Founding Elders

William Buyers and Samuel Martin

From The Presbyterian Banner: March, 1996.

THE Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia was formed by four men who met at William Buyers' premises at 4 Hunter Street, Sydney. This was the second in a strip of 14 two-storey terraces - shop below and dwelling above - on the north side between George Street and Hamilton Street, and known as Adelaide Place.1 The property formed part of the site later acquired by United Insurance Co. Ltd. It was demolished in the 1880s to make way for United's Head Office building.

The painting of the scene in the history by J.C.Robinson, and also that by myself, shows William Buyers and Peter Stewart, as well as the three ministers - William McIntyre, John Tait and Colin Stewart - with Samuel Martin, commissioned elder.

William Buyers was a prominent businessman who acted as Sydney agent for the extensive pastoral interests associated with William Mclntyre's wife, Mary. Buyers, along with Peter Stewart, his father in law, had resigned from Thomas Mowbray's congregation in June 1846 over the vacillating policy in the Synod of Australia concerning its relationship to the post-1843 Established Church of Scotland. He was to be treasurer of the new Synod until 1875. One of his daughters married the Rev Peter McPherson (1826-86) in 1886. Peter Stewart (1792-1882) was a building contractor. He had been an elder in Hope Street Church Glasgow prior to coming to Australia in 1838. In 1872 another of his daughters became the second wife of Duncan McInnes, PCEA minister at Maclean (1868-1908). These men were of prominent social standing in their spiritual commitment.

Those who constituted the first Synod came from a variety of backgrounds. In the rest of this article we consider the only elder among the four men.

SamuelMartin (1809-1889) was born in Ahoghill, County Antrim as was Rachael Leith (1806-69), who became his wife in 1831.2 Samuel became an elder of the Irish church in 1835. The couple arrived in Sydney in October 1838 with their two children, George (1832-1917) and Joseph (1834-98). A female child was born on the voyage out but died just as they reached Sydney. Rachael was for a time in a delicate state of health herself. The family moved to Green Ponds (Morpeth) where Samuel worked on the farm property of P. Rapsey for £30 a year plus rations. He was the only free man on the estate. The convicts assigned to the property were supervised by soldiers and often used the cat o' nine tails on their charges. Many times Rachael washed the blood off the backs of these unfortunate men after they had been flogged. Although it was a common offence to steal washing off the clothes lines, the convicts held her in such respect that they would not steal from her.

Fellow Ulsterman, Robert Blain, had ministered at Maitland from 1838 and included Morpeth in his visits. In 1841 he was relocated to Hinton where there was a busy farming settlement embracing also nearby Nelsons Plains.

When the Martins moved to Nelsons Plains late in I840 still had Blain's active and faithful ministry, and Samuel was involved as one of the elders. But Blain drew back from his earlier desire to break the link with the Established Church of Scotland and rely on voluntary contributions. Although Blain was respected, Samuel and most of the Highlanders were not prepared to follow his lead. Samuel thus took his Protest against the position of the majority of the Synod of Australia and shared in constituting a new cclesiastical court which would act consistently with its profession of loyalty to Christ. A modest church was built and opened at Ahalton in 1847. Hugh MacDonald (1805-89) took a prominent role in organising the new PCEA congregation, as most of the people were Highlanders, but whether Scots or Ulster people, Gaelic or English-speaking, the cause knew spiritual blessing.

At the end of 1854, Rev Allan McIntyre began his ministry on the Manning River. Soon afterwards Martin purchased land in the district, and later moved to a farm at Redbank near Tinonee. This seems to have been before the severe floods of June/August 1857 led to wholesale removals from the Hunter northwards. After Samuel's wife died he moved to the Clarence River to be near his son George (Leith) Martin, who was converted during the spiritual awakening associated with Allan McIntyre's ministry,3 and named his oldest child (born 1864) Allan Mclntyre Martin as a consequence. Samuel was an eider at Grafton from 1878, and died at Dyraabra, Richmond in 1889. Various descendants remain PCEA members to this day. Samuel Martin was a man of faithfulness to Christ, and loyalty to a church built foursquare on the Word of God.

Footnotes
1 A streetscape is to be found in J. Fowles' Sydney in 1848, last reprinted by Ure Smith, Sydney in 1962.
2 I am indebted for information on Martin to Nancy Cameron (nee Martin) of 28 Verbena Ave, Port Macquarie 2444. Mrs Cameron is a grand-daughter of Allan Mclntyre Martin.
3 A full account may be found in R.S.Ward, 'Spiritual Movements in Scottish Gaelic communities in Australia 1837-70' in M.Hutchinson/S.Piggin, Reviving Australia (Sydney 1994) 75-96. It should be noted that at p. 88 I have confused George Martin (1832-1917) with a contemporary of the same name in the congregation. This confusion last century led to the addition of Leith as a middle name.

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Our Founding Fathers - 1846.

From The Presbyterian Banner: October, 1996.

In The Presbyterian Banner for March 1996 an outline of the life of Samuel Martin, the first ruling elder to sit in the newly formed Synod, was given. We turn now to the ministers.

The ministerial members of the first Synod were all well known in their day. Colin Stewart, MA (1800-86) was born at Ferintosh and was the brother of Rev Charles Stewart of Fort William FCS. He did an itinerating work in Hartley/Bowenfels district. A Gaelic-speaker he was not at notable as a preacher but he was a good teacher. A quiet and unobtrusive man he was affectionately called 'Parson' Stewart. He married a sister of the famous Dr Macintosh Mackay, but there were no children. He founded Cooerwull Academy at Bowenfels.

John Tait^[1](1809-1860) was from Moffat in Dumfriesshire. He married Elizabeth Blair in 1837, shortly before sailing for Australia, and two of their five sons (George and Lithgow) became ministers. His parish at Parramatta was small and somewhat split over the division, a significant section feeling keenly the loss of the government stipend. Perhaps in part because of this, Tait himself seems to have been satisfied with forming an independent Synod free of the compromising words 'in connection with the Established Church of Scotland'. His position boiled down to one of neutrality in regard to the Scottish churches. He maintained this line after he went to Geelong Free Church in 1851, and he ultimately played a significant role in the formation of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria in 1859. There were practical advantages in his approach but the great objection (apart from the obligation of ordination vows) was that it would mean a levelling effect in the testimony of the Australian Church, so that only the lowest common denominator of Scottish Presbyterian belief would be maintained.

William McIntyre, MA (1806-70)^[2] was unquestionably the ablest intellect of the three ministers and he also had the largest congregation - over 200 persons in several centres in the Maitland district which he had served from September 1841. He was born not far from Fort William, one of twelve children. With his brother Allan he conducted a school in Glasgow for some time, but came to Australia in 1837 at Dr Lang's urging. He was a Gaelic speaker and a man of scholarly bent. His preaching was not exactly popular in style but there was good solid meat, and he was very conscientious in the discharge of his duties. in 1844 he married Mary McIntyre, the sister and heir of the tough pastoralist Peter McIntyre (1783-1842) after whom the McIntyre River is named, the Rev James Forbes officiating. Although cousin marriage is common among Scots there is no clear evidence that William and Mary were so related. They had no children, and Mary's wealth was not insignificant in enabling William to organise various projects, including conducting the magazine The Voice in the Wilderness 1846-52, and founding 'the High School of Maitland' in 1855. Most of their money found its way into religious and charitable causes, including significant contributions to liquidating the debt on St George's Church, of which he was pastor (drawing no stipend) from 1862 until his death. McIntyre was always concerned for local ministerial training. In fact, the first Presbyterian minister trained in Australia was trained by him (James White, ordained 1847).

A fourth person who took the same position as the PCEA must be mentioned, namely, the Rev James Forbes^[3] of Melbourne. He had not been present at the meeting in 1846 which resolved not to change the name and break the connection with the post-1843 Established Church. Distance and prospects at Port Phillip were factors in suggesting a distinct Synod for what became Victoria, and so Forbes founded the Free Presbyterian Church of Australia Felix (afterwards Victoria).

Forbes (1813-1851) came from the Aberdeen area and was the youngest of the four ministers. He would have to be judged the most able and the most attractive personality among them. Certainly his praise is in all the churches to this day. Although young and lacking parish experience, Forbes embodied very much the ideal of the Presbyterian minister. Open and generous-hearted, he was clear and firm on the truths of the Word of God. He was not only evangelical in sentiment but evangelistic in outlook and action. An excellent visitor, a good man at ecclesiastical business, and a man committed to Christian engagement with society, his accomplishments were many. He is regarded as Melbourne's first public educationist, and was the chief influence in the founding in 1851 of a college designed to provide a course of training suitable to prepare men for the study of theology - a school now known as Scotch College. He conducted various other educational enterprises, a lending library, and adult education courses of an evening on everything from Classics to Practical Bookkeeping. Only one of his four elders in Scots Church was prepared to 'go out' with him in 1846: that one was Henrie Bell, a lovely Christian man whose remains lie next to Forbes' in the Melbourne Cemetery. Forbes also established and edited The Port Phillip Christian Herald (1846-51).

End Notes:

[1] Family details may he found in Memorial Reminiscences of Rev John Tait and Elizabeth Tait (London 1914).

[2] For a sketch of McIntyre's life see my article in R.S.Ward (ed), Presbyterian Leaders in Nineteenth Century Australia (Wantirna 1993) 82-97.

[3] For a sketch of Forbes' life see my article in R.S.Ward (ed). Presbyterian Leaders in Nineteenth Century Australia (Wantirna 1993) 37-53.