The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in Australia began with the arrival of seventeen-year-old missionary William James Barratt in 1840. The LDS Church's first baptism in Australia was in 1842 when Barratt baptised Robert Beauchamp, who would later become an Australian mission president. However, official missionary work did not begin until John Murdock, who became the first official mission president in Australia, and Charles Wandell established a mission in Sydney, Australia, on 31 October 1851. The colonies of New Zealand and Tasmania were added to the Australian Mission in 1854, creating the Australasian Mission. In 1898, however, the Australasian Mission was divided into the New Zealand Mission and the Australian Mission.

Due to many factors including the lack of missionary force, the vastness of the country, and the large scale emigration of church members in Australia throughout the nineteenth-century, the church grew slowly until the 1950s. Considered to be the turning point in the history of the LDS Church in Australia, church president David O. McKay visited Australia in 1955 and determined a need for more permanent buildings for congregations throughout Australia. In 1956, the chapel building program established 19 chapels within two years. The LDS Church in Australia began to grow at a more rapid rate after the 1950s. By 1960, there were over 7,000 LDS Church members in the country and the first Australian stake was organised in Sydney on 27 March 1960. The Sydney Australia Temple, the first temple in Australia, was dedicated and began operations in September 1984.

Membership count include everyone that have joined the church that are still living as well as unbaptised children, regardless of current affiliation (see Membership defined). , the LDS Church reported 165,272 members in 300 congregations in Australia which is the largest body of members and congregations in Oceania.

In the 2016 Australian census, 61,600 people self-identified as members of the LDS Church on an optional question.2016 Census of Population and General Community (Sheet G14) Australian Bureau of Statistics In the 2021 census, 57,868 people identified themselves as members of the church.

History

1840–1879: Beginnings The LDS Church was introduced into Australia when William Barratt emigrated from England to Adelaide in November 1840. At the age of seventeen, Barratt had been ordained an elder by George A. Smith, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who instructed him to proselyte whenever he could. Although the success of Barratt's proselyting efforts remains largely unknown, he did baptise Robert Beauchamp in 1842, who became the first Australian convert. Beauchamp would later become an Australian mission president. The next missionary in Australia was Andrew Anderson, who arrived with his family in 1842. By the end of 1844, Anderson had organised a small branch of the LDS Church with 11 members near Wellington, New South Wales. Official LDS missionary work did not begin until Americans John Murdock, who served as mission president, and Charles W. Wandell established a mission in Sydney on 31 October 1851.; They printed 2,000 copies of Proclamation to the People of the Coasts and Islands of the Pacific, which they successfully sold. They exerted their time and resources to proselyte using pamphlets and printed many others. It was calculated that Wandell and Murdock had distributed 24,000 tracts. Their initial proselyting strategy was preaching in public meetings, but they soon acquired a meeting hall. The earliest converts at the official opening of the mission were in December 1851. They included Emily and Joseph Popplewells, Bridget Gallimore, and nine others. The Sydney Branch, a small organised congregation of Latter-day Saints, was organised on 4 January 1852 with twelve members. By March, there were 36 members. Murdock and Wandell directed three church meetings each Sunday as well as five public proselyting meetings per week. After Murdock returned to the United States in June 1852, Wandell replaced him as mission president.

By the end of 1852, there were 47 members of the LDS Church. Wandell reported that missionary work was difficult because the recent gold rush had caused people to be suspicious about strangers. Additionally, Wandell reported that the locals disliked Americans, and the missionaries could not locate free food and lodging. However, the missionaries hosted well-attended church meetings every Sunday and proselyted five days a week. In 1852, there were five missionaries and two local members performing full-time missionary service and Maitland and Melbourne areas were opened for proselyting. By March 1853, church membership had reached 100. After the departure of Wandell, John Jones became mission president. Upon Wandell's departure, a Latter-day Saint periodical called Zion's Watchman was in publication from 13 August 1853 until April 1856. Despite the growth of the church in Australia, numbers of its members in the country dwindled. This was because the early LDS Church encouraged emigration to the United States to gather members together into a physical "Zion". Consequently, groups of LDS Church members began to leave Australia. From 1853 to 1859, more than 500 LDS Church members emigrated to Utah and around 200 to 300 members emigrated from 1859 to 1900. It was expensive and dangerous to travel to the United States from Australia by boat. When the boat Julia Ann hit a coral reef in the Society Islands in 1855, two women and three children drowned.

More missionaries arrived in 1853, with Augustus Farnham replacing Jones as mission president.; In 1854, missionary work was organised in New Zealand and Tasmania, leading to the creation of the Australasian Mission which included all of the territories in Australia and New Zealand. Missionary work was opened in Hunter River, Moreton Bay in Queensland, and Adelaide. At this time, missionaries experienced the greatest amount of success in southeastern Australia. Robert Owen initiated missionary work in Tasmania, but it was unsuccessful. By 1856, all missionaries had left Australia with church members emigrating to the United States. Absolom Dowdle became the new mission president. By the end of 1856, 16 missionaries had replaced the missionaries that left Australia. In 1858, due to the Utah War, missionaries left Australia to return home and fight in the war, leaving the local members in charge of ecclesiastical leadership of the small, church congregations. However, it did not last, and by 1863, leadership had been largely disbanded with the only 200 church members remaining in Australia, scattered across the country. Robert Beauchamp assumed the position of mission president in 1867, but the church was left in disarray when he resigned in 1874. During the first 18 months of Beauchamp's presidency, there had been over 150 baptisms. After Beauchamp resigned, William Geddes became mission president for a year. Elijah F. Peace became president of the Australasian Mission in 1879, moving headquarters to New Zealand.

1880–1954: Mission division and slow growth Beginning in 1857, missionary work in Australia was determined unsuccessful and the focus was turned to New Zealand. However, on 1 January 1898, the Australasian Mission was divided into the Australian Mission and the New Zealand Mission, allowing for more effort to be put into missionary work in Australia. Previously, from the 1860s until 1898, church leaders in Utah gave Australia little attention, and missionary work was not contiguous. There were three or four operating branches in Australia between 1879 and 1898. Andrew Smith was appointed the president of the new Australian mission. In 1890, the first converts were baptised in Brisbane and the East Brisbane Branch, the first branch in Brisbane, was organised on 1 September 1896. By 1898, it was not only the branch with the most complete leadership and organisation but also the largest in the country, with 79 members. By 1898, there were around 200 members in Australia and 21 missionaries in 1900. Because the LDS Church began encouraging church members to stay in their homelands rather than emigrate, church membership from 1910 to 1925 doubled from 600 to 1,169.

The first LDS chapel building in Australia opened on 4 December 1904 at 17 Gibbon Street, Woolloongabba in Brisbane; it remained in use until 3 August 1958, following the opening of a new meeting house at Kangaroo Point (since 2003, the site of the Brisbane Temple). During the first quarter of the century, growth in the LDS Church in Australia was slow. Despite the fact that the LDS Church reversed its emigration policy at the turn of the century, the policy remained culturally ingrained in the LDS Church for some time. Consequently, from 1900 to about 1925, around 15 church members emigrated from Australia each year. While missionary work in Australia was successful, there were too few missionaries in the country. Between 1910 and 1925, there was an average of 31 missionaries in the country. Generally, there were only four missionaries per district in Australia, and the vastness of the country made it difficult to travel from one side to another for conferences and visits with the mission president. Additionally, proselyting methods were underdeveloped with outdated teaching plans and the lack of challenges for interested individuals. Some missionaries believed that their most effective proselyting tool at the time was street meetings. Tracting was ineffective, and the Book of Mormon was rarely used as a proselyting tool. Moreover, due to World War I pulling men away from home to serve in the war, local congregations were left without sufficient leadership. Furthermore, the war caused the number of missionaries in Australia to be divided nearly in half.

Despite issues with circulating anti-Mormon literature, by 1923 the LDS Church was officially declared a "religious denomination" in Australia. In 1924, the Australian government allowed the LDS Church to raise the number of missionaries to 40. By 1925, church membership in Australia was around 1,200, with the largest congregation being in Sydney, consisting of about 300 members. Charles H. Hyde served as mission president from 1911 to 1913 and 1924 to 1928. During his second term, he sought to open new mission areas but found himself limited by the number of missionaries in the country.

Clarence H. Tingey succeeded Hyde as mission president, but during his presidency the number of missionaries in Australia declined due to the Great Depression in the United States. Sons and fathers were unable to leave their families during the difficult financial times. Despite these challenges, Tingey achieved great success by turning over leadership in individual congregations from missionaries to local members, which allowed missionaries to focus on proselyting rather than the administrative duties of local congregations. Moreover, Tingey developed a personal relationship with each missionary by exchanging letters and instituted fast days in order to distribute more copies of the Book of Mormon. He also established a missionary publication in 1930 called Austral Star, which was published until 1955. In 1930, Horace H. Woodford and J. Kenneth Rule were the first Australians to serve as missionaries in their country. Additionally, Tingey created genealogical organisations in 1931 to teach members about temple work and genealogical research. During this time, the average number of converts increased to 3.1 in 1931 with an average rate of 2.6 between 1933 and 1934. He also assigned 11 local members to serve two-year part-time missions to aid the full-time missionaries. From 1926 to 1951, church membership increased from 1,169 to 2,187 with an average of 58 baptisms per year.