St Saviour's Anglican Church, South Johnstone facts for kids
Quick facts for kids St Saviour's Anglican Church, South Johnstone |
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St Saviour's Anglican Church, 2009
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| Location | 26 Hynes Street, South Johnstone, Cassowary Coast Region, Queensland, Australia |
| Design period | 1919 - 1930s (interwar period) |
| Built | 1938 - 1939 |
| Architectural style(s) | Spanish Mission |
| Official name: St Saviour's Anglican Church (former) | |
| Type | state heritage (built) |
| Designated | 24 September 2004 |
| Reference no. | 602431 |
| Significant period | 1930s, 1960s (historical) ongoing (social) |
| Significant components | views to, church, garden/grounds |
| Builders | Mose Romano |
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St Saviour's Anglican Church is a special old building in South Johnstone, Queensland. It is listed on the Queensland Heritage Register, which means it's an important part of the state's history and should be protected. This church was built between 1938 and 1939 by a builder named Mose Romano. It was used for church services until 2003 and is now owned privately.
Contents
A Look Back at St Saviour's Church
St Saviour's Church was finished in 1939. It was built for people who followed the Church of England (now called the Anglican Church of Australia) in the southern part of the Innisfail area. It is believed that Arthur Brown designed the church.
On April 2, 1939, Bishop John Feetham, a leader of the Anglican Church in North Queensland, officially dedicated the church. This means he set it aside for holy use. The church was a place of worship for many years.
How South Johnstone Grew
South Johnstone is part of the Innisfail district. The town of Geraldton (which later became Innisfail) was started in 1880 by Thomas Henry Fitzgerald. He came to grow sugar cane along the Johnstone River. Soon, more people arrived, and the area became known for producing sugar.
In 1882, a sugar mill was built at Mourilyan. Then, the South Johnstone Mill opened in 1916. This mill helped the town of South Johnstone grow a lot. By 1930, about 300 farms were supplying sugar cane to the mill.
Growing sugar cane needed many workers. People from different places, like Pacific Islanders, Chinese, Italians, and Japanese, came to work in the area. This made the Innisfail region a very diverse place.
Building Stronger After a Cyclone
In 1918, a big cyclone hit the South Johnstone area. It destroyed many buildings. After this, people started building with stronger materials like brick and concrete. This is why St Saviour's Church, built later, is made of solid materials.
The Innisfail area, including South Johnstone, did very well in the 1920s because of the successful sugar industry. Even during the worldwide economic depression in the early 1930s, sugar production helped the area stay strong. Many buildings from this time, like St Saviour's Church, were built in popular styles such as Spanish Mission.
The Bush Brotherhoods and Their Work
The Bush Brotherhood of St Barnabas was a group of Anglican priests. They helped people in remote parts of Queensland. From 1926 to 1939, the Anglican Church, with help from these Brotherhoods, built many churches in the growing sugar towns of North Queensland. St Saviour's was one of these churches.
The Brothers were volunteers from England. They worked for five years, traveling where they were needed. They helped provide religious care in areas where there weren't many priests. Church records show that Brother Ray Campbell was especially important in getting St Saviour's Church built.
Building St Saviour's
On October 22, 1935, the Church of England bought a piece of land in South Johnstone. They wanted to build a smaller church there, connected to St Alban's Church in Innisfail. The concrete building was constructed in 1938-1939 by Mose Romano. It cost £1000 at the time. The front porch and a small room called the vestry were added later. The church's design, thought to be by Arthur Brown, was in the Spanish Mission style.
Bishop John Olive Feetham officially dedicated St Saviour's Anglican Church on April 2, 1939. A group called the St Saviour's Ladies Guild worked hard to raise money through dances and other events to help pay off the church's building costs.
A Changing Community
St Saviour's Church was an important place for worship for many years. However, from the 1940s, the number of people living in South Johnstone started to go down.
From the 1960s, other religious groups also used the building for their services. For example, the Lutheran Church held services and Sunday school there for about 20 years starting in 1969. Pastor George Rosendale, one of the first Aboriginal Lutheran pastors, served the Lutheran community in South Johnstone.
In June 2003, the church leaders looked at the costs of keeping up the church. Because of these concerns, the church was put up for sale in July 2003. It was then sold to a local business that now uses the building as a training center.
When the church was sold in August 2003, the altar and pews (church benches) were removed. Some changes were also made to the outside of the building, like removing parts of the front fence and adding air conditioning.
What St Saviour's Looks Like
St Saviour's is a building made of concrete with a corrugated iron roof. It has a rectangular shape with a front entrance porch and a small room called a vestry at the back. The church faces east onto Hynes Street, the main street of South Johnstone. Its balanced design, with curved walls and arched windows, looks nice on the street.
The front of the church has two windows with rounded tops on either side of the main entrance porch. The porch itself has a curved top, just like the main building. The porch used to have three arched windows, but these have been changed. The main entrance to the church is through arched wooden doors.
The side walls of the church are about 15 meters long. They have groups of three windows, with the middle window being taller. All the windows, except one in the porch, have rounded tops and textured glass. There are also five buttresses (supports) along each side wall.
A vestry wing sticks out about 4 meters from the back of the building. It has a wooden door on the side facing the street. This door has a red arch and a red cross above it.
The outside of the building is painted white with red details on the windowsills and roof edges. The gutters are green.
Inside, the walls are light green, and the window frames and ceilings are white. The floors in the main area (the nave), the holy area (the sanctuary), and the vestry are made of concrete. The ceiling in the nave is angled and made of wood panels.
The sanctuary is separated from the nave by a small step and folding wooden doors. The vestry has a bench with a sink and a cupboard. A toilet has also been added to one end of the vestry.
None of the original church furniture is still inside the building.
The church grounds have a lawn and a gravel driveway along the side. A concrete path leads from the building to the gate. Two gate posts and two posts from the original front concrete fence are still there, with crosses on them. The rest of the front fence has been replaced with a wire fence, but you can still see the church clearly from the street.
Why St Saviour's is Important
The former St Saviour's Anglican Church was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on September 24, 2004, because it meets several important criteria:
- It shows how Queensland's history developed: This church, built in 1938-1939, shows how the population grew in the Innisfail area because of the sugar industry. It also shows how communities like South Johnstone became wealthy enough to build churches out of strong materials like concrete, instead of just wood. It also reminds us of the important work done by the Bush Brotherhoods of St Barnabas and St Lawrence.
- It shows the main features of its type: This strong concrete church, built in the Spanish Mission style, is still mostly in its original condition. It is a good example of churches from that time period.
- It has a special connection to important groups: As one of the few remaining churches built by the Bush Brotherhood of St Barnabas and St Lawrence, St Saviour's Anglican Church has a special link to their work. These Brotherhoods were very important in establishing the Anglican Church in remote parts of Queensland.
