Flinders Street Baptist Church
Flinders Street Baptist Church is a church in Adelaide, South Australia.
History
In response to a call by George Fife Angas for a Baptist minister to found a new church in Adelaide, Rev. Silas Mead emigrated aboard Parisian, arriving in July 1861.[1] He began taking regular services at White's Rooms and soon his enthusiastic congregation decided to build a large church on Acre 273 in Flinders Street on the west corner of Divett Place.[2]
Robert G. Thomas, the architect who would later be responsible for the Stow Memorial Church (now Pilgrim Uniting Church), was selected to design the building, which is of Gothic revival style in bluestone and sandstone with elaborate capitals on the columns, a rose window and front entrance with three arches supported by pillars.[3]
The building, which cost £7,000 and took English & Brown two years to build, was opened on 19 May 1863. The debt was cleared the following year, Mead Hall was erected in 1867–1870 and the Manse was built in 1877.[4] On 28 May 1981, it was listed on the South Australian Heritage Register.[5]
The Australian Baptist Missionary Society was formed at the church under Rev Silas Mead in 1864, and the first missionary, Ellen Arnold, sent from there in 1882.[6]
References
- ^ "The Baptists". South Australian Register. Vol. XXV, no. 4600. South Australia. 15 July 1861. p. 2. Retrieved 24 May 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ "New Baptist Chapel". The South Australian Advertiser. Vol. IV, no. 1068. South Australia. 19 December 1861. p. 3. Retrieved 24 May 2018 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ Flinders Street Baptist Church, Adelaide, 1925, retrieved 24 May 2018
- ^ Flinders Street Baptist Church, 1933, retrieved 24 May 2018
- ^ "Flinders Street Baptist Church, 71-75 Flinders Street ADELAIDE". Heritage Places Database. South Australian Government. 28 May 1981. Retrieved 5 June 2018.
- ^ Gooden, Rosalind M. (2014). "The First Australasian Baptist Missionary: Ellen Arnold and the Bengalis, 1882-1931". In David Bebbington (ed.). Interfaces Baptists and Others: International Baptist Studies. Authentic Media Inc. ISBN 9781780783147.