City of Darebin Heritage Study Volume 1 Draft Thematic

DAREBIN HERITAGE STUDY STAGE 2MethodistMethodism was a revivalist faith, which was founded on the teachings of John and CharlesWesley amongst the poor in eighteenth century England and Ireland. By the time Methodismreached Victoria, it was also a middle class religion - because self improvement was a vital partof Methodist belief - and had also split into four branches, known as ‘connexions’. Thestrongest of these connexions was the Wesleyan Church, and the second strongest was thePrimitive Methodist Church. Methodists were particularly strong on the goldfields, becausemany miners came from Methodist strongholds in England’s mining districts, particularlyCornwall and the Midlands. Methodists were able to expand rapidly because they relied on theactive involvement of lay people, both men and women. They were organised into Circuitsmade up of several churches, which were ‘supplied’ by lay preachers, with one ordainedminister as superintendent. To ensure that their children were instructed in the faith, everyMethodist church had a Sunday School (Phillips, Benson; Brown-May, 2005:593-6). In 1902all of the branches of Methodism in Australia united to form the Methodist Church ofAustralia. Much later, in 1977, the Methodists, Congregationalists and the majority of thePresbyterians amalgamated to form the Uniting Church in Australia.Some of Forster’s ‘little men’ (and women) who founded the first community in Preston wereIrish Methodists. Samuel Jeffrey an Irish Wesleyan founded the Preston Wesleyan MethodistChurch in his barn, and two years later a small wooden chapel was built on land donated byJeffrey. The dates of its construction and of the commencement of services in the barn areunclear. According to Forster, regular services commenced in 1852 and the chapel was built in1854 (p.21). A program for the 130 th anniversary of the church (now the Preston UnitingChurch) in 1982, suggests that the services commenced in the barn in 1850 and the chapel wasconstructed in 1852. Whatever the case, it possible that the Preston Methodist Church wasDarebin’s first church.Other early Methodist Churches in Darebin were the Wesleyans at Alphington and thePrimitive Methodists in Northcote. The Alphington church started in a barn in Heidelberg in1852-3 and their bluestone chapel was built in Heidelberg Road in 1859 (Benson: 415; Lemon1983: 48). It is now the Alphington Uniting Church. The first church in Northcote was thePrimitive Methodist church, presumably commenced before the chapel was built in 1854.Apparently the church did not survive until Methodist union in 1902, probably due tocompetition from the Wesleyans, nearby. The site at 312 High Street was acquired by theNational Bank in 1890 (Benson, 1935:406; Butler, 1992).The Northcote Wesleyan Methodists started services in private homes in 1854, and theyerected their first building as a school in 1854. The small plain bluestone building in HighStreet served the Northcote community as its first school, place of worship, law court andcouncil chamber. This highlights the role of churches in the founding of new communities.In the 1860s, the churches could afford to upgrade their buildings to accommodate growingcongregations. The Preston Methodists built their bluestone building on the corner of Highand Tyler Streets in 1863. The building was enlarged and added to several times over the yearsto become quite a large complex of chapel and Sunday School buildings. The original chapelwas demolished in 1922. It is now Preston Uniting Church. In 1869, the NorthcoteMethodists moved to the opposite side of High Street and built a larger bluestone chapel,which was extended in 1885 to hold 650 people (‘Glimpses of Our Past’, 1988:16).Meanwhile another Methodist church had commenced in South Preston in 1859, meeting in awooden building in High Street until about 1888. In 1888-89, a grand new ‘expensive andimposing’ building designed by Alfred Dunne was erected in Yann Street. This churchreflected the prosperity of the boom years, and was the place of worship of factory owners suchas J.C. Hutton, who donated the Fincham organ. However, when the boom ended it wasfound that the South Preston Methodists had over-reached their resources and they wereobliged to call on the Methodist Church Building Fund for assistance (Forster, 1968:21-2;Carroll, 1985:113; Summerton, 1997:98; Benson, 1935:414).100