It has been suggested that Anglican Christianity in colonial Australia ‘spoke to man's eternal soul, not his temporal welfare; it found expression in the Church, not civil society’. Such a contention could not be further from the truth, however, as this chapter will demonstrate by examining the role of clergymen in social, philanthropic and cultural activities. These undertakings ranged from institutional leadership to founding savings banks for workers. The clergy's influence also extended to community leadership in everything from developing local infrastructure to pioneering pastoralism and creating cultural institutions. A salient feature of these activities is the considerable extent to which they were initiated by clergymen themselves, and funded and led outside government purview. There has been persistent debate among historians of colonial Australia on two related issues: first, whether government leadership in welfare was necessary or worthwhile; and second, whether voluntary agencies were ‘instruments of social control or vehicles of creative social reform’. This chapter considers clergymen's contributions to social, cultural and intellectual life in light of those issues.

Social theory

In most clergymen's invisible baggage were assumptions of class and a providentially ordained social order that was static and hierarchical, with little desire to alter the fundamental structure of society and state. Thus for workers and the poor the clergy counselled resignation, deference and humble dependence on god. This was to be accompanied by prudence and temperance, aided by schemes for savings banks and life assurance societies. John barrett has argued that as a consequence most clergy preached a doctrine that sought to ‘fix men's stations’. Although some clergymen's extant sermons and writings support this conclusion, Barrett's assessment needs modification because nearly a quarter of Australian clergyman had themselves transcended such ‘fixed’ stations, rising from petit-bourgeois origins to middle-class respectability. Furthermore, the sermons of those from petit-bourgeois backgrounds (around 20 per cent have sermons extant) are almost silent on questions of social station or mobility.