Hamilton Baptist Church

It seems only natural that the early Hamilton Baptist Church would conduct its Christmas Day service on a summer evening in the much-loved Gregson Park. After all, the Church is directly opposite, at 108 Lindsay Street, where it has been since 1929. Historical church records refer to this as ‘our tradition.’

St Peter's Anglican Church, Hamilton

Hundreds of children were on the march, a more-or-less orderly line snaking its way from St Peter’s Anglican Church to Hamilton Station. At the front, two children held a wavering church banner aloft. They were off to the annual Sunday School picnic at Speers Point, the highlight of the year.

First, they would catch the train to Cockle Creek, then a steam tram to Speers Point. The event would have been an exciting adventure for children whose families did not own cars, and who walked everywhere within their suburb, Hamilton.

Which David Murray was he?

The repetition of given names, especially naming first born sons after their father or grandfather, is a tradition with centuries of history behind it. I find it extremely  confusing, especially when trying to understand how the many different Murrays that scatter Hamilton’s history are connected.

Murray Street, Hamilton runs parallel to Beaumont Street to its east, neatly truncated at its northern end by Lindsay Street and south at Denison Street. The Scots Kirk, dedicated in 1887 and considered one of the finest pieces of church architecture in the Northern District, occupies the corner of Tudor and Murray Streets. Inside the Kirk are three stained glass windows – each a memorial to a man with the name David Murray. Were there three?

The story of Donald's Corner

When you were growing up in Hamilton’, I asked memoir writer Margaret Colditz ‘where was the money?’ 

‘The money’, she responded without a second’s pause, ‘was in Donald’s Corner’.

'Blow it up over my dead body!'

'A couple of days after the earthquake, I was at home in the parsonage in Beaumont Street when there was a knock on the door. I opened it to a policeman, who told me – the Army is about to blow up the church. They want you there!' 

That was John Mason, Minister of the Hamilton Wesley Church  1985 - 1992.

Wesleyans of Pit Town

Pressing his nose against the glass as I hold him up to our high front window, my three year old grandson stares transfixed at the floodlit church tower. Springing from the darkness, it’s so close we can almost touch it, this cake decorator’s fantasy of lacy outlines, turrets and slim arches.