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Pulpit Socialist or Empire Wrecker? The Rev. Farnham Edward Maynard of All Saints', Wickham Terrace
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2016
Extract
Once more let me say, for I have been criticised uphill and down for my attitude towards the strike, I cannot agree that the Church should stand aloof from such questions as those which concern us to-night.
These words express the heart of Farnham Edward Maynard's commitment to British seamen striking while in Australian ports during August to November 1925. Two principal issues arose to precipitate this strike. Uppermost was the poor level of pay provided by the shipping companies, and associated distress for the seamen's families when their principal ‘bread-winner’ was overseas. Their wages had been reduced from £10 per month to £9 by a board on which they believed they had inadequate representation. Such low wages were not, they maintained, adequate recompense for their work, particularly when coupled with the second issue: the living conditions aboard ship. Still angered by the waterside workers' industrial action at the end of 1924 and the following riots in Sydney during January 1925, local industry had little sympathy with the demands of overseas militants, however; nor had the Australian government, which made it clear that British seamen responsible for causing strike action in Australia would be deported. Not even the Waterside Workers' Federation, blamed for many of the recent troubles, supported the British seamen; declaring that the action proved the futility of a minority opposing the great majority', and provided ‘sufficient proof that no section of a union can accomplish success when attempting to achieve an objective against its executive, combined with majority rule’. The seamen were advised ‘to take their disputes to where they belong and rectify them there’.
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References
Endnotes
1 Maynard, F.E., Maynard Defends the Strike of British Seamen (Brisbane: Standard Press, 1925, 11) Reprinted from The Daily Standard, Brisbane, 7 October 1925.Google Scholar
2 Reported in The Times, 3 October 1925, 9.Google Scholar
3 Maynard, 11.Google Scholar
4 Two other Anglican clerics gave the seamen some support, but did not demonstrate this support as publicly as Maynard. E.H.B. Coulcher, of St Paul's, Rockhampton and E.J. Roberts of Geelong, was concerned that reduced income at home would lead the seamen's wives into prostitution (The Worker, 15 October 1925, 11).Google Scholar
5 Vidler, A.R., The Church in An Age of Revolution, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976) 87.Google Scholar
6 Reardon, B.M.G., Religious Thought in the Victorian Age: A Survey from Coleridge to Gore, (London: Longman, 1980) 210.Google Scholar
7 See Lloyd, Roger, The Church of England 1900–1965, (London: Student Christian Movement, 1966) 298.Google Scholar
8 See Kirkby, Gresham, ‘Kingdom Come: The Catholic Faith and Millenial Hopes,’ in Essays Catholic and Radical, ed. Leech, K. and Williams, R., (London: Bowerdean Press, 1983) 52.Google Scholar
9 Information about Maynard's time at Mount Morgan is derived from two major sources: Frank Golding (former secretary of Mount Morgan Historical Society), letter to author, 24 May 1983, and A.A. Fellows, Full Time, (Rockhampton: Record Printing, 1967) 71–111.Google Scholar
10 See Rayner, Keith, ‘A History of the Church of England in Queensland’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Queensland, 1963, 456.Google Scholar
11 See Fellows, Full Time, 91, and ‘The Vicar Elect’, Ecclesia, August 1926, 4. (Ecclesia was the early parish magazine of St. Peter's, Eastern Hill, Melbourne.)Google Scholar
12 Tomlin, J.W.S., Halford's Challenge, (London: Rockhampton Auxiliary, n.d.,) 68. Halford, who was greatly respected by Maynard, was later to resign his See and become an itinerant preacher and evangelist, much in the style of the early disciples and Franciscan friars. See also R.H.H. Philp, ‘George Douglas Halford’, B.Litt. thesis, University of New England, 1981, 64. Further information about ‘Lindisfarne’ is contained in a threepage manuscript, I.R. Madge's ‘Cross and Cairn at Yeppoon’ (1969), held in the John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.Google Scholar
13 The position of Assistant Curate at St Mary's Kangaroo Point accompanied the post of Sub-Warden of St John's. Maynard began work there in March 1922. See F.E. Maynard, letter to Archbishop Sharp, 17 November 1921. The author is indebted to the curator of the Anglican Diocesan Archives, Brisbane, Mrs Patricia Ramsey, for her help and for providing access to the correspondence between Archbishop Sharp and Maynard.Google Scholar
14 James Housden, letter to author, August 1983. Housden later became Bishop of Rockhampton.Google Scholar
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17 In December 1925, for instance, the Rev. P.A. Micklem of St James' Sydney, and one of Maynard's spiritual directors, addressed the theme ‘The Trustworthiness of the Gospels'. See The Church Chronicle, 1 December 1925, 264. The Archbishop's Pastoral Letter also addresses the popularity of ‘Christian Evidence’ lectures. See Chronicle, 1 October 1925, 195.Google Scholar
18 See sermon transcript, ‘On Behalf of Missions’, 30 May 1927, 7. St. Peter's, Eastern Hill, Melbourne, Archives.Google Scholar
19 D.S. 10 October 1925, 15.Google Scholar
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21 Brisbane Courier, 5 October 1925.Google Scholar
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26 This parable describes how a group of workers, selected to work in a vineyard towards the end of the day, were paid as much as those selected at the beginning of the day. The moral of the story contained two elements: first, that all were on a contract which was established before work began, and was binding on both employer and employees; second, that those who had only worked the last hour of the day were paid as much as those working a full day should be seen as an act of generosity by the employer, not an act of discrimination against the day workers. Letters to the Editor, 10 October 1925, 11.Google Scholar
27 ‘Britisher’, Letters to the Editor, 10 October 1925, 11.Google Scholar
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30 Hewlett Johnson wrote two important works: The Socialist Sixth of the World, (London: Gollancz, 1939) and his autobiography, which mentions Maynard, Searching for Light, (London: Joseph, 1968).Google Scholar
31 Interview, The Revd. Albert McPherson, Melbourne, 16 June 1983. See also Helen G. Palmer, Australian Teacher in China (Sydney: Teacher's Sponsoring Committee, 1953) and The Spectator, 4 March 1953, 127. A full outline of Maynard's life is given in D.A. Pear, ‘Two Anglican Responses to Depression and Second World War in Melbourne: A Study in Churchmanship’, Master of Theology thesis, Melbourne College of Divinity, 1985.Google Scholar