Launceston’s first church, a story of faith, hope and survival

St John’s Church is an important part of Launceston’s history. In 1824 the northern headquarters of Van Diemen’s Land was relocated from George Town to the head of the Tamar River. In the same year the foundation stone was laid for St John’s Church in Launceston.

In 1825 construction of St John’s Church was completed and the first divine service held. St John’s Church is the oldest public building in the city of Launceston and the oldest surviving Anglican church in Tasmania.

The church has reflected the progress of Launceston over 200 years and there are numerous remarkable events and firsts in the story of St John’s.

The story of the church is told in a new book, St John’s – Launceston’s First Church 1825-2025, launched on 29 April 2025. The book is part of bicentenary celebrations for the church.

The St John’s Church story starts with courageous Reverend John Youl who was the first ordained minister in northern Van Diemen’s Land. He arrived in 1819 and oversaw the construction of the first iteration of St John’s.

The foundation stone was laid by newly arrived Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur on 28 December 1824. Construction began in early 1825.

The first funeral service in the church was held on Wednesday 24 August 1825, before the building had even been completed.

Charlotte Balfour, the 33-year-old wife of Launceston Commandant William Balfour, died in childbirth and was interred inside the walls of the unfinished church.

Her resting place, marked by a plaque on the original southern wall, remained largely forgotten until major building works in 1911.

It was uncovered again in 1938 when a new floor was installed and again last year when electrical work was undertaken. Charlotte Balfour was the first and only person buried at St John’s Church.

The first Divine Service was held in St John’s on Friday 16 December 1825.

In 1829 a clock was installed in St John’s Church tower which became Launceston’s first town clock. The clock in St John’s tower served in that role for more than 80 years. In 1837 the first stained-glass window was installed, believed to be the first in a church in Tasmania.

In 1846 the Launceston Church Grammar School opened next door, with St John’s used for regular school chapel services. The Grammar School is said to be Australia’s oldest continuously operating school.

When St John’s second rector Revd Dr William Browne retired in 1868, after 40 years in the role, he said his Parish Register recorded that during his Ministry he had performed 1,834 marriages, 4,153 baptisms and 2,231 burials.

In 1893 the church leased the former Queens Head Hotel in Wellington Street and converted it into the first St John’s Mission House.

It offered support and accommodation for Launceston’s poor and homeless under the caring management of Sister Charlotte Shoobridge who was ordained as Tasmania’s first deaconess by Bishop Henry Montgomery in St John’s Church on Saturday, 13 October 1894,

In 1902, Bishop Mercer said that should the Diocese of Tasmania ever be divided, St John’s, as the Mother Church of the North, would naturally become a cathedral.

In 1912, following the completion of a major extension of the church, St John’s was being referred to as “the Cathedral of the North”.

The church was full when St John’s held its first Anzac Day service on Tuesday 25 April 1916. There was a congregation of more that 1,000 for the National Day of Prayer in St John’s on Sunday 26 May 1940 calling for peace in Europe. The Governor, Sir Ernest Clark, was in attendance.

The church was again full for the special service on Tuesday 2 June 1953 to mark the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

In 1955 parish records noted 117 marriages and 195 baptisms in St John’s. It was said that more marriages were solemnised at St John’s than any other church in Launceston and the same could be said for baptisms.

In 1997 former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam delivered the eulogy at the funeral of his former deputy Lance Barnard, the long-serving Federal Member for Bass.

The Brindley organ in St John’s, first installed in 1862, has been described as the finest in the nation. In 2007, the long-held goal to complete the rebuilding of the organ, as designed by organist George Hopkins in the early 1900s, was completed.

For 200 years St John’s Church has been a place of worship for generations of northern Tasmanians and a place of celebration, mourning and contemplation for many others.

Its imposing presence on the edge of the business district has aways been a reassuring and comforting sight for Launcestonians, both parishioners and other citizens.

St John’s Church has only had 20 rectors since 1825. The incumbent in 2025 is The Venerable James W. Hornby, B.ForestSc, M.Div.

(St John’s – Launceston’s First Church 1825-2025 was written by Julian Burgess and produced by Forty South Publishing for the All Saints Network as part of the parish’s bicentenary celebrations during 2025. The book is available from St John’s Church office, 157 St John’s Street, Launceston, Tasmania, Phone (03) 6331 4896.)

Charlotte Shoobridge, Tasmania’s first Deaconess

Posted by Julian Burgess

Charlotte Jessy Shoobridge was ordained as Tasmania’s first deaconess by Bishop Henry Montgomery in St John’s Church, Launceston, on Saturday, 13 October 1894.

There had traditionally been strong opposition to the appointment of women to positions within the Anglican Church but the Bishop and other senior ministers saw the need for change.

With the support of St John’s rector Rev. Nugent Kelly and church-warden Ernest Whitfeld, Miss Shoobridge had been appointed in 1893 to run the St John’s Mission House.

Her job was to oversee the provision of support, accommodation and religious guidance for the growing number of poor and distressed people in the parish.

The job came with no pay and no security of tenure but Miss Shoobridge, who was 50 at the time, held the position for nearly 20 years. She was widely known as Sister Charlotte.

Born in 1843, she was the eldest daughter of hop grower and politician Ebenezer Shoobridge and his wife Charlotte, of Bushy Park in the Derwent Valley.

She trained in parish work in Melbourne before applying to join St John’s Church.

Church-warden Ernest Whitfeld told a meeting of the St John’s congregation in 1882 that Miss Shoobridge had written to him asking to come and work in Launceston.

He said it was a “most unexpected offer” but there were many things she could do in Launceston in “nursing sick women and children and visiting cases where other women would be afraid to go, and would scarcely be so effective.”

Ernest Whitfeld was enthusiastic about the church being active in “home mission” work and early in 1893 he had arranged for the lease of the former Queen’s Head Hotel in Wellington Street for £1 a week.

The old hotel was converted into St John’s Mission House with the bar turned into a free reading room and the old skittle alley becoming a meeting room. Another area was turned into a chapel.

The dining room was used for educational purposes with singing classes held for boys and girls and sewing classes for girls held twice a week.

Upstairs there were bedrooms for those who required sympathetic care and a temporary home. One room was made available to the Benevolent Society.

At Deaconess Shoobridge’s ordination Bishop Montgomery preached a sermon on the subject of women’s ministrations and he gave many instances of the good resulting from the “labours undertaken and nobly carried out by sisters of the church.”

Among the congregation were a number of the people who had benefited from the care of the St John’s Mission House.

By the early 1900s the converted hotel had become inadequate and in 1905 a new St John’s Mission House was built at 103 Canning Street.

It was officially opened and dedicated in March 1906 and Sister Charlotte was in charge of the new, larger mission house until her retirement in 1910.

The building served as St John’s Mission House until 1947 when it was sold to the State Government. In recent times it became a backpacker hostel.St John’s Church, which was Launceston’s first church, will celebrate its bicentenary next year.

Images — TOP: Deaconess Charlotte Shoobridge photograph from about 1895. All Saints Network picture. BOTTOM: Laying the foundation stone for the new St John’s Mission House, Canning Street, Launceston. Sister Charlotte is pictured with the mayor J. W. Pepper and other guests. Weekly Courier, 3 May 1905.

Originally written for the Launceston Historical Society and published in The Sunday Examiner, 29 April 2024.

The historic Wesleyan Chapel in Paterson Street

Posted by Julian Burgess

Launceston’s second church, near the corner of Cameron and George streets, held its first service on Sunday 4 March 1827, in a chapel built by the Wesleyan Missionary Society.

The Wesleyans were only a little over a year behind the Church of England in erecting a place of worship in Launceston with St John’s Church holding its first Devine Service on 16 December 1825.

That first Wesleyan chapel no longer exists but its successor in Paterson Street, now known as Pilgrim Hall, was completed in 1835 and has survived for 188 years. It was recently announced the building was to be sold.

The Tasmanian and Port Dalrymple Advertiser, on Wednesday 6 April 1825,reported that the Wesleyan Missionary Rev. John Hutchinson had just arrived in Launceston from Sydney to minister to the free and convict residents of Port Dalrymple.

The only other minister in northern Van Diemen’s Land at the time was Church of England chaplain John Youl who had begun his ministry in 1819.

As the church of the British Empire, the Church of England had all its costs covered by the colonial government that initially declined to provide similar support to other denominations.

In 1825, Launceston had a population of about 1,200, half or whom were convicts, and Rev. Youl was overseeing the construction of Launceston’s first proper church, St John’s.

Rev. Hutchinson conducted his first service two weeks after his arrival in a house in Cameron Street, opposite John Fawkner’s Cornwall House (later the Cornwall Hotel).

By February 1826, shortly after the first Church of England service was held in St John’s, it was reported that between £200 and £300 had been pledged by Launceston residents for the construction of a Wesleyan chapel in the town.

Rev. Hutchinson however was ordered to leave Launceston and in March 1826 he departed for the Polynesian kingdom of Tonga to undertake missionary work.

His removal slowed work on the chapel and in July 1826 the treasurer of the building committee, brewer William Barnes, requested residents to pay the money they had pledged “for the erection of this place for public worship” as funds had been “entirely exhausted.”

It wasn’t until Sunday 4 March 1827 that a lay preacher officiated at the first Divine Service in the new Wesleyan chapel near the corner of Cameron and George streets (near where the Anglican Holy Trinity Church now stands).

A new minister for the chapel could not be found and there was outrage when it was learnt in 1829 that the Wesleyans were planning to sell their Launceston chapel. Despite the protests the government bought the property and the chapel became a school and the parsonage was turned into a government store.

The proceeds of the sale were held by John Fawkner who later passed the money on to the Scotch National Church for the erection of their first church in Charles Street in 1831.

Rev. John Manton, a Wesleyan missionary who had been ministering at the Macquarie Harbour and Port Arthur convict stations since 1831, was ordered to Launceston in 1834 and the following year Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur granted land in Paterson Street for a new chapel.

The foundation stone was laid on 20 April 1835, and the Launceston Advertiser reported that the site for the chapel was on open space fronting on Paterson Street.

“The builders are to be Messrs Weir and Ferguson, of this Town, whose tender was accepted by the Committee. The plan, drawn by Mr S. Jackson, we have before noticed, as of one of the prettiest buildings we have known designed in Van Diemen’s Land.”

On Christmas Day 1835 (a Friday), Rev. Manton preached at the first Divine Service in the chapel and in 1839 a parsonage was built next door.

With a growing congregation more land was obtained to the west of the chapel and the foundation stone for the more imposing Paterson Street Methodist Church was laid on 18 September 1866. The church was opened for services on 21 February 1868.