St James' Anglican Church is a heritage-listed Anglican church precinct at 19 Tank Street, Morpeth, City of Maitland, New South Wales, Australia. The original design was attributed to Edward Charles Close, with later additions by Edmund Blacket and John Horbury Hunt and built from 1837 to 1875 by Edward Charles Close and James Sherwood. The precinct also includes the St. James' rectory and parish hall (formerly schoolhouse). The property is vested in the trustees of church property for the Diocese of Newcastle. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 27 January 2017.
History
Pre- and post-contact aboriginal custodianship The place now called Morpeth, situated on the Hunter River some 29 water miles from Newcastle, appears to have been occupied by the Wonnarua (or Wanaruah) people, and to have been known to them as Illulong, Illalaung or Illullaung. They may have given the title Waywerryghein to the landing place that later evolved into Queen's Wharf, while the ridge to the south of the river may have been Baybeg. The Wonnarua seem to have called the river Coonanbarra. The site of West Maitland may have been called Boyen, while that of East Maitland may have been called Cooloogooloogheit.'Memorandum of E.C. Close', in Australian Town and Country Journal, 12 January 1878, p.8
European settlement The European settlement ultimately called Morpeth was privately founded in the early 1820s by Lieutenant Edward Charles Close. Morpeth, or Green Hills as it was then known, was at the time at the head of navigation for ocean-going vessels from Sydney and other ports proceeding up-river from Newcastle; and although vessels of lighter draught could navigate as far as Wallis Plains (also called Molly Morgan's, now known as Maitland), the distance by land was so much shorter than that by water as to give Green Hills the advantage as a landing place. Even after the completion of a road between Newcastle and Wallis Plains, the river remained the main artery of communication. Morpeth was the major port of the Hunter Region, New England and North-Western NSW. Until the 1880s it also served the Darling Downs in Queensland. The great majority of goods and passengers were handled at Morpeth, with the local customs house playing an important role. Wool was sometimes despatched direct to England, while large numbers of immigrants also passed through the port on their way up-country. Not until the introduction in 1889 of differential railway freight rates, which from 1901 deliberately made it cheaper to send wool to Sydney than to Morpeth or Newcastle, did the port begin to decline. This placated Sydney merchants; undercut coastal shipping; and helped to pay for the very expensive Homebush to Waratah railway (now part of the Main Northern line).
Lieutenant Close, a veteran of the Peninsular War of 1807–1814, was born in Rangamatti, Bengal, on 12 March 1790. He and his mother some seven years later removed to England, where at the age of 18 he joined the 48th (Northamptonshire) Regiment of Foot to defend his country against Napoleon Bonaparte. Having survived several significant engagements, including the great battles of Albuera and Talavera, in 1817 Close arrived in Sydney with a detachment of his regiment. In 1821, Close decided to sell his Commission and was promised 1,200 acres of land at the Illalaung, or Green Hills (now Morpeth).
Morpeth was a private town and long remained so. The failure by Sir Thomas Brisbane to reserve the site for a government town was condemned by John Dunmore Lang. In assuming control of so valuable a site, as well as much other land besides, Close had undoubtedly made the most of his military connections. These came under strain when, as a magistrate, he helped investigate the alleged murder of Aboriginal prisoners by a mounted force under the command of Lieutenant Nathaniel Lowe. Close so frustrated the enquiry that the Governor, Sir Ralph Darling, with whom Close had already clashed when Darling had tried to resume the site of Morpeth for inadequate compensation, suggested that Close resign as a magistrate. Close, much offended, acted on the suggestion, but maintained an undiminished reputation throughout the colony; yet his role in the Lowe affair, one of considerable importance in the legal history of NSW, and particularly with regard to the question of the rights of Aboriginal people before the law, pending further research must remain controversial.
The first subdivision (1834) of the township of Morpeth, situated on an east–west ridge overlooking the river, allowed Close to donate land on both sides of the intersection of High Street and Tank Street. Here would eventually be built a church, rectory (in those days often called a parsonage), stone-built parish schoolhouse and schoolteacher's house. The church and parish schoolhouse, sited so as to form a focal point and entry for the embryonic township when viewed from the approach roads from all four cardinal directions, and no doubt to enable the identification of the township much in the style of an English village, were paid for by Close, while the rectory was partly paid for by him. Conrad Martens' 1841 sketch of Morpeth demonstrates the success of Close's vision. Close was himself a capable artist whose paintings and sketches, once attributed to Sophia Campbell, are held in the National Library of Australia. By way of preparation, Close had built a two-storied temporary schoolhouse-cum-chapel some little distance to the east. Not long after the establishment in 1862 of the government-sponsored Morpeth National School, the parish school closed; the building was then used as the parish hall.
The local population was small, hardly requiring a church; Close, however, believed that a village must have a place of worship. In addition, he had a very personal reason for the establishment of a local place of worship: the satisfaction of an oath, made during the Battle of Albuera (May 1811) with his comrades falling on every side, that if his life were spared he would one day build a Church to the Glory of God. In January 1837 the foundation stone was laid by Edward Close Jnr., the 13-year-old son of E. C. Close. It is probable that the building was in fact designed by E. C. Close, who as military engineer at Newcastle had undertaken some important harbour and other works, including the designing of a house for the keeper of the coal-fired harbour beacon. Close's skill in designing this extraordinary structure, reminiscent of his place of birth, proves his architectural skill, while his clear pride and interest in St. James' is suggestive. It is, however, also possible that the church was designed by Lieutenant Thomas Owen, who like Close had experience as Government engineer at Newcastle, and had designed St Thomas' Anglican Church (1828) at Port Macquarie. In December 1840 the church was consecrated by Bishop William Broughton under the patronage of St. James. By this time Close had dedicated land some distance to the south of the church for use as the St. James' graveyard. This was later expanded to provide for Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist and non-denominational burials.
In 1848 Bishop William Tyrrell, first Bishop of Newcastle, arrived from England via Sydney, and took advantage of Close's ready hospitality in using Morpeth as a base for his first efforts within the newly created Diocese of Newcastle. So convenient did he find the locality, and so superior did he think the modest St. James' to his Cathedral, the larger but tumbledown convict-built Christ Church Cathedral high on the hill at Newcastle, that he chose Morpeth for his place of residence, effectively making it the centre of the diocese. This centrality persisted during Tyrrell's lifetime, as it was to do until the partial completion of the first stage of Christ Church Cathedral in 1902 and the 1920s relocation of the bishops to Newcastle.
Tyrrell initially lived in the St. James' Rectory; and it may have been at this time that, as argued by Stuart Read of the Garden Historical Society of Australia, he planted in its grounds a still-extant camellia bush from John Macarthur's Camden Park. Tyrrell later moved to E.C. Close's nearby home, called Closebourne,SHR No 5045646 renamed as the Bishop's Palace and afterwards as Bishopscourt. In the 1890s, Bishop George Henry Stanton planted an avenue of trees providing a visual link between the house and the church. The rectory grounds originally included a paddock for the parson's horse. Much of this area was later sold, considerably reducing the extent of the property.
Close's influence on St. James' was reflected in other ways also, such as the dedication of a prominent marble wall monument to his friend Captain Rinaldo Sheberras (originally Sceberras) of the 80th Regiment of Foot (Staffordshire Volunteers), one of several officers and other ranks who fell in capturing one of the black standards of the Nihang (Akali) Sikh warriors at the Battle of Ferozeshah during the Anglo-Sikh war of 1845-1846. This standard now hangs in Lichfield Cathedral, Staffordshire. Close most probably contributed to the wall monument, and is known to have bestowed the parish schoolhouse (1849), now the parish hall.
The church as originally built was too small to accommodate a growing population, and was also less than suitable for the High Church ecclesiology to which Bishop Tyrrell subscribed. This led to the engagement in the early 1860s of architect Edmund Blacket, who designed a chancel and vestry, joined to the existing nave via a high chancel arch. This work, including the introduction of a carved stone pulpit and font, both designed by Blacket, was completed in 1862. The sandstone pulpit, a replica of the 13th-century example in Beaulieu Abbey, Hampshire, where Tyrrell had formerly been parish priest, was carved by Maitland stonemason Daniel Yeates from Blacket's copy of measured drawings in 'Weale's Quarterly Papers' (1844), an English journal. Joan Kerr describes it as "really something special", and "one of the glories of the church". Like Blacket's later design for the Pulpit of St Thomas' Anglican Church, North Sydney, a variant on that of St. James', it was corbelled, in this case out of the east wall of the nave. As distinct from that of St. Thomas', the pulpit of St. James' was able to be entered only from the vestry, a quite unusual feature. In this, as well as in its exquisite detail, the pulpit demonstrates the Anglo-Catholic aspirations of Tyrrell, as well as the very close interest that this exceedingly busy and resilient man took in St. James'. The Yeates family was also responsible for the font and pulpit of St. Paul's West Maitland. In 1864, pews of local cedar, with elaborately carved ends, were installed, replacing the original enclosed pews. The bench-ends are of some interest, being typical of Blacket's earlier practice, as by the 1870s he was already beginning to embrace much simpler pew designs. The pulpit, font and pews also demonstrate Blacket's considerable interest in furniture design as a reflection of his preferred High Church ecclesiology, an ideal to which he was able to give full expression in the "High Church" Diocese of Newcastle, as distinct from the constraints of the Diocese of Sydney, always predominantly "low church" but in those days still recognisably Anglican.