STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION

OH 770/10

Full transcript of an interview with

JAMES DOUGLAS EVERETT

on 03 December 2007

by Catherine Murphy

for the

CAMPBELLTOWN ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Recording available on CD

Access for research: Unrestricted

Right to photocopy: Copies may be made for research and study

Right to quote or publish: Publication only with written permission from the State Library

2

OH 770/10 JAMES EVERETT

NOTES TO THE TRANSCRIPT

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J.D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION, STATE

LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA: INTERVIEW NO. OH 770/10

Interview with James Douglas Everett recorded by Catherine Murphy at

Campbelltown, South Australia, on 3rd

December 2007 for The State Library of

South Australia’s Campbelltown Oral History Project.

DISK 1 OF 1

This is an interview with Jim – or is it James? –

James.

– Everett.

Everett, that’s right.

E-V-E-R-E-double-T, and the date is Monday, 3rd

December 2007 and it’s eleven-

thirty in the morning, we’re at the Campbelltown Library out the back, in a

special quiet room. So, Jim, I’m going to talk to you today about the history of the

Campbelltown Uniting Church in particular, but first of all I’d like to get a little

bit of background about you as a person. So can you tell me your full name and

date of birth?

Right. James Douglas Everett. I was born in Gawler, 19th January 1943.

And who were your parents?

My parents were George or Douglas and Mavis Everett. We lived on a farm at

Roseworthy, between Roseworthy and Templars. That farm had been developed by

my great-grandparents in 1850, when they’d taken it from original scrub, literally,

into a farm. So I was the fourth generation.

Was it mixed farming?

A mixed farm, yes.

And what was your mum’s name?

Mavis. She had been Spry, was her maiden name. She’d come originally from

Hamley Bridge, been born in Hamley Bridge, but had lived most of her young life in

Adelaide but then married back into territory where her grandparents and parents had

lived also.

Okay. So where did you do your primary, secondary and tertiary schooling?

4

The farm was part of a family estate and so in the 1950s we came to live in St Peters

in the house that had been my grandmother’s and I was educated at East Adelaide

Primary, Norwood High School, and then while I was working I did some studies,

some accountancy studies, at what was then the old School of Mines which is now

part of the University of South Australia.

So when you say the farm was a family estate does that mean it was divided up

amongst the family and your family moved to Adelaide?

It was part of a trust. My grandfather had died when my father was nineteen and so

my father assumed the running of the property and the family estate for forty-five

years and so he chose to come to the city but still kept some interest in the country.

But I’m an only child and I was born when my father was in his late forties, so I’m a

generation out on normal ages.

And, Jim, what work did you do when you left school?

I started off, like most people, as the office boy in a big retail company and you

started off, as always, learning the basics – ordering stationery and delivering cheques

and all those things that used to happen. You did your study at night and you learnt

commercial values and bookkeeping and all those things, a lot of it on the job.

So tell me about your family and connection to organised religion, and whether

you were brought up in the – Methodist? –

Yes.

– Church, just give me a little bit of background to that.

My great-grandparents, when they arrived in South Australia in 1850, first settled in

Woodville for about twelve months and then they moved to what was then called –

well, the farm was between Roseworthy and Templars, the little township, and they

then became involved with what was then the Wesleyan Methodist Church and my

great-grandfather was one of the foundation trustees and builder of that church, and

that became the home, I guess, the spiritual home, of the family till the 1950s. In

fact, I was baptised in that church, as was my father and grandfather, and most of my

relatives are buried in the little cemetery behind that church today.

My mother came to live in the city and she was very involved with a church in

Halifax Street called Madge Memorial Methodist Church, where her older sister

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played the pipe organ. And Mum joined the church choir at fourteen and she did

have an excellent voice, as soprano, and then in 1930 she joined what was then the

Pirie Street Methodist Church Choir and stayed there till 1940, and so she was very

much part of the youth and the activities of the Church and my father in the country

was also. So I grew up, I guess, in that environment. We also had links with Gawler.

My mum would sing at every wedding and every event, was always the guest soloist

ever since I can remember, and then when we came to St Peters she joined the choir

at Spicer Memorial and that’s where I grew up, too, and so I’ve been part of the life

of, I guess, the Methodist Church since literally I was taken to church, probably,

when I was two weeks old, I don’t know. (laughs)

So I suppose that story explains your interest in history.

Yes. Yes, very much.

As well as in relation to the history of the Church.

Yes.

When did you formalise that interest?

I guess the interest was really formalised – I’d always been very interested in family

history and South Australian because we were unique in the sense that the family had

stayed on one property for all of that period, which meant that all of the records and

ledgers and everything – and I still have them – were never destroyed, as happens

when families move; and my father, even though we lived in the city, constantly

travelled back to his friends and his country associations. And being an only child I

guess I heard all the stories, which never generally happens when you’re a big family.

My church history interest, when I joined what was then the Methodist Historical

Society in 1970, when I was invited to become the Secretary of the Council of that

society. And then in 1973 I was invited to write a lecture which later became

published on the history of Pirie Street Methodist Church, which was at that stage

going to be closed before they combined with what was Stowe Congregational

Church to form one congregation, and I was invited to write that. So I guess that

really did develop – because of family links – develop my real interest.

And the church historical society that you became the secretary of, who was

involved in that and how did you kind of make contact with them?

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Well, the first approach came through one of our retired ministers, who used to for a

while live in Campbelltown: Reverend G. Bellamy Stribley[?], who had been the

editor of the Methodist paper, monthly publication, for the state and was involved in

the Council and knew of some history interest, invited me to join and to become the

secretary, and so from that you develop all the links and all the networks; and, as

does happen in a small community and in the church community, you have many

links and networks and relationships and people that you’ve met. It is, was, like a

big, big family.

So, Jim, were you working as an accountant –

Yes.

– and also involved as a lay preacher?

Yes.

What was your involvement with the Church, as a preacher?

I was working full-time and, as in the Methodist Church, as in the Uniting Church,

people can be trained to become a lay preacher, which is a voluntary task but you

have to do training, and that is something that would happen on weekends. But I’ve

been in full employment and even now I only work – I’ve reached the stage where I

now only work twenty hours a week because I’m just about due to fully retire.

And where did you do that training, and then where did you preach?

The training I did, in those days you did it through your local church, generally

mentored by a minister, and in our case at Campbelltown there was three people that

did the course together for nearly two years and we were mentored by the minister at

Payneham Road Methodist Church, who was a very good scholar. And the minister’s

wife at the time, Melva Rofe, and Janet Munro, the local doctor’s wife, we did the

course together and then, since that time, I’ve chosen to preach at other parishes,

because you get an invitation, and we had a number of friends in the country and

because of my country links I was invited to regularly preach at places like Riverton

and Gawler, Freeling, et cetera.

Could you spell the names of the people, the women, that you did the – – –?

Yes, right. Rofe, R-O-F-E, and Munro, M-U-N-R-O.

7

Thank you. Jim, when did you move to Campbelltown and was it at the time that

you married?

We married in January 1966 and we bought a block at that time in Osborne Street,

Campbelltown, which was a reasonably new subdivision, and we built a house during

that year, so we’ve been in Campbelltown since 1966. At that stage, the East Marden

School, which backs onto our block, was just a remains of an orchard and there was

only four houses in our street. The Linear Park, of course, didn’t exist and neither did

the O-Bahn, that was still growing vegetables. The government had acquired the land

but it was still market gardens. So we’ve been in Campbelltown from that time

onwards.

What was the attraction of this area to you, starting out as a young family? Was it

just the price of the land or other things?

Well, having grown up with our local links in St Peters and eastern suburbs you

tended to – most of your friends tended to move when they married to Tea Tree

Gully, Vale Park, Modbury, this general direction, so there was an attraction to move

in the same area. I mean I would not normally, I suppose, consider living the other,

western side of the city – not that there’s anything, but just because all of your friends

and your contacts. And we like the area, we looked at dozens of blocks, but we just

loved the position of our block and we’ve benefited, of course, because the Linear

Park is now at the end of our street.

I’m just looking at the book that you’ve written From Darley to Campbell Town1 –

two separate words, as you pointed out – and it’s the history of the Campbelltown

Uniting Church 1847–1981. So you lived through the last decade of that time, and

I’m wondering if it would make sense, now that we’re at that point in the

interview, for you to tell me about the last decade and then we’ll go into the early

history.

The last decade, when we arrived at Campbelltown of course the Methodist Church

was still very strong and at the time when we arrived at Campbelltown there’d been

much growth in the area, particularly from the Lower North East Road up through

Hambledon[?] Road, there’s been a lot of areas being built, and we arrived at a

church that had a Sunday school of about three hundred children.

1 From Darley to Campbell Town : a history of the Campbelltown Uniting (formerly Methodist) Church,

1847-1981, Coterie Publishers Australia in conjunction with Campbelltown Uniting Church, 1981.

8

Where’s the church?

At Campbelltown.

Whereabouts, what address is it?

It’s at 609 Lower North East Road, Campbelltown. And the congregation was

probably – on most Sunday mornings, the church, which seats about two hundred

people, was full. And so during those first ten years that we were here or those first

ten years, which were the last years of Methodism, we had three children of our own

who were baptised in that church and many other people came so that there was a lot

of growth, there was a lot of young marrieds, of people that had been married, you

know, in the last ten years, who were new to the district. There was also quite a

group of people of the original gardening families who had owned the land, who their

families had been part of the church for the last hundred years, who were still present

in the congregation.

And who were some of those families?

Well, I can think of people like the Packer family, the Stocks – they are still there,

there was the Pitts and the Neills, the Jameses and also the Genans.

And Neal is N-E-A-L?

No, N-E-I-double-L.

And Gehan?

Gehan, G-E-H-A-N. And the Headings[?] also, they were related to the Gehans. In

addition there were a number of new people, and of course the confusion is that there

is also Shirley and Reg Neale, N-E-A-L-E, who are the owners of Paradise Motors,

and they were members, they came perhaps five years before us to Campbelltown

Methodist Church.

So that was a very interesting decade at the beginning of major changes.

Yes.

And how would you identify those changes?

I think the changes were very strongly in that people were coming in with new ideas,

they’d come many from many different suburbs, and they came in with new,

9

innovative ideas and probably some of the old families weren’t always ready for

change, because many of those families had stayed in the district and had married in

the district and had never been out, particularly in the life of the church, to see what

happened elsewhere.

And who was the reverend then and how was that change managed, or that

conflict – generational conflict?

The minister when we came was the Reverend Clarrie Hore, H-O-R-E. He came in

and I think he managed it – most people were open to change and people really got

on very well. There were two particular families who didn’t really cope with it and

during his ministry they chose to worship elsewhere, mainly because I think they’d

been perhaps very dominating in the past and found it a bit hard to take – not a back

seat, but to not have complete control. And so that group for a while worshipped

elsewhere and, while Mr Hore didn’t really make changes, but he brought it a little bit

perhaps up-to-date.

What were some of the innovations?

Well, I think they needed to accept the bigger Sunday school and to be a bit more

tolerant of children, because when you’ve got a big Sunday school of three hundred

children it’s pretty difficult to manage that. There was changes in worship, to a

certain extent, a different choir and a style that perhaps they’d never been exposed to.

In fact, I can remember being a trustee of the church – there was a certain number of

people appointed trustees to manage the property – and at a particular trustee meeting

a member of the congregation offered a brass cross to place on the communion table,

and the vote from the trustees was five against and seven to accept. And one trustee’s

comment was, ‘We can’t have that, we’re going to Rome’. So there was very much

still a Protestant attitude of a few, and that particular gentleman’s only died three or

four years ago and I think he would have still held that view to today, even though

now the church has a cross out the front and an illuminated cross on the wall, plus

that (laughs) brass cross on the communion table that was a gift. So there was things

– symbolism has changed in the worship of the church. Particularly, Campbelltown

was a country church. The church I worshipped in, Spicer Memorial in Fourth

Avenue, St Peters, was a Methodist church and our worship was not much different

10

to the local Anglican church, where in fact we would chant the psalms and have what

I’d call ‘high church’ worship, I suppose.

Is ‘Spicer’ – – –?

S-P-I-C-E-R, Spicer Memorial, in Fourth Avenue, St Peters.

And did it become a little more relaxed and less traditional in other ways? And I

read in the book that the church began to accommodate mothers’ groups and

young people’s, teenage groups.

Yes.

Were you involved in any of that?

We were involved to a certain extent because my wife was involved with the young

mothers when the children were little. The youth group, our children were probably

too young for that, but some people did start to develop youth groups and alternative

options; whereas traditionally, as a small country church, there would have just been

worship and Sunday school – and a tennis club. Tennis club’s always been very

strong at Campbelltown and it was almost, for some of us, I think, some people –

some of the old families saw the tennis club as more important than anything. It had

been a social outreach even from the ’30s. But these other groups, there needed to be

a bit of tolerance because they would use the hall for a social and things like that and,

you know, people can become a bit – have ownership of space, but there was nothing

went on that you [wouldn’t] expect normal children and normal teenagers – – –. But

there needed to be a bit of give and take. But there was never really big tensions. As

I say, there was a couple of families that didn’t cope with it and chose for a while to

(laughs) worship elsewhere.

What was the biggest change at the end of this period that occurred?

I think the biggest change was that we, with the Uniting Church coming into place in

1977, that some of the old links – – –. Methodism always operated in like what they

called a ‘circuit’ where you had two or three churches together and, while they had

their individual minister, they shared, supported each other financially and in other

ways; and since early days Campbelltown had had a very strong relationship with

Payneham Road Methodist Church, the one at Marden on the corner of Payneham

Road and Lower Portrush Road at Marden; and in earlier days, particularly in the

11

1930s and ’40s when it was a small, country congregation, Payneham Road

Congregation had in fact supported the cost of ministry; and the ’70s and Uniting

Church brought change. Payneham Road, we lost that link and we became linked

with the new suburbs of Athelstone and Dernancourt, and we were the strong

financial church then and it was our turn to support them financially with ministry

and, in fact, when the first minister went to Athelstone just after the year of the

cyclone which I think was ’76, the Campbelltown trustees – that was before Uniting

Church – in fact paid nearly ten thousand dollars for the new manse. It doesn’t sound

a lot of money but that same manse today would cost probably four hundred thousand

dollars. So there was change of associations and support.

So you became the parent, not the child.

Yes. We became the parent. And at that stage, of course, the church was very strong

financially, numerically. They were the strong days, and in fact one of the things that

happened was we built a porch on the front of the building to try and alleviate the

road noise because in the 1960s, late 1960s, seven foot of the land was taken away to

widen the Lower North East Road, and that was a project, but that was the main

building project that that property has had since about the 1920s was this porch, and

it’s like a meeting area and a porch which acts as a buffer for road noise. Prior to

that, there’d been just minor building alterations like the sanctuary area was

remodelled to reflect the current open style rather than the central pulpit, but the

major building was to put on the porch at the front.

In the process of uniting the Methodists and Protestants –

The Congregational and Presbyterians, yes.

– yes, where did the Campbelltown church stand within that debate?

Well, the vote to go into union was taken about eighteen months before and I think

out of our congregation there was about sixteen people voted against going into

union. But, in fairness, union – Uniting Church – really meant for Campbelltown and

Dernancourt and Athelstone and these eastern part of the suburbs no change because

there was no Congregational or Presbyterian churches in the area to combine, so for

many people they saw it as a name change – and in some ways, up until the last five

to ten years, that’s really about what did happen. The government has changed, the

12

method of government within your local congregation changed, but really we weren’t

faced with needing to combine with the local Presbyterian church around the corner

which meant that we could have had to sell property, because many churches where

there’s been combination has meant sooner or later the congregation’s had to make a

decision about property.

Amalgamation.

Amalgamation and sale of property. I wonder, (laughs) if there’d been that situation,

whether the vote would have been different; but, of course, the Methodist Church was

a corporate church and if seventy-five per cent of the congregations around Australia

voted the whole Church went in, whereas in the case of Congregational and

Presbyterian Churches, each congregation was a separate legal entity and if they

didn’t vote to go to union they didn’t. But of course in South Australia the

Congregational churches were very small in number and so were the Presbyterian

churches. Interstate – Sydney, Melbourne, in Victoria and New South Wales – the

Presbyterian Church is a very strong continuing church, as big as the Uniting Church;

but South Australia was uniquely Protestant and had been settled, of course, by very

strong Methodists. In fact, Methodists were in the early 1900s, if you look at census,

were more prominent than even the Anglicans.

So where did the archival historical arm of the Methodist Church fit within all of

this amalgamation? And you must have been involved at that point: how was it

handled?

Well, what happened with the history, the Methodists had had a historical society to

foster history and maintain history since the 1950s. They changed – as happened so

much in South Australia – they changed the name, of course, to the Uniting Church

Historical Society, established a new council and invited people from the other two

denominations to join, so it became a society for the three denominations. Each of

the other two denominations had not had a society as such, but they’d both had a

person who had been called their archivist, so they’d had an individual person that

looked after their history. And all of the three Churches had always deposited their

principal records with the State Library in a special collection, and even today there

are four collections in the State Library: the Methodist Church Collection, the

Congregational Church Collection, the Presbyterian Church Collection and now the

13

Uniting Church Collection, and we’re still continuing to add to those collections.

They are the principal minute books and the principal records, the ..... and local

histories and newssheets are maintained by the Historical Society at their own

History Centre.

Are you the official archivist for the Uniting Church?

I am now. I was only appointed eighteen months ago. So my task now is, as

churches surrender records, is to sort through those records, determine what is

principal and that must be lodged with the Library, determine what must go to the

History Centre and determine what ends up being recycled, because so often – and

which we prefer people to do – is to give us all their records, but some things like a

list of the number of scones that were sold at the Strawberry Fête are not really

relevant because if they’re recorded in a minute book that’s okay; but any loose bits

of paper and things like that, some are kept depending on their value, but the majority

of those become recycled.

Very interesting. I’ll just have a pause and we’ll have a drink of water. I think

now is the time to go back into the history of the Uniting Church in Campbelltown

and how it was decided, and when it was decided, that you would write this book.

Well, I was approached by the local committee of elders because they were going to

celebrate the hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the Campbelltown Methodist

Uniting Church. Now, they’d chosen as the anniversary date the hundred and fiftieth

year from the opening of the first church in Chapel Street, Campbelltown – hence the

name – and they’d also celebrated the centenary based on the 1858 date, and so I was

invited to write this history. When I started to write the history, in fact, I established

that before they had built in Chapel Street in 1858 they’d been meeting as a

congregation at Darley, which was the little suburb which is now recognised by

Darley Road, and they in fact had met in the Traveller’s Rest Inn that was run by a

gentleman called Mr James Crowle, spelt C-R-O-W-L-E – Crowle Road at Paradise

is named after him – and that they were part of the Adelaide Wesleyan preachers’

plan or circuit, which stretched from Willunga to Princess Royal Mine out at Burra,

and Darley was a preaching place and they normally had their services at three

o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. So that was really in a way the beginning of the

congregation.

14

This is what date?

Eighteen forty-seven. But the celebration was based on the first building, so once

you’ve established a date you really can’t change, even though some people wanted

to, it was appropriate. So the book was produced for the hundred and twenty-fifth

anniversary.

So the growth of Methodism in this district, the Campbelltown district, was closely

linked to the development of the Wesleyan Methodist Society in South Australia,

the birth of that. Is that correct?

Yes, because in Methodism there was four groups: there was the Wesleyan

Methodist, the Primitive Methodist, the Bible Christians and the Methodist New

Connection. The other three were splinter groups from the Wesleyan Methodist but

they all came to South Australia from different parts of England, many established –

like at Moonta, there was thirteen Methodist churches of all the different persuasions

(laughs) in the township and the mining area of Moonta. In 1900 they all came

together to form the Methodist Church in South Australia and in 1902 nationally they

came together to form the Methodist Church of Australasia. But the Wesleyans

probably were the predominant because they tended to be the merchants and farmers

and, even today, if you go round the city and look at Uniting churches, you can

identify the style of building relating to the churches like Wesley Church at Kent

Town, that grand church that seats fifteen hundred people; the one at Payneham

Road, on the corner of Payneham Road and Marden; Malvern Uniting Church: they

are built in a style of reasonably – like, for the time – reasonably prosperous and

fairly traditional. The Bible Christians and the Primitive Methodists tend to build

little chapels, very sparse, and they represented in a way the merchant class and the

workers – not that there weren’t workers in the Wesleyans, but the Wesleyans tended

to be the people like the Waterhouses and the Coultons[?] and people that – they

established Prince Alfred College very early in the piece, and John Dunne[?] the flour

miller and the Bonython family and many of the merchant families and farming

families, the Hannafords and people like that were members of that church.

Very interesting. So you mentioned the first preaching circuit. When did that

conclude and then what happened after that?

15

In about the 1850s, because of the sheer distance and the fact that they needed to rely

on local preachers, which has always been one of the strengths of the Church, they

started to create what they called circuits, which were groups of places, and they

created – and Campbelltown, by 1858 when they were at Campbelltown, they were

included with Norwood, Kent Town, Payneham, Magill and little Athelstone, and so

they were a group. Then that group continued until 1914, when the grouping became

Payneham, Campbelltown, Klemzig and that was the group. Then in the ’50s I think

Athelstone came into the group, until 1977.

How did the local – well, it wasn’t Campbelltown then.

No.

What do we call it? We just call it Campbelltown?

Campbelltown. Even though the postal, official address was ‘Campbell Town’, as

two words. But by about the 1860s, 1870s, it had just reverted to ‘Campbelltown’ as

we know it today.

So tell me a little bit about the history of who donated the land and how the first

chapel in Chapel Street was built.

Well, the land was given to the Church or they paid one shilling because they needed

to transfer it from James Crowle, the gentleman whose hotel they’d met in at Darley

Road, his hotel also had the pound alongside of it and the place where it is is from

Lower North East Road, going up Darley Road towards the Campbelltown School,

on your left about a hundred yards. That’s about where the pound and the hotel

originally was.

This is an animal pound, is it?

Yes, animal pound. He was also employed by the local District Council of Stepney,

as it was then called, as the pound keeper, and I gather – I’ve read separately – that he

was a bit of character: that if he saw your cow wandering on the road he’d impound

it so he could fine you and get paid. So he gave the land, he gave a block in Chapel

Street, which is just off around the corner from Hill Street on the left-hand side, and

today there stands a big Tudor house on the site which was built in 1930 by

16

Mr Kingsley Stock from Stock’s Garage, and he demolished it in 1930, the original

old church, to build his home when he married.

The original church was a rammed concrete and stone building, literally built by

putting up boards and the concrete and rods and that were rammed in.

Compacting.

Compacted. And that remained the church till 1908.

And no doubt it was called ‘Chapel Street’ sometime later, it would have been

‘Section’ something.

It would have been a section that he gave, but there would have been a street, but they

would have taken its name from the chapel because, traditionally, in the old

understanding, the ‘Church’ was the Anglican in England and the ‘Chapel’ was for

the Nonconformists, as they were known, so it was a name that tended to be brought

out to South Australia. But as time went on the churches like Wesley Church at Kent

Town were called ‘churches’ – and I mean they’re grand enough to be; Wesley

Church seats fifteen hundred people, which is more than either of the cathedrals in

Adelaide. But ‘Chapel Street’ would have come from that little chapel.

What would have been around there, did you research any of that?

At the time, on the main road where Stock’s Corner now is and the service station,

there was a small blacksmith’s shop; but the rest were gardens. And there was a

couple of houses later built in Chapel Street, because Chapel Street really is parallel

to the North East Road and that was the edge of the village of Campbelltown and

there were a few houses in there, but they mainly were on acre blocks where people

could keep a cow or grow vegetables, and even in the 1930s photographs they were

still growing – the corner of Hill Street and North East Road was all vegetable patch,

and in fact I have an aerial photo that was taken in 1930 by Mr Kingsley Stock out of

a little it would have been a Tiger Moth showing the street, and you can identify the

church, the hall and the manse and their garage, and then you can see Hill Street and

it’s all paddocks.

There would have been no other chapel or church in the vicinity.

17

No. The nearest church would have been St Martin’s Anglican, which was built,

opened I think a year before, on the corner of Gorge Road; and then there would have

been a church at Payneham, Methodist church at Payneham – not at the site of the

current one, but in Henry Street. And there was also later a little Congregational

chapel built at Athelstone on the site of what is now the Athelstone Independent

Cemetery, but that wasn’t built till about the 1880s, so it was the only church – oh,

the Anglicans and the Methodists were the only two church buildings.

Did they have a bell that would ring out –

Yes.

– for church on Sundays and was there a minister located there at that time?

There was no minister here. The minister would have come from Payneham or

Norwood or Kent Town.

On horseback, no doubt.

Yes, on horseback, yes. And he would have been part of what they called the circuit.

The first minister was appointed to Campbelltown in 1912 and that first year was a

lay person who lived here; and then the next year was the Reverend W.O. Harris, who

was appointed, and he and his wife came – fairly young minister with twin daughters,

and at the hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary one of those two daughters turned up

to the function.

Wonderful. And there is a manse for them to live in?

There was a manse. The manse was built, it used to be on the corner – originally they

rented a house on the corner of Chapel Street and Hill Street, and that was

demolished about ten, twelve years ago. It never belonged to the Church, that was

only rented. And in 1926 they built a bungalow house at 610 Lower North East Road

and the minister still currently lives in that house. Ten years ago it had major

renovations and additions, so it’s a four-bedroomed house with all of the modern

requirements, but it’s a beautiful bungalow, and that was built in 1926.

So in about the first half a century there was – – –.

They really were – no minister; they relied on local preachers and they relied on the

minister coming from the other churches. And they would have done that because

18

that was the normal practice within the Church, that the ministers would travel within

their circuit.

There was a bell, to answer your question, there was a bell in the turret, the little

turret on the front, and when that church was sold in – when they built the new

church on the Lower North East Road in 1903 they sold the old church to A.J. Stock

who by then – in 1900 he purchased the blacksmith shop on the corner, and he

purchased that little church with a view to use it as a place, as a paint shop. When he

built a dray or a buggy he needed to take it out of the foundry to paint, so they cut a

big hole in the side and made it into a paint shop. And the bell went up – was taken

down and was sent up to Tiverton Station out of Burra and it’s still up there, because

one of his daughters married the Tiver family at Burra, and it has been returned on

special occasions just for the day, because they’re relations and Betty and John Fry,

who live just down from the library here on Montacute Road, are related to that

family and they’ve been able to borrow it.

And it was one of the minister’s daughters, was it?

No, it was one of the Stocks.

The Stocks.

A.J. Stock’s daughter married into the Tiver family, who are very well-known

pastoralists out of Burra.

How were the finances of all of this managed? Was it locally done or centrally in

the state or the city?

Normally the local congregation – well, they were given the land; they would have

had to raise the money for the building and they would have borrowed, borrowed

from the local bank, to have built. They used to have great fundraisers: tea meetings,

which was an old-fashioned way, we would call it a ‘social’, but where there’d be a

meal provided by the ladies and everyone would buy a ticket and pay, and that was a

very well-known way in the Church of having a tea meeting and then after the meal

or feed they would have a soloist and a speaker.

Where would all this take place?

19

This would have happened in the church or, if they didn’t have a church, in early days

when they were raising money for the Campbelltown church they had a couple in the

Anglican hall at St Martin’s. But that was a common way of raising money, the tea

meetings; and the story is told – not only here, but if you read Church history – that

all the ladies would compete to see who could produce the best tray of food, as they

described it. So competition’s still the same, only it’s in a different way, dressed up

in a different manner. (laughs)

And was there a trust set up to manage all of these finances, and who managed the

trust?

Well, in the Methodist Church there were trustees appointed for each individual

property. They were appointed by the minister who was in charge of the individual

circuit and they were appointed under the terms of a model deed for the Methodist

Church – Wesleyan Methodist model deed – and at the time when that was being

drafted Campbelltown Church was just being transferred, so we became, our trust, or

the Campbelltown trust of 1858, became the basis of the model deed. It just

happened that they were at that time, and then that became the way we held property

right up until 1972. And each trustee had to sign, as you would as a trustee of an

estate, and you were responsible and if they took a mortgage the trustees would have

to guarantee it and sign for it.

I wonder if it would be interesting to read a little bit of what you’ve written in your

book about the early days in Campbelltown. It’s quite a good description of 1866,

which is in this early period. If you don’t want to read the whole lot, just a section

that you think is most interesting?

I think it’s worth recording because it reminds us that what we now know as a city of

Campbelltown is made up of a number of villages which were in those days, and

really right up probably until the late 1940s, early 1950s, were still separate, very

separate little communities, and it’s only since the subdivision’s taken place that

we’ve come together as a city and in fact that’s probably one of the reasons why as a

city we don’t really have a centre that’s identified as a city centre. We have our

Council Chambers and our library, but we’ve never really had a city centre like a lot

of cities do because we’re a group of villages. And this description is recorded in the

South Australian Gazetteer, which was really like, I guess, an old road directory for

want of a better word, and it describes:

20

Campbelltown is a postal township in the electoral district of

East Torrens, Hundred of Adelaide, and under the control of

the District Council of Payneham. It lies five miles

north-east of Adelaide and is bounded on the west by the

Torrens River, on the east by the south branch of the

North-East Road. The township has an area of 260 acres and

was named after C.J.F. Campbell, Esq. The main reservoir

supplying the Adelaide Waterworks lies about half a mile to

the east.

The district is an agricultural one, the land being taken up as

market gardens and for the growth of hay. There are also

numerous vineyards in the neighbourhood and many of the

farmers graze cattle on the outlying lands.

The nearest places are Newton, one mile east; Paradise, half a

mile north-east; and Darley, one mile north. There are no

regular conveyances to these places and the communication

with Adelaide is by omnibus twice a day.

There is a Post Office, a Church of England, a Wesleyan

Chapel and one hotel, the Glynde, about a mile south of the

township on the Lower North-East Road.

The surrounding country is low but the land is of good

description, forming part of the Adelaide Plains, and the

formation chiefly limestone. The population numbers about

160 persons.

Thank you very much. Beautiful. Let’s just talk a little bit more about those days.

I read in your book that there were gatherings called ‘class meetings’, which were

ways for local people to contribute, I think, to needy people in the district. Could

you tell me a little bit more about that?

The class meeting was very distinctive to the Methodist Church because the idea was

that they met on a weekly basis within people’s homes to have prayers, share each

other’s spiritual and physical needs – bearing in mind that there was no social

security, so if somebody was ill or there was no sickness funds support each other

physically – and also care for the congregation, for the church. This had grown up

out of John Wesley’s original intention in England that he did not wish to break away

from the Anglican Church but he wanted his people to meet together but to still on

Sunday worship in the Anglican parish church. But as time went on they were

excluded and so therefore they established chapels. So the class meeting was part of

that. In a sense it was a caring fellowship group.

21

A grass roots – – –.

Grass roots. But it also was important to study and share and part of their Christian

growth and conversion. And in fact to be a member you were required to regularly

attend a class meeting, and it was in about the 1880s, 1890s, that that gradually

started to become, as the Church became more organised into circuits, that that

became less and less and by the early 1900s most of them had ceased.

It’s interesting in my book, and I’ve just remembered, I see that the classes met

regularly and that they were averaging giving to the funds four pounds ten shillings a

quarter, which was quite a substantial amount, which would have paid towards

ministry and upkeep of the buildings. Normally with the church the upkeep of the

building was maintained by people paying pew rents – P-E-W, pews – pew rents, and

what would happen is that you as a family would reserve a seat in the church for your

family and you would pay rent for it annually, which would be paid quarterly, and

that would in fact pay for the maintenance of the building. It was a good idea but it

also had some problems because if a visitor came (laughs) and sat in your seat some

people would get a little bit upset by that. But that continued in many of our churches

right up till the 1930s and the big churches – I can remember as a child going to

Spicer, where my grandmother had worshipped, and we always out of habit sat in the

same seat but her name was still on the card on the end of the seat even though pew

rents had ceased; but up until the 1940s she would have paid.

How much?

Oh, it was probably something like four or five pounds a year. Depends on the

congregation. Probably at Campbelltown it might have only been a couple of pounds

a year; but that money they needed to maintain the building.

So you would literally own a part of the church.

Well, you had rights over it, I suppose, and if anybody sat in your seat I suppose you

could invite them to leave, (laughs) which wasn’t probably – – –. But in a small

congregation like Campbelltown there would have been the regulars and they would

have [been] unlikely to have had a visitor because you were out in rural countryside.

But that was how the money was raised.

And were the stipends for the ministers paid from that as well?

22

That was paid mainly from the class meeting and from the offering, as is still the case

today. We don’t have pew rents, but from the offering moneys a stipend is paid to

the minister.

So the wealthier the congregation the better off the minister is?

No, because in the Methodist Church and in the Uniting Church the central body sets

a standard stipend. Congregations can choose to pay above that, but these days the

stipend is set to cover – if you add up the stipend plus the parsonage and the other

benefits it’s probably these days equivalent to sixty or seventy thousand dollars a

year, so it is market. In the early days the Methodist Church paid a stipend which

was again centrally determined, but of course in those days the parsonages had big

yards with lots of fruit trees and places for their horse, because they needed to keep a

horse, and the families would – you know, fruit trees in those days, families

preserved and made jam and did all of those things.

Had a cow for milk.

And probably had a cow for milk. They would have, certainly, here because they had

a lot of space. Inner suburban may not have.

And no shops.

Well, there was a little grocery store, of course, in Campbelltown and it was on the

opposite side from the manse. Well, in the 1930s there was a little grocery store run

by the Floyd family and Ken Floyd, the son, is now the President of the Morialta

Probus Club and he still lives in Campbelltown. But where the main Campbelltown

Shopping Centre opposite the Campbelltown Methodist Church is now, that was a big

market garden run by the Munchenberg[?] family and the road opposite Hambledon

Road, opposite the church which comes up, didn’t even exist.

So how were the children in the district involved in the life of the Church in these

early days?

Well, the children, there was the school at Campbelltown, which is now the site of

the Marche Club – that’s M-A-R-C-H-E, Italian club – were all educated there and

that was the original school, and the children there, and then they were

23

accommodated – in 1912 the Church built what they called a Sunday school hall so

there was a place for them to go for activities, for Sunday school, for other events.

No Sunday school before 1912?

Oh, there was before 1912, but they would have in those days met in the old church

or in the other church because there was no specifically separate – – –. We believe

there was a Sunday school right from 1850s but they didn’t have their own separate

building until 1912.

And that was in the hall that was constructed that year.

Yes. And it’s the current hall that the Church uses. It’s had additions but it’s the

hall. And it’s interesting that one of the ladies in our congregation today, her

grandfather laid the foundation stone of that hall and she still worships with us and

she’s now eighty-eight.

Who’s that?

Well, the foundation stone was laid by Mr Pitt, who had a property on George Street

at Paradise, and Mrs Betty Neill – spelt N-E-I-double-L – is his granddaughter and

she is eighty-eight, and she still drives a car and worships with us most Sundays.

Oh, wow.

And so there still are – she is probably the lady with the oldest link, now; and he was

also a first trustee of the church in Chapel Street.

Wonderful. [I suppose the children and the families as a whole would have

gathered – – –.]

END OF DISK 1: DISK 2

[And so there still are – she is probably the lady with the oldest link, now; and he was

also a first trustee of the church in Chapel Street.

Wonderful.] I suppose the children and the families as a whole would have

gathered for recreation from the early days as well – for picnics or trips or tennis:

what do you know about that?

I was given a fair bit of background by Mr Kingsley Stock at the time I was writing

the paper and he remembered when, as a student, when the school at Campbelltown

got to a hundred scholars, which meant they got a second teacher.

24

In what year would this be?

This would have been in about 1915, approximately. And he remembers as a child

them having Sunday school picnics and picnics out at the paddock behind the church

in what was the garden of the Rowney family, and Rowney Avenue runs at the back

of the church and that was the dividing. He remembers picnics there.

R-O-W-N-E-Y?

N-E-Y.

I just have to ask for the transcriptionist.

Yes. That’s correct, Rowney. And he remembers that. He also remembers after

school a lady used to have a reading session in the church, in the Sunday school hall

for children, and used to read Pilgrim’s progress to the children and he was one of

those.

In about 1920 the first tennis court was laid behind the church and tennis became

very important to a lot of those families. It started off as a cinder tennis court, just

covered in cinders, but later asphalt, and by the 1960s they’d built four courts which

are still there. They’re not all used for tennis these days but I think they still play

social tennis on one and the other one’s used for netball.

Was this competition tennis with other districts or just social?

Well, it was social but it was also competition within the Church. The Methodist

Church had the Methodist Church Tennis Association and churches used to play

against each other, and there was fairly fierce competition. There was an annual cup

and shield and on a number of occasions Campbelltown won it in the 1930s, and I

think the Association still operates – be it limited – as the Uniting Church Tennis

Association; and there was also a Uniting Church Cricket Association, which

encouraged young people in the community – they weren’t always church people – to

belong and that was important, particularly during the Depression years, when

families couldn’t afford much, the fact that they could still play tennis or cricket was

probably a very good social outreach.

And did they have fêtes in those early days as well?

Yes, fêtes and tea meetings were very much part of their fundraising.

25

So like an old English village, really.

Yes. It was very much like a village. It’s also that during – I think from the 1930s,

1940s, the local Red Cross branch always met in the Campbelltown Methodist

Church Hall, and right up until the 1970s I think when it was disbanded, the local

branch of Red Cross, they always met in the hall. And in the early days, in the 1930s,

the trustees used to lease the back room to a local doctor for a surgery for a small

time; and also in the ’50s they leased it to the Mothers’ and Babies’ [Health]

Association – yes, that’s the name it used to be – as a clinic space for young babies

and mothers before they built their own rooms which is behind the shopping centre at

Campbelltown. So it in a way was very much like a village.

How did the district and the Church community fare during the Great Depression

– well, World War I, the Depression, World War II?

Yes.

What were the significant events or histories during that period?

Both the First and the Second World Wars, it’s interesting to look: in the church

there’s two honour rolls and if you look at those honour rolls you’ll find in many

cases families where perhaps three or four sons went to war and numbers were killed,

and so you’ll see the names and you’ll see the little cross alongside one name which

means that they – – –. But whilst there was not a lot of people there were families,

and of course in those days there were six and seven children often in a family, and

so that would have affected some families. There’s some where there’s two sons

perhaps killed, so the effect that would have had on the community, especially a

small community – even in the Second World War it was still a small community –

would have had some effect.

The Depression, I suppose, it had an effect on the Church but I think they were

lucky in the sense that they belonged to what we called the circuit and they had

Payneham Road Church as the mother church and that church was always reasonably

comfortable because a lot of the members there, as well as at Campbelltown, were

gardeners and the Depression, whilst they might have got less for their goods, they

didn’t suffer like people that depended on another employee for work; they could be a

little bit self-sustaining. It would have had an effect on their income but it did mean –

26

They ate.

– they ate and they probably had a little bit of money because they still could sell

some produce.

They might have had transport with horses.

Yes. And the Payneham people, most of the members of Payneham Road Church,

were fairly established families who’d been early – the Pitts and the Hobbses and the

Jameses – and they’d been fairly well established, and for many of those families the

Depression probably didn’t make – made some difference, but not the major

difference that we understand perhaps in some areas where people depended on

foundries and businesses.

And when you say the Depression affected the Church, what do you mean by that?

Well, it affected the Church in the sense that it meant that money was harder to come

by, and in fact I do have a note in my book that during the Depression the circuit

could no longer afford to have a phone for the minister so the telephone was cut off

and people would have to leave messages for him with the store down the road and

he would go down and get his messages once a day. So it would have had that effect.

It would have probably meant that the basic stipend was less, but probably many of

the people supported the minister by vegetables, as happened in the country, or meat

or milk and those things. So in a small community they probably managed a little

better than in some industrial areas.

And how about the numbers of worshippers, members of the congregation, from

the First War through to the Second?

They stayed, looking at the membership rolls, the membership stayed fairly

consistent during that period at about a hundred members because the area, there was

not many new houses being built, especially during the Depression, there was

basically no new housing, so if people left somebody else’d buy the property but

there’d be very little change. The Church probably was a centre for people to gather

and, as I say, it provided a cricket club, a tennis club, some of those things that

enabled people to at least have some social outreach. And I’ve heard – not just

related to this church but in general history – many people have written that the

Church was, in a sense, their only place because they could go to church, be accepted,

27

there’d be a place for their children at Sunday school, there’d perhaps be a tennis

club, a cricket club, and many churches ran gymnasiums so there was somewhere for

young people, many teenagers I suppose who were unemployed. So in a sense the

Church was a social – provided an outreach in those times.

But Campbelltown was lucky in the sense that it had the support of Payneham and

the people managed but the fact they had to cut off the telephone showed how tightly

the budget was restrained. We can’t understand that today; I mean, if we haven’t got

three telephones and fifteen power points in our house we think we’re poor, (laughs)

don’t we?

So at the end of World War II when this district was in transition from rural to

suburban and agricultural land was turning into land for housing, what impact did

that have on the numbers in the area and the members of the Church?

The first real subdivision around started between 1950 and 1955. Most of the

subdivision at that stage, early subdivisions were in Paradise and behind what is the

Campbelltown Shopping Centre, through there, and a lot of it was built in by the then

South Australian Housing Trust. That meant initially – and I remember looking at

statistics – that between the 1950 and the 1955 Census the population of the area in

fact went down by a few hundred because many of the gardeners started to move, sell

up, subdivide and move out to Virginia, or some went down to McLaren Vale and

some, of course, just retired.

As the land became more valuable.

As the land [became] more valuable for subdivision.

And also rates were increased.

I think the Campbelltown Council, from what I understand, always kept a rural rate;

but the land became valuable – close to the city – and even down along James Street,

which follows the creek, Third Creek, that was subdivided, and the Housing Trust

built individual homes for sale through there and that was in about 1958 to 1960, and

so the land was becoming valuable and that meant many families retired but many

moved out and sometimes the sons went and worked elsewhere because they’d grown

up and worked with their father on the garden and once the garden was sold the sons

often went and worked in other jobs, some driving trucks or ran businesses. So there

28

was a social change, too, and I can think of one person I know, he was an only child,

and his parents sold up and he became a teacher, schoolteacher, and worked with

disabled children for the rest of his working life. Another friend of ours who we

know very well, his father owned land and he was an only child: he went and worked

for Woodroofe’s or somebody driving trucks because that’s where he was skilled,

you know; he’d been a gardener. So it had some social changes. It meant that

suddenly some of the members of the congregation I think who’d been very

comfortable, because they’d had property, suddenly were very prosperous – trips to

England and holiday houses, a whole group of them bought holiday houses at

Aldinga Beach – and there were some very smart new Ford Customlines in the

church car park. So I guess that had that change.

But then of course the new people came in, like us – we were young marrieds with

a new house and mortgage –

Swelled the numbers.

– and swelled the numbers. So there was a change. But that initial change in the ’50s

meant that the congregation probably stayed fairly stagnant, but in fact the district

went back in numbers, census numbers, only a few hundred but those few hundred

while the subdivision was taking place and the new building.

And then the numbers in the congregation doubled and trebled.

Gradually trebled. And it got, I think at one stage, probably in about – be just before

the hundred and twenty-fifth in 1980 and just before that – our membership was

something like two hundred and fifty confirmed members. That also means that your

actual attendance and involvement was higher because not everyone is a confirmed

member of the Church and, as I say, there was sometimes up to four hundred children

or more in the Sunday school.

I notice that you mentioned the new hall and the Mothers’ and Babies’ clinic in the

’60s –

Yes.

– and that also in the ’60s there was a push to communicate with people via a

Church magazine.

Yes.

29

Can you tell me a little bit about that, did you look at those?

Yes. They decided to create a quarterly magazine which they would send out to all.

In those days, of course, you didn’t print them; you ran them off on a Gestetner. You

typed them on a sheet and ran them off on a Gestetner, duplicated them, and they

were put together and it was a way to sent out to the community to retain some of the

history. In fact, I’ve got a set of four still home because for the first year it was

launched my wife was the editor and she used to type the thing on a stencil and then

it was run off on the local (laughs) duplicator at the church.

Gestetner.

Gestetner at the church. And they were topical about what groups were doing and

every time she included a profile of one of the early members. Then, over the years,

like most voluntary things, the magazine ceased and then it was picked up again; but

certainly that was a way of communicating with people on the fringe and outside.

And there were teens’ groups and couples’ groups and I think a modern morning

service.

Yes. They started – the Couples’ Club was formed mainly because there were so

many young marrieds with young children and the idea was about every six or eight

weeks on a Saturday night there’d be an event. You’d all take supper or go out

somewhere and the idea was to allow people that opportunity to probably get

Grandma to babysit because many times those days that was the only opportunity to

get out. In the majority of cases, when the children were young in those days, most

of the wives were still home and didn’t go back to professions or work till after the

children went to school – some did but not many, because child care was not the

norm in those days – and so it was an opportunity for people to get out and mix and

do things. They did also attempt, for a while there was a modern service in the sense

that they used guitars and modern music and they met in the hall generally because

they found the formal layout of the church they saw as restrictive. But that lasted for

a few years but it tended to – as certain people, I guess, who were the driving force

moved somewhere else then it lapsed.

So what was it like for you as a lay preacher during the time that you lived here?

What were those years when you were a lay preacher?

30

Well, I would occasionally preach at Campbelltown but generally elsewhere, because

we had a permanent minister and so the normal custom was that the permanent

minister preaches and that the lay preachers assist if he’s on holidays, sick. And in

those days we had about three others so there was about five of us, so you may get a

chance once a year to lead the service; but generally you would go elsewhere.

Did you look forward to those times when you could locally lead the service?

Oh, yes, they were good times. Always when it’s in your own group it’s not the

same, in the sense that I suppose you’re on more tenterhooks than perhaps if you go

elsewhere. But they were good times in the sense that you could include other people

and the whole congregation in what you were hoping to do.

And this is in the 1970s, isn’t it?

’Seventies and ’80s, yes.

’Eighties. So you would go out to country areas.

Yes.

You mentioned Riverton. Is it the same now, does that process still take place?

It happens – not for me, because I have other involvements; and I still have links and

occasionally I go and preach at Payneham Road because they were the links of the

old circuit, and if I chose to make myself available I could (laughs) just about every

Sunday be preaching; but I’ve chosen not to because of other involvements. And

things change.

Yes. So between the period that ends this book –

Yes.

– From Darley to Campbell Town, so from 1982 until this year is another quarter of

a century.

Century, yes.

So have you updated, are you writing something that follows on or could you tell

me a little bit about the changes?

Right. At this stage we’ve not written – or we’ve gathered some information but it’s

not been documented. There’s been quite a few changes. I suppose the first change

31

was that in about 1995 the links that had been part of the Uniting Church, which was

Dernancourt and Athelstone and Campbelltown, were broken and each church

became a separate, single parish.

Because the numbers were big enough?

Yes; and also that’s a philosophy of the Uniting Church, albeit that I don’t agree with

it, but the philosophy is that each church becomes independent. It doesn’t happen in

the country because that’s financially not practical. And so Campbelltown then

found itself on its own. Now, by then, most of the children of our children’s age

group, the people that had arrived in the ’60s and the early ’70s, had grown up,

married or moved away and so therefore the Sunday school we find ourselves from

then onwards with a Sunday school of only thirty or forty children. Many people,

some of the older members of the congregation, had started to retire and so therefore

incomes were limited, and the numbers that worship had started to move down to

perhaps a hundred and twenty, hundred and thirty. There were still things happening

but that was part of the change because it’s reflected in the schools, that East Marden

Primary School that got to nine hundred scholars is now only three hundred and fifty;

Campbelltown Primary that was seventeen hundred is down to about seven hundred;

Charles Campbell High School became the combination of Campbelltown High

School and Charles Campbell, and in fact Campbelltown High School’s been sold off

and is housing. So these changes were affecting the Church.

Also many of us have chosen not to shift, so we’re still in the same house and

probably will remain so until we go to a retirement village or whatever, so that means

that, while the Church is still stable, the numbers, there’s not the young people

coming in because the housing in this district hasn’t started to really turn over that

first generation because most of the houses were built in the ’60s and ’70s, and once

they start to turn over it will mean possibly that there’ll be new people come in; but

whether they will relate to the Church in this different age is yet to be – – –. And the

Church probably needs to be innovative to attract them. I’d say probably, as a

congregation, our worship is still very traditional and so therefore not that much

different than it was thirty-five years ago, except for the use of electronic overheads.

But the actual format, with a choir and style, is not that much different, and so

whether we will attract new people when that starts to happen I don’t know.

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And families are having less children anyway.

Yes, so therefore there’s less children: where probably most of our age group might

have had two or three children, many are only having one or two. So things have

changed a bit. There is – in the 1990s they adopted, set up a group called a ‘Drop-in’,

and on Thursdays people from the community come in, they can play cards, they can

just talk, they can play carpet bowls and they have morning tea and lunch, so that’s

still an outreach; but that again, as the district’s changed, it’s still operating but not

with the large numbers that it did when it started. I mean I’m not sure of how many

they get now, but probably they’d get twenty or thirty whereas once they were getting

fifty and sixty. Sometimes people are brought over, too, from the nursing home at

North East Community Hospital, but only ones that can be in a wheelchair. So

there’s those things happening. There’s still ladies’ fellowship groups; there’s

nothing for men; but churches are noted never to generally have men’s groups much.

A lot of the men in our congregation belong to Rotary and Probus. There is a group

on Monday evenings that currently meets as a friendship, caring group and they do

quilting, which of course is the fashion, and they attract about twenty-five to thirty

people and over half of the ladies that come are not directly involved with the

congregation; so that’s a small outreach.

But we’re living in a different climate than we even were in the ’60s. When most

of us arrived in the district we had come from churches – not all, but we’d come from

churches and come with those links. Many people that did join our congregation

necessarily didn’t have, perhaps, the long historic links that I had, but they’ve come

and been involved and they found new friendship and – well, now, forty years, some

of them – and they socialise and travel together and do things. But there’s not a lot of

new people.

Are you optimistic?

Oh, yes. I think we need to probably be prepared to change, and that’s not easy even

for somebody like me because I rather personally would be just as happy worshipping

at St Peter’s Cathedral with the ritual as I would with modern drums. But when my

sons were home they were part of a group that did that and it was important for them

because you’ve got to – but now I’m free, I guess – well, not free now, but I’m older

– I prefer, but I’m not sure that that will attract people.

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The other thing that we’ve got to realise, I think, is – being optimistic – that

Sunday is no longer the only day, perhaps, when we ought to hold – – –. We may

have to think about a mid-week worship service, because some people have to work

on Sundays. So the patterns are different, society is different, values are different. I

think the basic structure is there and the care, but we’ve got to get people to – – –.

And while the district – we’ve got to wait and see what’s going to happen with the

district. I mean, many of the houses around us are being let to Sudanese people and

that can be an outreach but, in my opinion – I’ll say my opinion – it can also be a

problem, because I’ve got fairly strong views on that one (laughs) so I won’t express

them.

Well, tell me a little bit about yourself in the present.

Yes.

Any other publications that you might have written and works that you’re

involved with, committees that you’re engaged with.

Right. Well, as well for the Church history, the first one I wrote, which originally

was in the form of a – – –. What was the Methodist Historical Society used to invite

people each year to prepare what they called a lecture and you would speak on the

subject, and mine was on Pirie Street Methodist Church in 1973. But then the

manuscript was printed into a book. And then in 1981 I was invited by the

Campbelltown people to write From Darley to Campbell Town, and then in 1983

Spicer Memorial Church at St Peters celebrated its centenary and so I was asked to

write their centenary history. So I suppose, as happens, once people know you do it

(laughs) they’re on your doorstep.

And then in 2006 I was invited to write a book which is a history of Epworth

Building in Pirie Street, 33 Pirie Street. It’s a six-storey building alongside where

Pirie Street Church used to stand.

Art Deco.

Yes. It was built in 1926.

It’s a lovely building.

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That was built by the Church and was owned by the Church until 2003, and so the

Board asked me to write a history because it’s quite a unique story. It was built by

the Church to provide accommodation for the Church officers and also income, and

built on that site was the original parsonage of the Pirie Street Church. So there was

those four histories.

I’ve contributed over the years small segments to some of the district – Elizabeth

Warburton, the well-known author, wrote a number of district, eastern suburban

council histories. She wrote first Paddocks beneath2, the history of Burnside; St

Peters3; and also of course the Campbelltown book From the river to the hills

4, and I

contributed small segments to her of Church history in those. And I’ve also written

articles for the Uniting Church, we put out a quarterly magazine, so you may write a

two- or three-page segment.

I’m currently reviewing my history of Pirie Street because now we have more

modern methods of producing photographs and texts, and so that will probably be

reprinted; and I’ve done a fair bit, because I was the foundation president of the

Campbelltown Historical Society when it was founded in 1987 as a result of

Elizabeth Warburton’s book. The Mayor at the time, Max Amber, chose to form or

we agreed to form a historical society and I was the president for the first five years,

so I’ve had involvement in that.

I’m just about due to formally retire and, as you indicated, I’m the archivist for the

Uniting Church Synod, which is a retirement job or it’s a voluntary job but it’s

something that I’ll enjoy. I serve as a board member of Uniting Care Adelaide East,

which is one of the missions that used to be, was known as the Hackney Mission,

early established, and I serve on that board. And I also serve on a trust called Spicer

Cottages Trust, which is a trust that provides homes for – it’s a separate trust in its

own right, under its own private act of parliament, established in 1897, which

2 The paddocks beneath: a history of Burnside from the beginning, The Corporation of the City of

Burnside, 1981.

3 St Peters: a suburban town, The Corporation of St Peters, 1983.

4 From the River to the Hills: Campbelltown, 150 Years, The Corporation of the City of Campbelltown,

1986.

35

provides homes for widows and/or ministers of was the Methodist but now the

Uniting Church, and I’ve served on that trust for thirty-five years.

Where are those homes?

We’ve got five in Payneham, five in Campbelltown over just off Arthur Street – it

was called Finchley Park; it’s now Magill. We’ve got one at Felixstow and another

one at Rostrevor. We’ve got altogether thirteen and we’re due to build another two

very soon.

They’re all new builds?

Well, the original gift in 1897 was some very valuable property. In 1990 they were

then getting not suitable so we sold eight and built fourteen new ones.

Wonderful. You’ve mentioned some of the families who’ve been important to the

Campbelltown history and the Campbelltown Methodist history in particular –

Yes.

– but I’m aware that we haven’t mentioned any of the ministers at Campbelltown

who might have been important to remember, who’ve contributed in a big way. So

would you like to just mention a few of those?

Right. Because in the Methodist Church and ministers were appointed generally for

an average of four-to-five-year terms, in the Uniting Church they’re called and they

can stay up to ten years, it’s a different structure. But when we talked about some of

the ministers, the first minister appointed, W.O. Harris, who came as a young man

with these two twin girls I mentioned, he later went on to become President of the

Methodist Conference and the Secretary of the Conference – in other words, we

would call I guess in business a company secretary.

Of course, in the early days, many of the ministers that were appointed to

Campbelltown were younger because it was a country appointment. (laughs) Today

it seems unusual to describe it as a ‘country’ appointment; but it was, really. Most of

them were ministers who went on to serve in many other places. One particular one

that I can think of, Reverend Clarrie Hore who came in 1966, he’d come from the

country and he’d candidated for the ministry – during the War he worked for the

Whyalla shipyards building frigates, and he candidated for the ministry and he came

and he was a very special pastor, in the sense that he cared for people; and I’ve heard

36

people say that he’d go and visit you in the garden and if you were under the truck

he’d get in under the truck to talk to you. And he was also the person that I guess

was there when there was the change.

How long was he here?

He was here for five years, and he was the one that probably was just at that time

when the real changes were really happening from gardening to suburbia.

Then there was the Reverend Trevor Oates and the Reverend Ken Rofe, who were

there in the ’60s and the ’70s when the growth, and they at that stage were

responsible for three growing congregations: they used to look after Dernancourt,

Athelstone and Campbelltown. That was a pretty big load when you had membership

of two hundred and fifty at Campbelltown and growing, and same at Athelstone and

Dernancourt which were new subdivisions then. And since union there’s been – they

were there after union; but since the Uniting Church we’ve had longest, the Reverend

Dr Joe Akehurst was here for nearly eight years.

Sorry, I didn’t catch that.

Akehurst, A-K-E-H-U-R-S-T. He was here for nearly eight years. And then Ken

Wright who was before our current minister, he was with us for three years but then

he went to Port Pirie because there was a particular need and nobody would take

ministry in the country. People don’t seem to want to go and serve in the country any

more. And our current minister, Gilles Ambler[?], has been with us five years.

But there’s been – I guess W.O. Harris is the one that started off and went out to be

– and another one in 1917 who was only here for one year, too, W.J. Bailey[?], he

later went on to become the Director of the Methodist Young People’s Department.

That’s an old-fashioned term, but he was responsible to look after the youth camps,

and the Methodist Church owns Nunyara at Belair, which is a youth camp. He was

responsible to buy that after the Second World War. And they also own Adare at

Victor Harbor, which is a youth camp. And so he was one of the people that were

very – later; when he would have been here in 1917 he would have only been a very

young man, but he later went on to develop those unique campsites which are still

used today and provide a very important outreach.

Well, I think we’ve covered most of the territory.

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Yes.

Is there anything you can think of that I’ve missed asking you about?

I think you’re right, that we’ve covered most of the territory. I see at the moment that

whilst we’re still part of the community, as we’ve said, what the future holds depends

a bit on the changes of the district and the moves, and I guess part of our ability to

change.

Well, thank you very much for this conversation today, Jim: it’s been very

interesting, I appreciate it a lot. And this will be the end of the interview with Jim

Everett on 3rd

December 2007. The interviewer is Catherine Murphy and there’s

only one file on this recording.

END OF RECORDING.