Christ Church Cathedral, Newcastle

The current dean, the Very Reverend Katherine Bowyer (former rector of the Parish of Cardiff), was installed on 4 October 2017. She is the first woman to hold the position.

History

Development of the Anglican Church in Newcastle

The ground on which Christ Church Cathedral stands has been the site of at least one other church: Christ Church, built in 1817–18. Unlike the rushed construction of Christ Church, the building of Christ Church Cathedral was a long and complicated process; it was exactly one hundred years from the beginning of construction to its consecration. John Horbury Hunt was the principal architect involved in the project, with other prominent Newcastle architects also contributing to its design.

The first known church on this site was built on the order of Governor Lachlan Macquarie to provide services for the civil and military officials and convicts who were posted there. The population of Newcastle had swelled following the closure of Norfolk Island as a penal settlement in 1814, making this need more pressing. Christ Church School, the first school in Newcastle, operated from the church vestry from mid-1818 to the early 1830s.

Probably because of a combination of the haste of Christ Church's construction on a sandy site, the use of salt-impregnated sandstone quarried locally, and the largely unskilled convict labour employed, the strong winds which constantly buffeted its hilltop location so close to the sea soon exposed structural flaws in the foundations. Several years after its completion, the upper tower and the steeple were taken down because of instability. It remained in this form for a period of 43 years. With the establishment of the Diocese of Newcastle in 1847, Newcastle officially became a city, Christ Church became a cathedral and the first bishop, William Tyrrell (1848-1879), was appointed.

John Horbury Hunt as architect

During the second half of the 1850s, with coal production greatly increasing, there was a doubling of the population of Newcastle and it was decided that there was a need for a new or expanded cathedral. In the 1860s, Bishop Tyrrell argued that there was no need for a new building, and instead advocated an addition to the existing church. However, the diocese disagreed and in 1868 ran a competition for the design of a new cathedral. The requirements were that contestants design an establishment to be built of stone or brick, large enough for 1,000 people and at a maximum cost of ten thousand pounds. The winners were Terry and Speechly from Melbourne. John Horbury Hunt, who had become one of Australia's most significant ecclesiastical architects during the last third of the 19th century, had also entered the competition and was appointed supervising architect. After the cost of the winning design was found to have been seriously underestimated, Hunt's own plans were adopted.

Hunt was influenced by the Arts & Crafts movement with its emphasis on truth to natural materials, particularly brick and timber, and asymmetry of form. Hunt's other ecclesiastical projects included St Peter's Cathedral, Armidale (1871) and Christ Church Cathedral, Grafton (1880) as well as many parish churches in the Hunter Valley. Christ Church Cathedral was the largest and most ambitious building designed by Hunt. His design for the cathedral was for a cruciform Victorian Academic Gothic style building with a central tower over the crossing, supporting a spire.

Although Hunt had completed the designs for the cathedral in 1868, work was not started on it until 1883 and the building of the cathedral was marked by many delays and disputes. The original Christ Church remained in use until completion of the staged demolition in 1884.

During the comprehensive repairs undertaken after the 1989 earthquake the original 1817 foundation stone was repositioned within the cathedral in a location as close as possible to the original one.

While Christ Church Cathedral was being constructed, Selwyn commissioned Hunt to also design a pro-cathedral opposite Christ Church (now Horbury Hunt Hall). This was used until the opening of the new cathedral for services in 1902 and is still intact. It is listed on the State Heritage Inventory. In 1895, the relationship between Hunt, A. E. Selwyn, Dean of Newcastle, and the builder, John Straub, had become so bad that both Hunt and Straub were dismissed. By this stage, 27 years after Hunt had sketched the original design for the cathedral, it was far from complete. Even so, Hunt's attention to the construction of the foundations and ensuring that brick perpends were tight and mortar-filled preserved the cathedral's walling relatively unaffected nearly a century later when it suffered severe damage during the 1989 Newcastle earthquake. The full extent of Hunt's designs was not realised until 1979 with the addition of the tower, albeit without the spire Hunt had intended.

In 1900, John Francis Stretch replaced the late Selwyn as dean and he appointed John Hingestone Buckeridge as the cathedral architect. Buckeridge was responsible for overseeing the temporary roofing of the half-built nave. The cathedral was dedicated on 21 November 1902 during a service held in the presence of the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Harry Rawson, and the Premier of New South Wales, Sir John See.

There was great consternation in 1906-7 when severe mine "creep" in The Hill area of Newcastle damaged the foundations and brickwork of the western end of the newly occupied cathedral. For a time it was feared that this part of the building might have to be demolished. Repairs were required and the cost had to be met by parishioners.

The London firm of Charles Eamer Kempe planned and supplied the Gothic Revival stained glass windows in the nave and baptistry. The firm and its successor, Kempe & Co., were to do so for most of the cathedral's windows over the next three decades, the most celebrated being the western rose window installed in 1928. The cathedral would eventually contain more than 60 of the 72 Kempe & Co. windows in the whole of Australia. By contrast, in the whole of England the largest remaining collection of stained glass windows from the Kempe studio, in the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, has just 20 examples.

Included in Christ Church Cathedral's repository of stained glass was one further jewel: the Dies Domini ("Day of the Lord") window designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and executed by Morris & Co. of London, considered to represent Burne-Jones' powers at their peak and to constitute a national treasure, although not accorded such accolades at the time of its installation. The Dies Domini window, installed in 1907, is unique in Australia and is one of only two such windows of this design in the world, the other being installed in St Michael and St Mary Magdalene's Church, Easthampstead, Berkshire, England, in 1875.

Frederick George Castleden as architect

The next architect assigned to work on the project was Frederick George Castleden, prominent in Newcastle as the designer of many houses and commercial buildings in the region. Castleden's firm supervised the completion of the cathedral between 1909 and 1928. In 1911, the ambulatory around the east end of the church and the Tyrrell Chapel was built and in 1912 the eastern walls were completed and roofed and the east window finished with yet more stained glass from the firm of Kempe & Co.

The Warriors' Chapel followed in 1924. It was intended as a permanent memorial to all those who died in World War I, especially men and women of Newcastle and the Hunter Valley. As with other war memorials in Australia until the Vietnam War, the primary intention was to create a place where, in the absence of a grave, people could come to grieve and to give thanks for the sacrifices of those buried overseas who were never to return home. In designing the chapel the architects F. G. and A.C. Castleden drew on Buckeridge's earlier design for the east end of the cathedral. It was built by C. Davis & Sons.

Warriors' Chapel

The Warriors' Chapel's sandstone walls were embellished with carved inscriptions and the emblems of the armed services. Set into the walls were 13 stained glass windows executed by Kempe & Co., collectively telling the story of service and sacrifice by men and women in theatres of war and on the home front. In an era when masculinist definitions of war effort effectively marginalised the public recognition of women's contributions on the home front in Australia, the inclusion of St Martha, representing Home Service, was unusual. All forms of war service were, however, idealised in the standard Gothic Revival imagery found in ecclesiastical stained glass at the time. Realistic local and battle scenes in small, grey-coloured medallions inserted into several of the windows could not present an effective counterbalance to the much larger, idealised and brightly coloured depictions but are nevertheless important. On the whole, the stained glass windows in the Warriors' chapel were very much of their time in the manner chosen to depict war effort and in this they provide a striking contrast to the realism displayed in World War II memorials such as the cathedral's Zusters panels elsewhere described.

To commemorate the dead, a large number of movable and fixed items were commissioned, especially for the Warriors' Chapel. Of particular note was the extensive metalware commission of 11 items from William Mark, the most accomplished exponent of all the Australian metalsmiths working in the style of the Arts & Crafts movement, who, before returning to Australia from England in 1920, had received commissions from royalty and whose work had been purchased by British museums. The sheer size and quality of this collection has ensured it a place among the treasures of Australian churches. Among the most poignant items, now displayed in the cathedral's treasure case, were the illuminated Book of Remembrance (known as the Book of Gold) recording on a parish-by-parish basis the names of the fallen from the Diocese of Newcastle, and the chalice and paten. The covers of the Book of Gold and the chalice and paten were made from the melted down gold and gemstones of the rings and other jewellery given by the women of the diocese who had lost a family member or friend in the Great War.

A brass and wood processional Cross of Lorraine, the Mace Cross, was given to the cathedral and placed in the sanctuary of the Warriors' Chapel in memory of Lieutenant W. R. Mace, killed in action at Gallipoli on 29 September 1915. Other items in the chapel include a bronze sculpture of an unnamed recumbent soldier, known as the Forster Monument, given by a former governor-general, Lord Forster, and his wife as a memorial to one of their sons who was a friend of the artist, Cecil Thomas RA, while they were both in hospital being treated for their wounds. It is the only replica of the original bronze exhibited in the Royal Academy in London where it was praised as one of the very finest wartime sculptures. In a fitting location next to the Forster Monument is a wooden cross from the grave of an unknown soldier in France, which likewise represents all those who gave their lives in the Great War. The cross was entrusted by Toc H to the cathedral for safekeeping. A Toc H lamp, the Federal Lamp of Toc H Australia, from which all other lamps are lit, was another gift from Lord and Lady Forster in memory of two sons. A rushlight made by Australian members of the Toc H organisation in the Changi prisoner of war camp in Singapore during the Second World War is the only such rushlight to be returned to Australia and one of only three such rushlights to survive captivity. It has left Christ Church Cathedral only once, going to the Changi Chapel at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of Toc H in Australia in 2000.

Probably it is because of Dean Horace Crotty's connection with Toc H, in his role of chaplain during World War I, that the cathedral became the parent church for Toc H in Australia and the place in which the movement has chosen to enshrine nationally significant items. Another Toc H item, on permanent loan to the cathedral from Toc H Newcastle, was the oak carpenter's bench installed as an altar in the St Christopher Chapel in 1930. This is an Australian-made Arts & Crafts style version of the altar used during World War I in Talbot House, Poperinghe, Belgium, where soldiers could avail themselves of precious rest during short periods away from the rigours of the front. Talbot House was established in 1915 by an Australian-born Army chaplain, the Revd P. B. "Tubby" Clayton. The name Toc H is derived from the signaller's code for Talbot House. It was the work of Talbot House which provided the inspiration for a movement which after the Great War was subsequently to spread to all countries of the former British Empire with its message of lifelong striving to put into practice a Christian way of life and to build a better world.

The memorial theme was continued in the reredos of the Toc H carpenter's bench. The reredos, comprising two panels of St Christopher painted by the English artist Daphne Allen, was given to the cathedral in memory of her cousin Colonel G. G. Short, who had been a synodsman and vestryman at the cathedral. The panels symbolised Colonel Short's devotion to Christ in carrying out his duty to his fellow countrymen and women during World War I, which he survived. The reredos was installed in 1934.

The only documented flag surviving from Australia's Gallipoli campaign, a Union Jack, together with its original pole, belonging to the 13th Australian Infantry Battalion, was brought back to Australia in 1916 for presentation to the cathedral by the battalion's commanding officer. It was restored in 2001 with funds raised by local war veterans and subsequently displayed on the western wall of the St Christopher Chapel.

A Victoria Cross awarded posthumously to Captain Clarence Jeffries at Passchendaele on 12 October 1917 was given to his family. On her death in 1954, Captain Jeffries' mother bequeathed his Victoria Cross in perpetuity to the deans and chapter of the cathedral. It is the only Victoria Cross in New South Wales not held in private ownership, and one of only two in the keeping of Australian churches (the other is held by St George's Cathedral, Perth). Nearby, at the eastern end of the Tyrrell Chapel, the Jeffries Chair originally placed in Holy Trinity Church, Abermain, by his aunt and uncle in 1919 was entrusted to the cathedral after the 1994 closure of the Abermain church.

After the installation of World War I memorials, cathedral building continued. In 1928 the Castleden firm completed further work on the arches of the church and the walls, closely based on Horbury Hunt's original designs even to the extent that clay from the same pit and the same moulds were used to make the bricks. However, there were some slight departures from Hunt's designs, these being the omission of the spire and the addition of a castellated parapet. There is also a visible change in the colour and quality of brickwork at the height of the clerestory window sills completed after Hunt's departure.

More recent developments

In 1969, the cathedral witnessed the Australian premiere of Benjamin Britten's Noye's Fludde ("Noah's Flood"). The "voice of God" was provided by Brin Newton-John, father of singer Olivia Newton-John.

In 1979 the transepts and the bell tower were raised by John Sara, of Castleden & Sara, returning to Hunt's original concept for the tower.

During the early 1980s the cathedral was further embellished with numerous works by Newcastle artists, including banners, a terracotta and wood crucifix, a tapestry of the Ten Virgins and a triptych depicting the legend of St Nicholas.

In 1982 the placing of a memorial in the cathedral comprising five panels painted by Reinis Zusters accorded long overdue recognition to the sacrifices of those Australians and their supporters at home who participated not only in World War II but also in the subsequent campaigns in Korea, Malaya and Vietnam which had not remained in the forefront of public consciousness in the same way as World Wars I and II.

The original Christ Church Cathedral organ, of which the pipework forms the basis of the present instrument, was built in 1906 by Norman & Beard (London and Norwich). It was rebuilt in 1963 by J.W. Walker & Sons (Middlesex), and most recently (1997–1998) underwent refurbishment and the addition of several ranks of pipes by Peter D. G. Jewkes Pty Ltd (Sydney).

After over 80 years of use, the cathedral was finally consecrated by Bishop Holland on 20 November 1983.

The 1989 Newcastle earthquake at first appeared to have damaged the cathedral only superficially. However, it was soon realised that the building had been significantly harmed, and in need of restoration and refurbishment works. This project was undertaken by Dean Graeme Lawrence and architect B. J. Collins of the firm EJE Architecture. Work was begun in 1995 and completed in 1997, involving an Australia-first engineering technique to strengthen the walls and piers by increasing ductility and therefore future earthquake resistance while at the same time maintaining aesthetic significance. The Cintec masonry anchoring system originally developed in Germany was used, in the process pioneering many building techniques in Australia. There are three basic elements in the Cintec system of reinforcement: a stainless steel anchor body to carry the load; cementitious grout; and the woven fabric sock which controls the movement of the grout. All the reinforcing was inserted into holes drilled in the brickwork without cooling water, as the escaping water could have damaged other areas of the cathedral. The total length of vertical and horizontal reinforcing installed was 3770 metres. The horizontal reinforcing of the nave walls, at 32 meters long, was a world record for this type of work. At the time the project involved the largest installation of Cintec anchors in a single building in the experience of the company.

In July 2019 Graeme Lawrence, who served as dean of the cathedral between 1984 and 2008, was convicted of raping a 15-year-old boy at the deanery in 1991. He was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment in September 2019. The Anglican Bishop of Newcastle apologised to the victim following Lawrence's conviction.

Cemetery

The Christ Church burial ground, located on the northern side of the church and now a rest park, is the first known European burial ground in Newcastle and one of the first burial grounds established in Australia. The earliest recorded European burials at this site began with the construction of Christ Church in 1817. Although burials were under the authority of the Church of England, the burial site was initially used for people of all denominations. Following a Church of England act in 1836, Christ Church could no longer bury people of other denominations. As a result of this act, cemeteries were established for Roman Catholics and Presbyterians during the 1840s.

During the 19th century, new notions of hygiene led to the belief that there were significant health risks involved with having a cemetery in the heart of a city. This led to the relocation of cemeteries as well as gaols and isolation wards. In 1881 a new cemetery was opened at Sandgate, outside of central Newcastle, and Christ Church Cemetery was officially closed. There were several burials in the Christ Church burial site after the opening of the site at Sandgate resulting in legal action by the council. The last time a burial occurred at the Christ Church burial ground was in 1884. During the 20th century, however, the interment of ashes was made possible in cathedral grounds, first in the Columbarium built in 1955 and later in the memorial garden created on land abutting the Columbarium in 2006.

The area covered by the cemetery had originally been 1.2 hectares (3 acres) and unfenced, extending beyond King Street, but by 1884, it comprised just 0.40 hectares (1 acre). King Street formed its northern border, with a retaining wall between the street and the cemetery. With Christ Church no longer being used as a burial ground, the site was not well maintained. During the 1930s and 1940s there were attempts by the neighbouring landowners to use the area for other purposes. In the 1950s, debates about the burial ground intensified. The adjoining Newcastle Club wished to acquire it but had no success. The Newcastle City Council also wished to acquire the land and intended to develop it into a carpark.

Dismissing all these offers, Christ Church Cathedral arranged for the area to be re-fenced and to be cleared of weeds. The idea of making the area a rest park had been in existence since the 1870s and had been proposed again in 1951 by local historian William Goold. In 1966 the Christ Church Cathedral, Newcastle, Cemetery Act was passed, giving the majority of land to the council to be made into a public rest park. It also granted permission to remove headstones. Areas along the east, south and west boundaries of the ground were to remain the property of Christ Church Cathedral. In 1966, all legible tombstones were relocated to the eastern boundary of the park. The monument to James Hannell (the first Mayor of Newcastle) and his wife remained in its original location.