Baptists in Australia
© David Parker Jan 2000
General Baptists in Australia
British Baptists who migrated to Australia came from a variety of
churches and they usually settled happily into the churches they found in their
adopted land.
Noted General Baptist leader, Rev John Clifford made a successful
visit to Australia in 1897
Robert Pike, a great-great grandson of Rev J.G. Pike (d. 1854),
long time secretary of the General Baptist Missionary Society of UK, lives in
Brisbane.
Only a few ministers who served in Australia can be identified as being
General Baptist.
One of these was Rev
Thomas Deacon, from the General Baptist Church at Bourne, Lincs. who
arrived in Queensland in 1851. He was the first minister of the United
Congregational Church at Ipswich and then founding minister and benefactor of
Ipswich ‘General’ Baptist Church. (He does not appear to be related to the
famous General Baptist family of Deacons of Leicestershire)
A General Baptist Association was formed in Ipswich in 1870 which the
founders noted was just 100 years after the formation of the New Connexion of
General Baptists in London. The Queensland Associaton included English, German
and Welsh speaking churches.
This was the first attempt at Association (Union) life in Queensland,
but was shortlived - the Baptist Association (now Union) of Queensland was
formed in 1877.
A newspaper report of the formation of the General
Baptist Association
Another General Baptist minister was Wiliam Taylor, who trained at the Nottingham College and served in
Leicestershire, Stoke on Trent and Leeds. He arrived in NSW in 1877; after ministry
at Balmain, NSW, and later in Queensland, he became President of the NSW Union
in 1880-81.
Other ministers, such as B.G. Wilson in Brisbane, held beliefs broadly
compatible with the General Baptist position.
Despite the Particular Baptist background of most Australian Baptist
churches, the overall trend was towards General Baptist characteristics of
belief and organization including the important role of the denomination. This
is the position which now predominates.
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