Wavell Heights Presbyterian Church is a heritage-listed church at 64 Spence Road, Wavell Heights, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by James William Gibson and built in 1966. It is also known as St Luke's Presbyterian Church. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 9 September 2022.
History Wavell Heights Presbyterian Church (1966), in Wavell Heights, Brisbane, is a pentagonal brick church set within a church complex with mature trees. Built in a post-war suburb, the modernist-style church resulted from the Presbyterian Church's post-war building program, and its desire to remain relevant to contemporary society. Its plan, lighting, and furniture arrangement were designed to give the congregation a sense of community and involvement in the service, through gathered worship.
Wavell Heights, part of the traditional land of the Turrbal people, is located west of Sandgate Road, north of Kedron Brook. Prior to the 1940s, most of the area was characterised by dairy farming and pineapple growing, although by 1917 there were some residential subdivisions. The area was known as West Nundah until a public poll in July 1941 selected the name Wavell Heights, after the British General (later Field Marshall) Archibald Percival Wavell. Wavell Heights was formally christened at a concert at the Imperial Theatre in Nundah in October 1941.Brisbane City Council Local Heritage Register, 'Hamlin's Nursery Residence, 35 Odonnell Street, Wavell Heights' Other naming options had included "Beverley Heights" or 'Inala'.'Renaming West Nundah', Courier Mail, 5 December 1940, p.48 chain map, Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board, sheet 24, 1917'Tram extensions. Kedron requests', Daily Mail, 8 October 1924, p.6 (West Nundah Progress Association)Department of Resources, aerial photographs ADA00085586 and ADA00085587, 20 April 1936'Wavell Heights tops suburban name poll' Courier Mail, 18 July 1941, p.9'Inala new name for W. Nundah', Sunday Mail, 15 December 1940, p.5). The suburb grew rapidly in the immediate post-World War II (WWII) era. Undeveloped land in Wavell Heights and neighbouring Chermside was acquired by the Queensland Housing Commission, on which by August 1947 it planned to build 450 houses. At the time, it was the commission's largest housing project, and it increased the population of Wavell Heights substantially.'Model planning in estate in Chermside', Courier Mail, 24 May 1947, p.5'Housing Aim at Wavell Heights' Courier Mail, 16 August 1947, p.1'Homes for hundreds', Courier Mail, 25 August 1947, p.5. The Wavell Heights Neighbourhood Society was formed in 1947, and later established a community centre on Edinburgh Castle Road. A non-official post office opened on 4 December 1950 in the premises of Mr CB Grace at the corner of Rode Road and Pfingst Road.National Archives of Australia, Item 5052226, "Post Office history file -Wavell Heights" including newspaper clipping 'It's as much a club as a suburb', Telegraph, 24 January 1970, p.8 Three schools, including a high school, opened in the late 1940s and 1950s. The suburb possessed several churches established in the 1930s, including the Nundah Presbyterian Church (built 1932, as at 2022, known as the Gateway Presbyterian Church), West Nundah Methodist Church (built 1938, as at 2002 known as Wavell Heights Uniting Church), the Catholic Church of St Pascal Baylon (built 1937), and the Holy Spirit Anglican Church (1904–06 building relocated in 1936). Post-WWII growth resulted in a timber Presbyterian church hall being opened on Spence Road in 1952.
The Presbyterian Church and the site at Wavell Heights The first Presbyterian congregation in Queensland had formed in 1849, and the first Presbyterian Church opened on Grey Street, South Brisbane, in 1851. Other Presbyterian churches opened in newly settled areas of Queensland, and in 1863 Queensland's Presbyterian congregations combined into a Synod and the Presbyterian Church of Queensland (PCQ) was formed. In 1865 three Presbyteries (covering multiple congregations) were formed: Brisbane (including Ipswich), Toowoomba (including Warwick), and Rockhampton (including Maryborough). The Presbytery of Maryborough was formed in 1870, Townsville in 1886, and Mackay in 1948. A union of Presbyterian Churches formed the Presbyterian Church of Australia in 1901.R Bardon, The Centenary History of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland, Brisbane, Presbyterian Church of Queensland, 1949, pp.9, 19-33 By 1954, the top four Christian denominations in the Metropolitan area of Brisbane were: the Church of England (34.33% of the population); followed by Catholic (24.35%); Presbyterian (10.74%); and Methodist (10.57%). Presbyterians also made up 11.7% of Queensland's population at this time.D Hilliard, "A Church on Every Hill: Religion in Brisbane in the 1950s", Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, vol.14, no.6, 1991, p.243'Census of the Commonwealth of Australia, 30th June 1954', Volume III, Part I, pp. 102-3, 124-5 In 1977, the Uniting Church in Australia was formed from most members of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational denominations, although a third of Presbyterian congregations remained in the Presbyterian Church of Australia.
Presbyterian congregations in Queensland were formed into charges, under a minister, and a charge could include one or more church congregations. Before a fully sanctioned charge was formed, "Home Mission" charges could be established by Home Missionaries. The expansion of Presbyterian charges in Queensland was mainly due to the Home Mission enterprise, which relied on missionaries and money sent from the Home Churches in Scotland and Ireland.Bardon, The Centenary History of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland, pp.139-40, 147-8. The Nundah Charge, which later covered Wavell Heights, held its first service in January 1932, and was a fully sanctioned charge by the end of 1935.Bardon, The Centenary History of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland, p.246.
The Spence Road site of the 1952 Presbyterian church was part of a undeveloped block that had been acquired by the PCQ for £4,500 in 1947. The site was originally intended to become an auxiliary hospital, connected to the planned St Andrews War Memorial Hospital in central Brisbane, but despite a cairn of remembrance being dedicated on the Wavell Heights site in September 1949, the auxiliary hospital did not proceed, and most of the land was subdivided for housing in 1972.'Wavell Heights land purchase', The Telegraph (Brisbane), 30 April 1947, p.10Resources, Certificate of Title 11794227, December 1929 (10 acres and 30 roods of portion 584 transferred to the Presbyterian Church of Queensland in October 1948)Resources, aerial BCC000134771, 31 May 1946'Presbyterian Hospital', Queensland Times (Ipswich), 16 May 1949, p.1'Aid for old in modern design', Courier Mail, 5 September 1949, p.4'Hospital to be for all', Sunday Mail, 11 September 1949, p.3'B'Bane Hospital with Country appeal', Queensland Country Life, 9 April 1953, p.24Resources, COT 13943155, 7 October 1966 (1972 subdivision). The cairn of remembrance (not extant) was unveiled on 10 September 1949.'Replica of cross on hospital site', Brisbane Telegraph, 8 September 1949, p.10 The St Andrews War Memorial Hospital was eventually established in 1958 on the site previously occupied by Emmanuel College on Wickham Terrace, Spring Hill, which had relocated to the St Lucia campus of the University of Queensland in 1956.
The auxiliary hospital plan had included a church, hall, and manse (house for a Presbyterian minister) in the northeast corner of the site, and this aspect of the project did proceed.'Aid for old in modern design', Courier Mail, 5 September 1949, p.4. The first meeting to form a Presbyterian congregation at Wavell Heights, chaired by the Reverend RJE Martin (the Minister of the Nundah Charge since 1942) was called by the Nundah Presbyterian Session on 27 January 1949. The use of of the hospital site for the Wavell Heights church buildings was later obtained from the Medical and Social Services Committee of the PCQ.'Church Progress Campaign, Presbyterian Church, Wavell Heights Q', booklet c.1957Bardon, The Centenary History of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland, p.246
The growth of Queensland's churches and the influence of Modernism, 1950s–60s The decision to build a Presbyterian church at Wavell Heights was part of wider trends in Brisbane during the 1950s–60s. The 1950s were a prosperous time in Queensland, with low unemployment and a growing sense of optimism. There was also renewed religiosity across most denominations throughout Queensland. In addition, the population of metropolitan Brisbane grew by 36% between 1950 and 1960, and new housing estates and new suburbs developed. There was a rapid increase in housing density to the west, south, and east of the intended Wavell Heights hospital site between 1946 and 1951, and to the north by 1958.'Brisbane, Australia Metro Area Population 1950-2022', The number of Presbyterian communicants in Brisbane also increased by 54% between 1947 and 1961, from 5351 to 8247; while Presbyterian Sunday School enrolments more than doubled in the same period, from 4201 to 9155. Between 1961 and 1966, the number of adult Presbyterian communicants rose 18% while Sunday School attendance dropped 1.5%.
This increase in communicants was accompanied by a marked improvement in church finances. In Brisbane, the total income of Presbyterian parishes rose from £96,000 in 1954 to £230,000 in 1960.Hilliard, "A Church on Every Hill: Religion in Brisbane in the 1950s", p.257. The financial position and building programme of the Wavell Heights congregation during the 1950s was assisted by the principle of "stewardship", or regular donations by churchgoers and the PCQ had set up its own Committee on Stewardship by the late 1950s. It was stated during the Wavell Heights Presbyterian Church's Church Progress Campaign that "Christian stewardship is the practice of the Christian religion, namely, systematic and proportionate giving of time, talents and material possessions, based on the conviction that they are a trust from God".'Church Progress Campaign, Presbyterian Church, Wavell Heights Q', booklet c.1957, p.3 In 1955, the American-based fund-raising firm, the Wells Organisation, had extended its operations to Queensland, with "planned giving" and "stewardship" being the new catchwords.Hilliard, "A Church on Every Hill: Religion in Brisbane in the 1950s", p.256