was an 'experienced farmer', appointed by the Van Diemen's Land Company to act as superintendent of their farms. He had already arrived in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) when Bischoff was writing in 1832. In 1841, King is said to have taken possession of a block on the mouth of the Inglis and set up home where the golf course now stands.

The first record in the Tasmania Archives' online index that mentions Wynyard is, but the record itself refers only to Tape Cape.

John Alexander - Licensee - Table Cape - Hotel - Table Cape - Wynyard - 1854 - 1859

The town depended mainly on processing and exporting timber from the wharf on the east side of the Inglis. This was built more or less where it is today.

As the land around Wynyard was cleared of forest, they found (as Hellyer failed to spot) that it was very fertile. European grasses, along with European weeds and insects, were imported for dairy farming. Potatoes did particularly well as did onions. Wynyard overtook Stanley as the most important port on Tasmania's north-west coast. Indeed, there was even an attempt to build a real port, now known as 'The Old Port'. Remnants of the quays still stand. But the shallow shelving contours of the rocky shore were not suitable for large vessels, so the port was abandoned, leaving a shallow and safe place for swimming.

By 1900, a year before the Federation was put in place, Wynyard had grown to a small township of over 800. When the railway was built, Wynyard was on the line along the north coast to Stanley. The track reached Wynard in 1913. This made Wynyard suddenly accessible to people from all around Tasmania. The lines up from the west coast (Strahan, Queenstown, Zeehan, Rosebery) ran through Wynyard and thence along the coast to Devonport before heading south through the Midlands to Hobart. So, for example, in 1918, a young assistant teacher (having worked for a short time in South Queenstown and Linda) used the railway to take up a post at the school in Wynyard for a few months, living at Cooee and commuting daily to Wynyard by train. When her training course began at Philip Smith College in Hobart, she completed the three- or four-day Queenstown to Hobart run.

Wynyard has had its own airport since 1936 and has gone from strength to strength since then with tourists coming in either that way or on the ferry from Melbourne to Devonport, or by air to Devonport, Launceston or Hobart. Those who are bent on retirement come to view its advantages, including the rolling hinterland of countryside not unlike Dorset and Hampshire in England.

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