The Baháʼí Faith has a long history in Australia. The first known mention of events related to the history of the religion was several reports in Australian newspapers in 1846. After sporadic mentions a turning point was a mention of Australia by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, the son of the founder of the religion, in 1916 following which United Kingdom/American emigrants John and Clara Dunn came to Australia in 1920. They found people willing to convert to the Baháʼí Faith in several cities while further immigrant Baháʼís also arrived.William Miller (b. Glasgow 1875) and Annie Miller (b. Aberdeen 1877) - The First Believers in Western Australia The Scottish Baháʼí No.33 – Autumn, 2003 The first Local Spiritual Assembly was elected in Melbourne followed by the first election of the National Spiritual Assembly in 1934.The Baháʼí Faith: 1844-1963: Information Statistical and Comparative, Including the Achievements of the Ten Year International Baháʼí Teaching & Consolidation Plan 1953-1963, Compiled by Hands of the Cause Residing in the Holy Land, pages 22 and 46. Iranian Baháʼís had first tried to emigrate to Australia in 1948 but were rejected as "Asiatic" by Australia's White Australia policy. Though the situation was eased in the 1960s and 70s, on the eve of Iranian revolution, in 1978, there were approximately 50-60 Persian Baháʼí families in Australia. Persians, including Baháʼís, arrived in number following the revolution. See persecution of Baháʼís in Iran. Since the 1980s the Baháʼís of Australia have become involved and spoken out on a number of civic issues - from interfaith initiative such as Soul Food to conferences on indigenous issues and national policies of equal rights and pay for work. Baháʼís in Australia include some well known people (see below - National exposure).
The 1996 Census had an optional question on religion that 74% of respondents answered, and of those, 8,947 indicated Baháʼí. The community was counted by census in 2001 to be about 11,000 individuals.A Practical Reference to Religious Diversity for Operational Police and Emergency Services "2nd" edition Census data from 2016 reported 13,988. The Association of Religion Data Archives (relying on World Christian Database) estimated some 19,365 Baháʼís in 2010.
Earliest history The first known mention of events related to the history of the religion was several reports in Australian newspapers in 1846: Morning Chronicle (later renamed) out of Sydney; 4 April South Australian out of Adelaide; 7 April South Australian Register out of Adelaide; 11 April
These were reprints of an 1845 article in the London Times which relied on Muslim reactions to the new religion. The next known news story covering events in Baháʼí history was in The Argus, 4 November 1850 in Melbourne which briefly mentions it. In 1853 there was an event with caused great suffering among the Babís (whom Baháʼís regard as spiritual precursors of their religion.) The Babís were blamed for an attempted assassination of the Shah of Persia. Recent scholarship has identified a fringe element distinct from all the major aspects of the religion, its community and leadership at the time, as actually being responsible.The Attempted Assassination of Nasir al Din Shah in 1852: Millennialism and Violence, by Moojan Momen, 2004-03-23 Nevertheless, coverage in newspapers at the time often echoed the Persian government's view blaming the Babís and Babís in large numbers were in fact executed as a result.* "English News; Punishments for assassination attempt", The Argus, p. 4 (last column on the far right, just down from the top), 21 Jan 1853 "From the Empire; Persia", Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser, p. 3 (third column at the bottom, or bottom of highlighted column), 29 January 1853 "English News to Oct 12", Daily Southern Cross, p.2, (at the bottom), 11 February 1853 "Miscellany", Daily Southern Cross, p. 4, (a bit up from the bottom), 22 February 1853 "Local Intelligence; How they punish treason in Persia, Hobart Tasmanian Colonial Times, p.2, (far right near top), 22 February
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's Tablets of the Divine Plan ʻAbdu'l-Bahá wrote a series of letters, or tablets, to the followers of the religion in the United States in 1916–1917; these letters were compiled in Tablets of the Divine Plan. The seventh and eighth of the tablets was the first to mention taking the Baháʼí Faith to Australia and was written on 11 and 19 April 1916, but was delayed in being presented in the United States until 1919 – after the end of World War I and the Spanish flu. These tablets were translated and presented by Mirza Ahmad Sohrab on 4 April 1919, and published in Star of the West magazine on 12 December 1919.
(Tablet 7) "The moment this divine Message is carried forward by the American believers from the shores of America and is propagated through the continents of Europe, of Asia, of Africa and of Australasia, and as far as the islands of the Pacific, this community will find itself securely established upon the throne of an everlasting dominion..., if some teachers go to other islands and other parts, such as the continent of Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, also to Japan, Asiatic Russia, Korea, French Indochina, Siam, Straits Settlements, India, Ceylon and Afghanistan, most great results will be forthcoming."
(Tablet 8) "The teachers traveling in different directions must know the language of the country in which they will enter.… In short, after this universal war, the people have obtained extraordinary capacity to hearken to the divine teachings, for the wisdom of this war is this: That it may become proven to all that the fire of war is world-consuming, whereas the rays of peace are world-enlightening.… Consequently, a number of souls may arise and … and hasten to all parts of the world, especially from America to Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia, and travel through Japan and China."
Establishment
In 1920 Englishman John Hyde Dunn, and his Irish wife, Clara, sailed to Australia from the United States where they each had emigrated, converted to the religion, met and married. They stopped briefly in Samoa along the way. They were first Baháʼís to set foot in Australia. In 1922 the first Australians joined the religion. They were Oswald Whitaker, a Sydney optometrist, and Effie Baker, a Melbourne photographer who were members of different metaphysical groups. News of John Esslemont's 1915 declaration of faith, and his forthcoming book Baháʼu'lláh and the New Era, had also spread to some of his associates, William and Annie Miller in Australia who then became Baháʼís in the 1920s. Melbourne Baháʼís elected their first Local Spiritual Assembly, the first one of all Australia, in 1923 mostly from single or widowed women. The community struggled to maintain itself for a number of years. The second assembly of Australia was elected in Perth in 1924. World traveling Martha Root spoke at many public meetings on a visit to Melbourne in 1924 and again in 1939. In 1925 Effie Baker left other Australian converts as well as a contingent from New Zealand for trip on pilgrimage where they stayed some 19 days and then visited with the community of the Baháʼí Faith in the United Kingdom. The news journal Herald of the South was begun publishing for New Zealand and Australia during their voyage out of Auckland (transferred publishing to Adelaide Australia in 1931 and then carried on by the national assembly from about 1945.) The Dunns and Martha Root also visited Hobart in Tasmania during which Gretta Lamprill converted and continued to sustain the religion on the island - eventually she was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly and later was named a Knight of Baháʼu'lláh together with Glad Parke, who travelled with her to the Society Islands (now French Polynesia) in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. During Roots subsequent visits each time the Baháʼí community grew in Tasmania.
Following a temporary move of Margaret Dixson to Sydney from Melbourne who helped elect the first local spiritual assembly of Sydney in 1925 (eventually Margaret Dixson, an early Esperantist pioneered to Brisbane, and Adelaide.) While many of the early converts refused to stay Baháʼís when pressed to leave their former associations many others did join the religion. By 1928 a list shows Australia with 6 local spiritual assemblies each with 9 members plus the general community.The Baháʼí World: A Biennial International Record, Volume II, 1926-1928 (New York City: Baháʼí Publishing Trust, 1928), 182-85. There was a 1929 notice in the Sydney Morning Herald of a talk on ʻAbdu'l-Bahá.
Expansion Soon Baháʼí groups sprang up around the country. By 1934 there were enough Baháʼís to elect a national governing body, the first National Spiritual Assembly of the Baháʼís of Australia and New Zealand. The delegates were: Robert Brown, Silver Jackman, Hilda Brooks; A.O. Whittaker, Hyde Dunn, Olive Routh; and from New Zealand Mrs. E. Axford, Ethel Blundell, and Margaret Stevenson. During the 1940s there was opposition published to the religion. The first secretary of the national assembly, Hilda Brooks, wrote many responses to various public attacks. For 6 weeks in 1943 the editor of the Mittagong Star entertained an exchange of letters to the editor between her and a Catholic priest and scholar who had chosen to describe the religion as an outgrowth of Islam. That same year the Sydney Morning Herald listed several talks by Baháʼís.*
In 1945 she responded to remarks of a former missionary to Iran, in Adelaide's Church Guardian. In 1957 New Zealand separated to form its own National Assembly. The National Assembly established the Baháʼí Quarterly publication in 1936. The first pioneer to reach New Caledonia was Australia's Margaret Rowling in early 1952. Lilian Wyss pioneered to Western Samoa from Australia in January 1954 leaving behind a position on the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia at the age of 24 while her brother, Frank Wyss, introduced the religion that year to the Cocos Island. For their service, Shoghi Effendi awarded both of them the accolade of Knight of Baháʼu'lláh. In 1955 Fred Murray of South Australia was among the first Aboriginal people to become a Baháʼí. Elizabeth Hindson was the first Indigenous Australian elected to serve as a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Australia. After decades of service in the Australian community, Collis Featherstone was distinguished by being appointed as a Hand of the Cause of God in 1957 (d.1990) and he and four other Hands were present at the first international conference hosted by the Australian Baháʼí community in March 1958 when almost 200 Baháʼís from 17 Baháʼí communities gathered: Iran, Pakistan, (S) Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, Tonga, New Guinea, Papua, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Cook Islands, Fiji, New Zealand, Formosa, and the United States. Part of the ceremonies carried out was the dedication of the Temple site.
Yerrinbool Baháʼí School