launceston

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

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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

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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.

New lease on life for historic Launceston Infant School

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The historic Launceston Infant School building in Frederick Street will soon be restored and re-purposed as the Launceston History Centre and make thousands of important local books, documents and research materials available for public access.

The main building dates from 1836 and was Launceston’s first infant school. It has given great service over the past 187 years, serving as a school, church, kindergarten and childcare centre.

The property is owned by the City of Launceston Council which was considering selling it but following community pressure councillors voted to keep in public hands.

After a lengthy Expression of Interest process the Launceston History Centre was granted a long-term lease which was signed in January 2025.

Major structural remediation will be undertaken following the signing of the lease with new toilets and a climate controlled storage facility added to the site. The original infant school building will not be altered.

The Launceston History Centre was formed in May 2022 by the Friends of the Launceston Mechanics’ Institute, Tasmanian Family History Society (Launceston Branch) and the Launceston Historical Society.

It became an incorporated body under the Tasmanian Associations Incorporations Act on 20 June 2022.

The infant school is a typical story of early Launcestonians having to build their own public institutions.

Tenders were called for its construction in April 1835 by a group of community-minded citizens and followed the establishment of an infant school in Hobart in 1832.

Public subscriptions, a government loan of £250 and the promise of £50 a year to pay for a teacher was obtained to get the Launceston school underway.

Prominent among the founding members of the Launceston Infant School committee were businessmen John Ward Gleadow, Phillip Oakden, Lewis Gillies and Henry Reed, solicitor Henry Jennings and Reverends Henry Dowling and William Browne.

They announced the school would be open to all children between the ages of two and seven years, with the Holy Scriptures being the basis of all instruction.

It served as a school, church and meeting room for the next 50 years.

The Tasmanian newspaper of Saturday 7 January 1888 described the infant school as one of the earliest public buildings in Launceston:

In those early days it was not a difficult matter to obtain from the Government a grant of land for public purposes, and the need for an Infant School in Launceston having been felt several gentlemen applied for a site for such an institution.

The minutes of their proceedings show that on 9th January 1835, the committee wrote to George Frankland, Esq., Surveyor-General, asking him to point out the piece of land set apart by the Government for an Infant School.

Shortly afterwards, but for what reason does not appear, unless that the site understood to be reserved by the Government was deemed too far from the centre of the town, Mr Gleadow and Mr Reed were empowered by the committee to select and purchase a piece of land and procure specifications for a building.

The land offered by the government turned out to be a quarter of an acre fronting on Tamar Street, at the end of Cameron Street, near the entrance to today’s City Park but it was thought at the time to be too remote.

On 27 January 1835, John Gleadow and Henry Reed reported that they had bought a block of land in Frederick Street, from John Thompson for one hundred and twenty guineas, and had accepted builder John Anderson Brown’s tender of £564 to construct the school.

Work was expected to start immediately with the government providing a gang of convicts to dig the foundations and quarry the stone required. Bricks that could be spared from government works were to be provided.

Progress was slow and in the meantime the committee announced they had obtained temporary premises at the southern end of Charles Street (on the corner of Balfour Street) and recruited an infant school master and mistress, Mr and Mrs Lilly, from NSW.

On 16 June 1835, eleven children were enrolled but this soon increased to about 60 and no more children could be accommodated until the new school house in Frederick Street was completed.

Subscribers and other interested citizens were invited to the new Frederick Street Infant School on 3 March 1836 to celebrate its imminent completion.

When the annual meeting of the Launceston Infant School Society was held on Wednesday 15 February 1837 there were 100 students on the books.

Over the next 30 years the building was also used for church services, at first by Rev. Henry Dowling, and a meeting place for organisations like the Launceston Temperance Society.

However, in 1860 the building was leased to the government “for a peppercorn rent” and became a state school, a role it filled until the construction of a new school at the Sandhill in 1885.

The last surviving trustee of the Launceston Infant School Society, the Reverend Charles Price, then offered ownership of the school to the Launceston Municipal Council. The transfer was completed at the end of 1887.

The Tasmanian of Saturday 7 January 1888 noted that the property was very valuable and would become more valuable as time passed, “and we may express a hope that it will never be alienated or abused.”

The council marked their appreciation of the Rev. Price’s action by passing a formal vote of thanks, and ordering it to be recorded in the minutes.

Under municipal council ownership the historic building was used as a kindergarten for many years and more recently as a childcare centre.

An engineers’ report in 2023 revealed a number of structural faults in the building and cracks and peeling paint on the exterior had become clearly visible.

The City of Launceston Council will oversee the structural remediation and restoration of the building before the Launceston History Centre take up their lease.

The copyright for the words and images in this article are held by Julian Burgess.

The importance of Milton Hall in Launceston’s history

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Milton Hall, sold in 2022 by the Baptist Union of Tasmania, is a hugely important place in the history of Launceston.

It was built in 1842 and paid for by supporters of the Independent pastor Rev. John West as the St John Square Congregational Chapel.

John West biographer Patricia Ratcliff wrote that he was “arguably the most influential of the middle class dissenters, a person of colossal intellect, a dynamic orator with a mellifluous voice.”

The Rev. West arrived in Launceston in 1839 and initially held services in an infant schoolroom in Frederick St, between Wellington and Charles streets.

By 1841 his congregation had grown so much that a proper church was needed.

A block of land was bought further up Frederick Street and money was pledged to erect a new chapel. The prominent Baptist minister Henry Dowling laid the foundation stone on Thursday, September 2, 1841.

It took builder George Gould nearly a year to complete the Doric Temple style chapel with the dedication service held on Friday, August 12, 1842.

The first services were held on the following Sunday with sermons by Rev. Dowling, Rev. Joseph Beazley, of the Kempton Congregational Church, and Rev. William Garrett, of the Presbyterian Church.

John West and members of his congregation established a number of important community and charitable institutions in Launceston.

They include the Mechanics’ Institute (predecessor to the Launceston Library and the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery), the City Mission and a general cemetery.

He also supported the establishment of business organisations like the Cornwall Insurance Company and The Examiner newspaper.

John West wrote the leading article in the first edition of The Examiner attacking convict transportation and its detrimental effect on building a respectable, sound and prosperous society.

From 1842 to 1854 his editorials championed social reforms.

In 1849 John West designed a flag for the Anti-Transportation League that was unveiled at a national meeting in Melbourne. It is considered to be the model of the Australian flag

He published his History of Tasmania, printed at The Examiner, in 1852 and it is still widely quoted and considered an important source of information on Tasmania’s first 50 years.

His series of essays entitled Union of the Colonies, written in Launceston in 1854, outlined his vision for the federation of the Australian colonies.

Convict transportation to Tasmania had ended when John West resigned as pastor of the St John’s Square Chapel in 1854 to accept the position of editor of the Sydney Morning Herald.

He died in 1877 and it is quite remarkable that so many of the institutions he helped establish continue to benefit Launceston.

Image — TOP: Frederick Street in 1866 shows Chalmers Church, John West’s Congregational Chapel (Milton Hall) and schoolhouse. Picture courtesy State Library of Victoria.

New Launceston mills a boon for 1923 wool sales

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The Launceston wool sales of January 1923 were hailed as the most successful held with representatives from the city’s two new textile mills competing with buyers from around the world.

It was an exciting time with cloth and flannel producer Kelsall and Kemp at Invermay already operating and construction of the huge Patons and Baldwins yarn factory at Glen Dhu well underway. The two new mills were expected to be a boon for Tasmanian wool producers as well as providing hundreds of new jobs in Launceston and giving the local economy a major boost.

George Cragg, chairman of the Launceston Wool Brokers’ Association, told The Examiner that the number of buyers was probably a record, and the clip quality was better than recent sales. “It might be said thankfully that it was the most successful wool sale held in Launceston. The representation of British, Continental, and Australian buyers was probably a record.”

He said buyers for Kelsall and Kemp and Patons and Baldwins were keen bidders and Waverley Woollen Mills, that had been operating for nearly 50 years before the big UK mills decided to establish factories in Launceston, was also represented.

Construction of the Patons and Baldwins mill had started nearly a year earlier, in March 1922, after the tender of Hinman, Wright and Manser had been accepted at a contract price of £90,000. The Examiner of 23 March 1922 said it was probably the largest building tender ever let in Tasmania.

“The plans and specifications were executed at Launceston by a special staff, under the personal supervision of Mr F. J. Heyward (of North, Ricards and Heyward) and in order to expedite the work long hours were worked on several occasions.”

By April 1922 more than a hundred men were working at the site with 21 horses and carts and two teams of eight bullocks excavating the foundations and basements.

The mill buildings would cover nearly two hectares and consume 1,750,000 bricks made at the nearby Hutton’s Brickworks. Roof ironwork was being fabricated by the Salisbury Foundry. The Examiner said there would be seven departments in the mill with the wool combing section expected to be operating before the premises were finished.

Most of the employees would be female, and young people, and special provision was to be made for their welfare. They would be trained by experienced staff from Patons and Baldwins UK mills. The manager of the new mill, Mr McVann, was already in Launceston and machinery from the UK started arriving in September 1922.

When two large boilers were landed at Beauty Point, they were brought to the Launceston wharves by barge. Steam traction engines towed trailers with the boilers to the Glen Dhu site. The factory was expected to be producing knitting yarns before the end of 1923.


Images — TOP: The Patons and Baldwins mill under construction surrounded by scaffolding. Picture: Weekly Courier, 5 April 1923. MIDDLE: Bales of wool in the new Patons and Baldwins mill. Picture: QVMAG 1991:P:1068. BOTTOM: Machinery in the new Patons and Baldwins mill. Picture: QVMAG 1991:P:1070.

Written for the Launceston Historical Society and published in The Sunday Examiner 5 February 2023.

Launceston role in making the first Holden car

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In November 1946 it was announced that General Motors-Holden’s Ltd had reached an agreement to take over the Tool Annexe at the Launceston Railway Workshops to produce tooling for its proposed Australian-made car.

GMH had responded to a request from the federal government in 1945 to make a mass-produced Australian car. Up to this time most cars sold in Australia were either fully imported or assembled from components from overseas car makers.

The Examiner of Wednesday, November 20, 1946, reported that production details had been discussed between the GMH technical superintendent (Mr W. G. Davis). the Secretary for Transport (Mr A. K. Reid) and the administrative officer at the annexe (Mr P. H. Welch).

“Mr Davis will remain in Launceston as technical superintendent of production. He has had wide experience in engine manufacture … and recently joined General Motors as assistant chief inspector of mechanical operations.”

The Examiner said that since the end of World War II the Tool Annexe has been conducted by the Tasmanian Transport Commission and has been turning out tractor parts of such precision that only one-half of one per cent were rejected.

Mr Davis said various types of punches, dies, trimming tools, component parts and very large assembly jigs for sub-assembly and final assembly of panel would be made.

“The modern and very valuable equipment in the annexe and the high standard of workmanship attracted General Motors, and work which began in Launceston this week is one of the first practical steps in the actual production of Australian cars.”

Details of Australia’s first locally made car slowly emerged as production facilities were set up around the country.

At Woodville in South Australia the bodies and metal pressings for the new car were being produced at a £1,744,000 factory and at Fishermen’s Bend in Melbourne a 12,000 square metre plant was built for the manufacture of the engine, transmission and other basic car components.

GMH said that when the car was in full production it would provide direct employment for about 9000 Australians and indirect employment for thousands more in businesses supplying raw materials or specialised components for the new car.

It was announced that the new car would be simply called the Holden and would be priced at £733, which was about two years’ wages for an average worker at the time.

By the time Prime Minister Ben Chifley unveiled the first Holden 48-215 (later known as the FX) on November 29, 1948, it was announced that 18,000 people had already paid a deposit.

The first Holden car to come to Tasmania was unveiled by the Premier Robert Cosgrove in Hobart the following day. He said the development of the Holden marked Australia’s “growing up as a nation.”

Australians embraced the first locally mass-produced car and over the next five years 120,402 Holden vehicles were manufactured and sold.

Image — TOP: Holden cars roll off the Fishermen’s Bend production line factory. State Library of Victoria, public domain image.

Written for the Launceston Historical Society and published in The Sunday Examiner, on 29 October 2023.

Launcestons disappearing industrial heritage

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Only one of the three factories at Mowbray designed by renowned Melbourne industrial architect Graeme Lumsden in the late 1940s is still standing.

It was a period when port-war prosperity allowed more aesthetic industrial buildings and the most distinctive of Mr Lumsden’s Tasmanian commissions, the James Nelson factory, was described in the Launceston Heritage Study of 2006 as an early example of an “international style” industrial building.

According to the website of Victorian architectural historians Built Heritage Pty Ltd, the Replacement Parts (later Repco and now ACL) factory at 310 Invermay Road, was designed in 1947 when Mr Lumsden was in partnership with leading Melbourne architect Arthur Purnell.

After setting up his own architectural practice in 1948, Mr Lumsden designed factories for Modern Transport and Metal Industries (MTM Industries), at 316 Invermay Road, Mowbray, and the electrical fittings maker CGC Manufacturing Company in Howard Street, Invermay.

The James Nelson factory, at 298-308 Invermay Road, was designed in 1949 and the following year he designed a textile factory at Devonport for the Tootal Broadhurst Lee Company Ltd.

His Tasmanian work led to numerous major commissions in Victoria. Both the MTM factory and the James Nelson factory have only recently been demolished.

Graeme Lumsden’s obituary in the Melbourne Age on 17 August 1995, said he was one of Australia’s most successful industrial architects and factories he designed in Victoria included projects for Leyland Motors, Volkswagen Australia, Peters Ice Cream, Specialty Press, Repco, Glaxo and Bowater Paper.

Of his Tasmanian projects the James Nelson factory was perhaps his most noteworthy.

James Nelson Ltd, of Valley Mills, in Nelson, Lancashire, was the last of the British companies to build textile factories in Launceston. The Patons and Baldwins knitting yarn mill at Glen Dhu, and Kelsall and Kemp, at Invermay, which produced flannel, had both commenced production in 1923.

James Nelson had been founded in 1884 and by the 1900s was a huge operation employing thousands of people. By the 1950s it was the only company in the world spinning its own cotton and making its own viscose rayon and acetate rayon.

It formed its Australian subsidiary in 1949 and its factory in Launceston was its first outside the UK.

The James Nelson factory in Mowbray was built by Launceston firm H. J. Martin and like the other British textile companies that set up in Launceston, they brought out equipment and workers from the UK.

Production in Launceston commenced in August 1951 using imported rayon yarn to produce fabric that went to the makers of dresses, blouses, underwear and linings and materials used as a replacement for silk.

By the late 1960s more than 200 people worked at James Nelson and curtain, upholstery and other fabrics were being produced.

However, the 25 per cent reduction in tariffs on imported textiles in the 1970s devastated the Australian industry and led to the demise of Kelsall and Kemp and Patons and Baldwins. Production at James Nelson ceased in 2014 with the machinery sold off.

The Launceston Heritage Study says the well-designed James Nelson façade is attached to a more traditional factory building but is a very good example of modern post-war industrial design.

Images — TOP: The now demolished James Nelson facade photographed in December 1951. Picture: Libraries Tasmania AB713/1/250.

Written for the Launceston Historical Society and published in The Sunday Examiner, 27 August 2024.