Bell tower of
Wesley-on-Beaumont (2013)
It took just three months to build this new Wesleyan Church in
1928, for a Methodist congregation bursting at the seams. A newspaper report at
the time described the new building as the 'cathedral
of NSW Methodism and the largest Methodist church north of Sydney, seating
about 600 people'. [1]
It quickly became a familiar landmark for the people of Hamilton. How did
this come about?
Wesley Methodist Church, Hamilton NSW (1960s)
Photograph in Newcastle and Hunter District Historical Society Archives,
courtesy Cultural Collections, University of Newcastle, Australia
The first Wesleyan Chapel to be built in Newcastle was in Newcomen Street, in front of a cordial factory. The AA Company provided transport on its horse drawn coal trains for its employees and their families from the outlying mining settlements to travel to the various churches each Sunday. Imagine the clanking, the coal dust (despite the canvas covers) and the innumerable stops!
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The First Wesleyan Chapel in Newcastle, Newcomen Street
Photograph reproduced from 'Glory Be', 1845 -1945. Commemorating the
100th Anniversary of the Opening of the First Wesleyan Chapel in Newcastle,
Ed. Norman F Charge and Eric K Lindgard
There were three times as many Methodists in the Newcastle coalmining communities compared to NSW generally, and the locality of Borehole, Pit Town and Happy Flat was no exception. [2]
Gradually tiring of the long Sunday rides, other options began to be explored by the Methodists here. As early as 1858, services were held in the slab-and-bark private home of a Mrs Clarke, and later in the Borehole School building established by the National School Board on Cameron's Hill. Then, thoughts turned to the possibility of building their own church.
Even in 1869, the south west corner of Tudor and Beaumont
Street would have been a convenient location, in the heart of the three bustling
mining settlements that trickled from Cameron’s Hill to the flat past Beaumont Street.
You’ll recognise the corner now as the home of the Greater Building Society. A
heritage bank building nestles against the protective curve of a six storey
building.
The Greater Building Society,
Hamilton (2013)
On this corner, a simple, austere Wesleyan Chapel was the first Methodist church building in Hamilton, built in 1869.
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Accommodating 70 people, it can be seen here with the Sunday School hall, built some years later in 1902.
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Interior Old Church
Photograph reproduced from Hamilton Wesley - a continuing story (Ref. 3 below)
Accommodating 70 people, it can be seen here with the Sunday School hall, built some years later in 1902.
Methodist Church, Parsonage and Mission Hall, Hamilton c 1903
Photograph by Ralph Snowball, courtesy Cultural Collections,
University of Newcastle, Australia
Colliery managers were the 'go-to' figures to officiate at special functions in those days. The foundation stone for this early Church was laid by Mr J B Winship, AA Company colliery manager, on 23 August 1869.
Over 130 years later, during redevelopment of the site by the Greater Building Society’s head office in 2001, footings of the western wall of the church were discovered. Because of their archaeological significance, these creamy sandstone blocks have been preserved where they were found, and the building has been cleverly re-designed around them. They can be viewed through glass tiles in the foyer of the Greater.
One of the footings of the western wall of the original Wesleyan Church,
foyer of The Greater, Hamilton
Methodism was strong in northern England, the home of many
immigrants to our coal mining communities. The movement was a reaction to what
was seen as the apathy of an Anglicanism that had lost both its heart and its
spirit. Evangelistic preaching (often in the open air), enthusiastic hymn
singing, and passionate advocacy of the radical notion that the working classes
were equal to the upper classes characterised the Methodist movement.
That advocacy of inclusiveness and social justice continues, reflected in the philosophy and work of the present day Wesley-on-Beaumont.
That advocacy of inclusiveness and social justice continues, reflected in the philosophy and work of the present day Wesley-on-Beaumont.
The 1880s congregation was growing, and the small
rectangular chapel was remodelled and extended by architect James Cropley. In
1888 a fine parsonage was built for the Minister and his family, on the corner
of Tudor and William Streets.
Methodist Church, showing Parsonage at front (n.d.)
Courtesy Newcastle Region Library
In 1901, the foundation stone for a large Sunday School Hall was laid by Mr William Winn. Church bazaars – no doubt the initiative of the women - had been the main source of the £520 needed to buy the land.
Mrs Mavis Ebbott, a local Hamilton and church historian, explained to me that while this was called a Sunday School Hall, it was originally established as a venue for adult Bible classes. These were especially important before the appointment of a Minister, as leadership in worship had to come from lay men in the church.
Five years later, the church could not hold everyone wanting
to attend services, so in 1906, evening services were transferred to the Sunday
School Hall. Over 300 people could be seated there, seen at the left of the Church below.
From the time of brothers John and Charles Wesley, co-founders of the Methodist Movement, the religious instruction of children was especially important. The Hamilton Methodists took up this challenge.
In 1909 a two story building with a suite of classrooms was erected at the back of the Sunday School Hall. This was named Kindergarten Hall. By 1917, Sunday School enrolments were burgeoning. 407 children were enrolled in Sunday School. A third building - Social Hall – was built in 1922 for education, recreation and use as a gymnasium.
In their account of the history of Hamilton Wesley Uniting
Church, Don and Mavis Ebbott wrote:
'For many years these
halls were filled every Sunday afternoon. All the different organisations of
the church used them for meetings and functions. Every former pupil of the old
Sunday School would recall the curtain of the stage with the camels walking up
the dusty road to Jerusalem'. [3]
Still, the extra Halls were not enough. We learn that in the
early 1920s the church building was 'taxed to its utmost capacity'. [4]
Many weddings were held in the popular church
Thomas and Gwendoline Griffiths married at the Methodist Church, Hamilton
on 17 September, 1921
on 17 September, 1921
Photograph from the personal collection of Alison Edwards
Pressure was mounting for more ambitious development, to meet Church needs. Hamilton was in the midst of a building boom, and its population in 1928 was almost 19,000.
The original Methodist Church and the Parsonage were sold to
Australia’s first bank, the rapidly expanding Bank of NSW, on 1 August, 1928
for £3,250. The church had stood for almost 60 years, and was demolished
by the Bank.
The sale was to finance a new church building close by, on the corner
of Denison and Beaumont Streets.
Built for £13,400 pounds, it was dedicated on 24 November 1928. The choir stalls alone were built for 70 - exactly the number the first church could hold, in total. Upwards of 600 people could gather in this new 'cathedral of NSW Methodism' - the one my grandson marvels at from our high windows.
Wesley-on-Beaumont, Hamilton (2014)
Photograph by Matthew Ward
The story does not end here.
In 1958, the Ebbotts wrote, the halls were refurbished and early pioneers were honoured by naming the halls: the big hall – The Cowan Assembly Hall, the Social Hall – The Harry Jones Memorial Hall, and the Kindergarten Hall – the Josiah Nicholas Kindergarten Hall.
In 1958, the Ebbotts wrote, the halls were refurbished and early pioneers were honoured by naming the halls: the big hall – The Cowan Assembly Hall, the Social Hall – The Harry Jones Memorial Hall, and the Kindergarten Hall – the Josiah Nicholas Kindergarten Hall.
Two of these Halls would not survive the next few years. Cowan
and Nicholas Halls, together with a parcel of land that had been the lawn
between the old church and the parsonage, were sold. Now, the Greater buildings
encompass where they stood.
The sales helped finance yet another building, Fellowship
House, which opened in 1962. Purpose built next to the new church, Fellowship
House boasted a sanded and polished floor for dancing, and a stage. Mrs Shelia Gow, a descendant of the McIntyre
flour milling family, wrote to me that in the late 1940s and 1950s, young
people from the Scots Kirk and the Church of England in Hamilton enjoyed
combined dances – the Methodists weren’t allowed to dance. By the sixties,
however, Methodism had come of age!
Fellowship House, Hamilton (2014)
Photograph by Craig Smith
Photograph by Craig Smith
One of the Halls remained, the Social Hall, facing west on William Street. It had become a senior citizens centre but eventually, it too was sold to become a warehouse.
Former senior citizens hall
(2014)
Photograph by Craig Smith
Wesley-on-Beaumont continues to find new and diverse ways to
serve the Hamilton community. Promoting fairness and equality are still foremost on this Church's agenda.
I wonder what its founders would think of the colourful Fair Trade products displayed in its vestibule, and the coffee shop I found occupying part of its nave? Somehow I think that the army of women who baked and sewed for the countless bazaars to raise funds for a succession of new buildings would feel perfectly at home in Bill’s Place. It’s a volunteer run coffee shop with a play space for toddlers, affordable coffee and delicious home made cakes, and one of the most unusual kitchen windows you are ever likely to see!
Converted kitchen for Bill’s
Place, Wesley-on-Beaumont, Hamilton (2014)
Photograph by Matthew Ward
Acknowledgements
Reverend Amelia Koh-Butler, Minister Hamilton Uniting Church, and Mrs Mavis Ebbott, local and church historian. Unattributed photographs by Ruth Cotton.
Update
In 2016, the Greater Building Society was renamed the Greater Bank. As a result of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020-21, there is no longer a cafe in its foyer.
In 2020 extensive renovations were made to Fellowship House. Renamed Hamilton Community Hive, it is now a co-working space and community hub, supporting community programs, business start-ups and creative enterprises.
Related post
'Blow it up over my dead body!
Detail
of historical display in the foyer of the Greater Bank
[1]
Hamilton Wesley Methodist Church: 100 Years of Christian Witness. Centenary
Souvenir 1858 – 1958 (Copy held in Church Office, Wesley-on-Beaumont)
[2]
In her 1979 PhD thesis The Newcastle Coalmining District of NSW,
1860 – 1900, Ellen McEwen’s analysis of 1891 census shows that Methodists
were 31.1% of the population of the Newcastle coalmining district, compared
with 10.1 % in NSW. A copy of this excellent social history is held in the
Local Studies section of the Newcastle Region Library.
[3]
Ebbott, Don and Mavis: Hamilton Wesley – a continuing story.... Hamilton Wesley
Uniting Church 1858 – 1988. Copy held in Church Office, Wesley-on-Beaumont.
[4]
Murray, Peter: From Borehole to Hamilton Jubilee 1848 – 1921. Self published
(2006).
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