02 "Busy for Both Worlds’: John Fairfax as a Leading Evangelical Layman

Stuart Johnson

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Lucas 27-8 (2000) 41-63.

‘Busy for Both Worlds’:

John Fairfax as a Leading Evangelical Layman

Part 1

Stuart Johnson*

Introduction

To study the life of John Fairfax (1805-1877) is a most rewarding experience. As senior proprietor of the Sydney Morning Herald, Fairfax was involved in all of the great social, economic, political and religious issues of his generation. And today, nearly one hundred and twenty five years after his death, the name of John Fairfax still figures prominently on the Australian commercial scene. Though best remembered as Australia’s first press baron, Fairfax was also a leading evangelical layman deeply committed to the prosperity of evangelical Christianity and civic Protestantism. He described his life mission as to ‘work on, in the world and in the church’¹ and spoke of being ‘busy for both worlds’.² The purpose of this series of three articles is to highlight the nature of Fairfax’s religious beliefs and activities.³ This is valuable for several reasons. In the first instance, it makes a contribution to the robust debate within Australian historiography regarding the place and

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importance of religious belief in Australian society.⁴ Secondly, Fairfax was a laymen and it is widely conceded that most studies of religious belief and practice in Australian have been overly institutional and clerical in focus.⁵ Thirdly, not only has the importance of religion been marginalized in Australian history, but evangelicalism, particularly Dissenting or Nonconforming evangelicalism, has been among the most neglected, misunderstood and negatively stereotyped expressions of religious belief in both Britain⁶ and Australia.⁷

The series of three articles begins here with a biographical sketch of the life of this famous Australian. This is followed by a (brief) literature review and comment about Fairfax’s religious heritage. Then the study of his religious beliefs is broadly structured around the helpful quartet of evangelical distinctives identified by David Bebbington, viz: ‘conversionism’; ‘activism’; ‘biblicism’; and ‘crucicentrism’.⁸ The first article examines Fairfax’s life in relation to the first evangelical distinctive, ‘conversionism’. The second article deals with the extraordinary nature of evangelical ‘activism’ and how this was exemplified in the life of John Fairfax. The third article discusses Fairfax and ‘biblicism’ and ‘crucicentrism’ and then considers ‘Fairfax and the Victorian Crisis of Faith’. Due to Fairfax’s involvement with the influential Pitt Street Congregational Church, the character and mission of that church figures prominently in each article.

Biographical Sketch

In the writing of Australian history, the life and achievement of John Fairfax, newspaper proprietor, deacon and philanthropist, has been largely overlooked. Born in Warwick, England, to dissenting evangelicals William and Elizabeth Fairfax on 24 October 1805,⁹ he completed an apprenticeship as a bookbinder and printer before spending two years in London as a printer and typesetter. He returned to Warwick in 1827 and married childhood friend Sarah Reading. They settled in nearby Leamington Spa and over the next ten years helped establish an Independent chapel where Fairfax was a deacon and Sunday School superintendent. During this time John worked in a variety of self-employed ventures, most notably his first newspapers, the Leamington Spa Sketchbook in 1828, and (from 1835) the Leamington Chronicle and Warwickshire Reporter. Costs incurred from the successful defence of libel

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action against him bankrupted Fairfax with the result that he and his family migrated to Sydney in 1838. Arriving with only £10 (half of which he won in the ship’s sweepstake predicting the arrival date), Fairfax worked as a librarian for the Australian Subscription Library (which later became the State Library of NSW) and combined this as he was able with typesetting for the Sydney Herald and the Commercial Journal.¹⁰ The Fairfaxes settled into the Pitt Street Congregational Church where Fairfax became a founding deacon in 1845. In 1841 Fairfax and Herald reporter Charles Kemp were assisted to buy the Herald from Frederick Stokes, primarily by friends of Fairfax at the Pitt Street church. Warding off able challengers in the form of the James Macarthur-backed Australian in the 1840s and Henry Parkes’ Empire in the 1850s, the (from 1842) Sydney Morning Herald became the benchmark for colonial journalism. In 1853 Fairfax bought out Kemp, and in 1854 John West — Congregational minister, historian, and anti-transportation activist — joined him as editor of the Herald. West and Fairfax enjoyed an intimate commercial and spiritual alliance lasting until West’s death in 1872. By 1856 Fairfax had been joined by eldest sons Charles and James, forming John Fairfax and Sons. Lasting five generations until 1990, Australia’s greatest entrepreneurial dynasty had begun.

Boosted by the discovery of gold, the Herald by 1856 had a daily circulation of 6,600, a figure exceeded in the British Empire by only the Times and Telegraph of London. Indeed, Fairfax was able favourably to contrast the Herald with gold, saying the ‘Herald is the best mine’.¹¹ Such was his success, that Fairfax may rightly be described as Australia’s first press baron as senior proprietor of the Sydney Morning Herald and Sydney Mail (founded in 1860). Within Australian historiography, the Herald of Fairfax’s period is usually described, without qualification, as ‘conservative’¹² (even ‘Tory’). Such descriptions are inadequate and stem largely from a confounding of support for manhood suffrage in the 1850s, which the Herald opposed, with liberalism.¹³ It also reveals a failure to contextualise adequately colonial politics within a British framework. In reality, and consistently with

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Fairfax’s independent evangelicalism, the Herald was a steady exponent of classical liberalism. It abhorred state interference, such as state aid to churches or trade tariffs, and witheringly denounced proposals to introduce legislation enforcing temperance and Sabbath Observance. In contrast, it supported calls for voluntary moral renewal, self-improvement and national schooling; championed the anti-transportation movement; and sounded a near lone voice in defence of the rights of Chinese workers assaulted in the Lambing Flat riots of 1861. A high regard for Fairfax within Sydney’s commercial community (and respect for the influence of the Herald!) was amply demonstrated. He was a foundation director of the AMP Society in 1849 (Chairman, 1859);¹⁴ a director of the Sydney Insurance Co, NSW Marine Insurance Co, Australian Joint Stock Bank, Pyrmont Bridge Co, and Australian Gaslight Co; and a Trustee of the Savings Bank of NSW. Late in life he was appointed to the Council of Education (1871) and the Legislative Council (1874).

Though they enjoyed much commercial success and personal happiness, John and Sarah Fairfax also knew real personal grief. A son, Richard, died in infancy in 1839, and both their eldest son, Charles (in 1863, aged 34), and only daughter, Emily (in 1871, aged 40), were both tragically killed in accidents. Part of a close network of Nonconformist businessmen, Fairfax was untiring in his support of Christian mission, serving on a host of committees and giving generously of his wealth. As well as being a deacon at the Pitt Street Congregational Church, Fairfax was a teacher and superintendent of the Sunday School and involved in several of the churches’ many societies as well as playing a leading role in the development of Congregationalism throughout the colonies. Consistent with the evangelicalism of his period, Fairfax was concerned for the success of non-sectarian endeavours. In 1840-41 (prior to his ownership of the Herald), Fairfax edited The Temperance Advocate¹⁵ on behalf of the Temperance Society which, along with many early temperance groups, advocated moderation rather than teetotalism (as did the Herald). He was also the foundation president of the YMCA in NSW;¹⁶ a key

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supporter of the Sydney Ragged Schools movement and the London Missionary Society; and was involved in promotion of the arts, adult education and other philanthropic endeavours, including support for prominent Catholic social reformer Caroline Chisholm.¹⁷ He built ‘Ginahgulla’, a fine home on Bellevue Hill (today part of the Scots College), where he entertained leading inter-colonial and British visitors, and which became a synonym for hospitality. A man of broad association, Fairfax was a personal friend of Sir Henry Parkes,¹⁸ the poet Henry Kendall,¹⁹ and artist Adelaide Ironside.

On 12 August 1875, Sarah Fairfax died. John wrote in his diary:

calmly and peacefully my precious wife entered into Rest. Our married life commenced July 31, 1827. A happy and fine union of 48 years and twelve days.²⁰

Earlier he wrote to son James (then in England):

your mother is now growing weaker. The calm evening of life, with its beautiful exhibition of cheerful trust in Christ, may be nearer than we suppose.²¹

Nearly two years later, on 16 June 1877, John Fairfax himself died. A few days earlier he had said, “I am looking up. I am going home.”²² A massive funeral bore testimony to his life and faith. His descendants, particularly son Sir James Fairfax (1834-1919, knight bachelor 1898), Miss Mary Fairfax (1858-1945), Sir Warwick Fairfax (1901-1987), Mrs Caroline Simpson (1930- ) and Mr James Fairfax (1933- ), became significant patrons of the fine arts and community groups while the Family Foundation established by Sir Vincent Fairfax (1909-1993) exemplifies the philanthropic legacy of John Fairfax. An ever-growing success in the twentieth century, John Fairfax and Sons became a public company in 1956 with the family retaining a controlling interest. In the late 1980s it imploded during the attempt of Warwick Fairfax (1960- ) to establish control. However, a strong Fairfax presence on the Australia media scene remains through brothers John (1942- ) and Timothy Fairfax (1946-) of Rural Press Ltd.

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Literature Review

Despite his status as the ‘father of Australian journalism’²³ Fairfax has never been the subject of detailed historical analysis. Particularly lacking is academic reflection on Fairfax and the Herald in relation to colonial and British evangelicalism, conservatism, liberalism and democracy. The most comprehensive work on John Fairfax is contained in Chapters 1 and 2 of Gavin Souter’s group history of John Fairfax and Sons, Company of Heralds. It provides a most accomplished survey of the life of Fairfax as it pertained to the Herald and provides an excellent springboard into a fuller treatment of Fairfax. The only biographical work on Fairfax is The Story of John Fairfax, compiled by Fairfax’s great-grandson John F Fairfax (1904-1951). It contains much useful information and was based upon oral history provided by Fairfax’s granddaughter, Miss Mary Fairfax. However, published as it was to express Fairfax-family appreciation and honour for John Fairfax on the centenary of his ownership of the Herald, it (unsurprisingly) tends toward hagiography. The voluminous A Century of Australian Journalism, published by John Fairfax and Sons in 1931, furnishes many details regarding the Herald’s managerial, editorial, and mechanical evolution. However, A Century is primarily a work of description rather than analysis and its commentary on the person and contribution of John Fairfax is limited.

These three works form the backbone of published material regarding the life and activities of John Fairfax. It is striking to note that all were commissioned or produced by John Fairfax and Sons. This forms the most eloquent testimony to the lack of interest of Australian historians not only in John Fairfax but the entire Fairfax dynasty.²⁴ Fortunately, the slight consideration of John Fairfax and the Herald does not stem from a paucity of primary sources. In addition to the Herald, which alone constitutes a vast historical repository, substantial and important sources are held at the Mitchell Library, Sydney.²⁵

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Religious Heritage

John Fairfax’s mother, Elizabeth, was the dominant figure in the home and greatly influenced the religious outlook of her son, John, and grandson, Sir James Reading Fairfax. Elizabeth Fairfax (nee Jesson) was from a Dissenting family in Birmingham and upon her marriage to William Fairfax convinced him to leave the Established Church for the Dissenting Chapel. Widowed in 1835, she emigrated with John and Sarah Fairfax in 1838 and lived with them in Sydney until her death in 1861 (aged 84). Her grandson James noted her influential faith in his (unpublished) family history. He wrote that ‘Grandma Fairfax’ had an accident in 1861 and “lingered in patience and in faith in that Redeemer she had loved and served for over seventy years”.²⁶ Elsewhere, James noted she had been a “woman of strong religious convictions... [and]... exercised a strong influence on her son John, and [that] it was her teaching, and inheriting her strong character, that led to his success in life and in placing her sons and grandsons where they are”.²⁷

Fairfax’s early religious instruction was sustained during his apprenticeship with Master and family friend and fellow chapel-goer William Perry. While in London (1825-1827) Fairfax spent Sundays “attending the various places of worship where the most celebrated preachers were to be heard”.²⁸ From 1827 to his move to Sydney in 1838 he was a leading figure at the new Clemens Street Independent Chapel (later the Spencer Street Independent Chapel). Fairfax was a foundation deacon, lay-preacher and Sunday School superintendent. His departure from Leamington in 1838 was memorable. James Fairfax claimed that “many years after his departure many young people spoke with trembling voices of the day John Fairfax left Leamington”.²⁹ The official farewell took place on 1 May 1838, two days before their departure for London. At this event, the teachers of the Sunday School made an address to their departing superintendent, which included:

We remember your prayers, how earnest! how ardent!
When pleading with God for his mercy and grace:-
The lambs of the flock you entreated most fervent,

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Might share in the blessings of sovereign grace.
We remember your pious and anxious addresses,
The children to bring unto Jesus their Lord,
You warned them of hell, and you told them of heaven,
You directed their minds unto God’s holy Word.

And rather poignantly in view of the arduous and risky journey which lay ahead:

The God of Great Britain is God of the waters,
He’s God of the far land to which you are bound;
He rules o’er the tempest, he rescues from dangers:-
A sparrow without Him falls not to the ground.³⁰

Evangelical Distinctives: ‘conversionism’

Regarding the more peculiar characteristics of evangelicalism, prominent historian of British evangelicalism, David Bebbington, suggests there are “four qualities that have been the special marks of evangelical religion: conversionism, the belief that lives need to be changed; activism, the expression of the gospel in effort; biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible; and what may be called crucicentrism, a stress on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross”.³¹

The most basic emphasis within an evangelical understanding of ‘conversion’ was the personal nature of faith. Every individual needed to see and feel their need of Christ and repent from sin and take hold of the hope offered in the gospel. All evangelicals loved the drama of dramatic or crisis experience conversions. An archetypal dramatic evangelical conversion was that of slave-trading captain John Newton in a storm at sea in 1748. Newton subsequently became an Anglican minister and is best remembered for his hymnody which included “Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound” and “Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken, Zion, City of Our God”. While many Methodists and the revivalist tradition of the mid-late nineteenth century were keen on being able to place conversion with a particular experience or moment in time, most evangelicals accepted either a ‘gradualist’ or a ‘crisis’ route to conversion.³² For example, William Jay, the prominent English Independent minister at Bath (and known to Fairfax), claimed in his autobiography that he had no “distinct and unique experience”

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of conversion.³³ For most evangelicals how one came to believe was secondary to the sincerity and fruit of that belief.³⁴

Bebbington also notes that “conversion was bound up with major theological convictions”.³⁵ Of these, two were of particular significance, the doctrine of justification by faith and the doctrine of assurance. The evangelical doctrine of justification by faith was consistent with that laid out by the Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century and as such exemplifies evangelicalism’s debt to, and reaffirmation of, Reformational and Puritan theology. However, it was evangelicalism’s new emphasis on assurance which set it apart from earlier forms of Protestantism.

Evangelicalism proposed that a natural result of the doctrine of justification by faith was for believers ordinarily to possess from their conversion a robust assurance of salvation. Jonathan Edwards, whose ministry in New England sparked the great evangelical awakening in the 1730s, admitted to much opposition to the way in which he encouraged his new converts to feel assured of their salvation. He wrote in 1736

I have been much blamed and censured by many, that I should make it my practice, when I have been satisfied concerning persons’ good estate, to signify it to them ... I have thought it my duty, as a pastor, to assist and instruct persons in applying scripture-rules and characters to their own case ... and I have, where the case appeared plain, used freedom in signifying my hope of them to others.³⁶

In contrast, Puritanism had laid the emphasis on a more searching, introspective approach to assurance, which was usually rare or attained late in one’s Christian experience.³⁷ Among evangelicals, “self-examination still had a part but most expected the process to yield a positive result”.³⁸ The most dramatic result of the new trust in religious experience and assurance of salvation was a liberation from self-doubt. Bebbington describes the impact of the new emphasis on assurance as follows:

Those who knew their sins were forgiven were freed from debilitating anxieties for Christian mission ... The activism of

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the evangelical movement sprang from its strong teaching on assurance... ³⁹

If that was the effect of the new doctrine of assurance, what then of its origin? Bebbington identifies the freshly applied doctrine of assurance as an outworking of the Enlightenment emphasis on empiricism. The new assurance “was a product of the new age about the validity of experience. The evangelical version of Protestantism was created by the Enlightenment.”⁴⁰ The new confidence in experience led evangelicals to describe Christianity as “experiential religion”.⁴¹ Central to Bebbington’s thesis is the suggestion that Jonathan Edwards — the most distinguished revivalist, theologian and philosopher of evangelicalism — developed a religious epistemology grounded upon the philosophy of John Locke. Bebbington describes “the philosophy of John Locke” as the “greatest motor of change” behind the “culture shift in the English-speaking world ... from the baroque era to the Enlightenment”.⁴² For Edwards knowledge gained from the senses was certain and could be relied upon, including the knowledge of God. He called the additional ‘sense’ through which the knowledge of God came the ‘new sense’. Repentance and faith, he held, led to a changed life, and this was a reliable indicator of true spiritual life. Assurance was therefore reasonable. Consequently, wherever heartfelt repentance and faith were present it was the absence of assurance which became less than reasonable. People had always sought religious certainty and the translation of Lockean confidence in experience into the realm of popular religious experience by Edwards, John Wesley and others provided it. Contrary to a view which makes reason inherently antithetical to religion, early evangelicals stressed the importance of reason in and to religion. Wesley argued that to “renounce reason is to renounce religion, that religion and reason go hand in hand, and that all irrational religion is false religion”.⁴³ MJD Roberts has suggested that in Bebbington’s scholarship “Wesley and Wilberforce ... gain reinstatement to their rightful intellectual context of Enlightenment preoccupation with the ‘evidence of experience’”.⁴⁴ In view of the vast realm of ideas it draws upon (such as the relationship

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between evangelicalism and the Enlightenment), Bebbington’s thesis warrants ongoing reflection. However, it does offer a cogent explanation as to why assurance of salvation became commonplace within evangelicalism. Assurance was not a new idea but rather an idea whose time had come (which, of course, begs the question as to why its time came when it did). And Bebbington’s emphasis on the new place of assurance and its liberating effect also offers an explanation for the astounding activism of evangelicalism, from the Sunday School movement, the prolific growth of voluntary societies and the massive commitment to worldwide mission (formerly a neglected sphere of Protestantism).

John Fairfax and ‘conversionism’

There is nothing to suggest that John Fairfax ever departed from the faith and instruction of his childhood. The early influences of home, chapel and his Master, William Perry, appear to have been strong and persuasive.⁴⁵ So it is not surprising that there is no evidence of a ‘crisis’ experience culminating in a dramatic conversion. However, as with many raised within an earnest religious tradition, in young adulthood Fairfax affirmed his ‘inherited’ faith. During his first taste of independence in London (1825-27), Fairfax prayed:

I do humbly hope that there is one spark of divine grace and love even in my poor and cold and hard heart, and it is my earnest prayer that that spark may be fanned into a pure flame of unquenchable love to the great and ever blessed Redeemer. This is what I want. I have been taught to lisp the praise of my Maker while an infant, told repeatedly that nothing but religion could possibly make me happy... that if I ever lived and died without Christ I should be miserable to all eternity ... humbly I would beseech Thee to grant, O God, that this desire and thirst after the eternal good which Thou hast to bestow may continue as long as life remains.⁴⁶

His prayer was answered. Fairfax enjoyed an assured and confident Christian faith for the remainder of his life. The constancy of his faith certainly left its mark on unofficial ‘biographer’, second son James. Based upon diary entries of sermon

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texts maintained until he last worshipped at the Pitt Street Congregational Church on 8 April 1877, James noted that his father (barring ill-health, travel or bad weather) was never absent “from the House of God morning or evening on Sunday for about fifty-five years”.⁴⁷ James continued:

When about 19 or 20 years of age he made up his mind as to his faith, the simple faith of Jesus Christ as his Redeemer, which he learned from his mother first of all, and then as he grew to young manhood and thought for himself he still trusted and believed in the saving and redeeming love of Jesus and put aside doubt and when he became an old man of 72 and was asked some question about his faith by some friend who did not know him enough, about his state of mind, said with some warmth, “That was settled more than 50 years ago”.

Elsewhere, James Fairfax wrote that his father in London had

commenced a steady persevering course, guided by the influences of his faith in the Master which he held from youth to old age. The faith that in the sorest trials and the severest temptations never deserted him.⁴⁸

A steadfast assurance of faith and emphasis on the need for conversion is well illustrated in the spiritual concern of John and Sarah Fairfax for their children. They consistently encouraged their children to consider the state of their spiritual health and commitment to Christ. On the occasion of his fiftieth birthday in 1855, Fairfax was presented by his children (and spouses) with a beautiful and expensive gift, plus a letter expressing their love for him and respect for his sacrificial labour in establishing the Herald. John Fairfax responded to this with a letter of his own which emphasized a blend of conversionism and crucicentrism, and in which he implored:

We are all travelling on. Time is ever on the wing. Some of you have decided for Christ, and are fellow-pilgrims to Zion. All of you are hopeful. But I beseech you, suffer nothing to stand in the way of an early surrender of the spring-time of your existence to Him, who is both able and willing to save.⁴⁹

Sarah Fairfax wrote many letters to her son James, then

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twenty years of age, while he was visiting England in 1854-55.⁵⁰ These letters reveal much about the household piety of the Fairfaxes and are outstanding illustrations of mid-century evangelical piety. Her longing for her son, at times expressed in the plural referring to his father John Fairfax, included:

I cannot ask for you a richer gift than a new heart ... Oh my dearest James think serious of the importance of true personal piety ... you do not know ... who he may call up to give an account at the bar of God ... I entreat you my dearest James to go to Jesus ... he is waiting to receive you and to bless you. Nothing could give your dear father and myself such true pleasure as to know you have an interest in these things that will make for your eternal peace.⁵¹

... our earnest prayer for you is that God in his mercy will hear the prayer that you may in truth feel Christ is the one thing needful, then you will ... feel him to be precious to your soul, and he will guide you by his holy spirit ... O that early piety may be your choice, give your best days to your redeemer’s cause ...⁵²

May it be our great desire to secure those lasting treasures which Christ alone can bestow and if in our possession no one can take from us.⁵³

There is also no doubt that a characteristic evangelical concern for conversion was central to the life and mission of the Pitt Street Congregational Church. Fairfax wrote a history of the Pitt Street Independent Chapel in April 1840 in which he accounts for the beginnings of Independency in Sydney. Much of it is a faithful copying of ‘official documents’ but at one point Fairfax describes in his own words those who in the early 1830s had organized themselves to form an Independent church. After listing their names, he described their fitness to form such an evangelical society in the following terms:

These individuals having all been members of Christians Churches in England, and entertaining the belief that they had each and all undergone that change of heart and character, and that they professed that genuine Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Saviour of the World, and that they all received the Holy Scriptures as the rule of faith and practice ... mutually pledged themselves, that, by the assistance of Divine grace, they would

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observe the laws and ordinances of Christ, and that they would live together in love and holiness, and unite for the promotion of the Divine Glory in every way in their power.⁵⁴

The Rev Dr Robert Ross was pastor at Pitt Street 1840-1856. His remarkable life included missionary service in Russia (1818-1825) for which he received an award from the Czar for his work during a cholera outbreak. Ross spoke in stark and passionate terms of the need for conversion at the funeral service of Mrs Louisa Foss in 1853:

What is a man if he is not converted? His sins are unpardoned, his soul continues in a state of spiritual death ... and if in this state he should die, the mansions of woe must become the place of his eternal residence; he must remain a guilty, condemned, degraded, and wretched being forever.⁵⁵

Ross added that conversion is thus the “one thing more necessary”. David Jones the retailer (1793-1873) — the other enduring name of Fairfax’s circle, a fellow deacon and probably Fairfax’s closest friend — echoed the need of conversion in a letter to his married daughter Eliza Ross (a daughter-in-law of Robert Ross) in 1849:

May it indeed have been a time in which you were able to give your heart to the Lord, to serve him in the Gospel of his love the remainder of your days. I know that nothing but the Divine Spirit can lead a soul to make the momentous choice to decide for the Lord ... Yet it is your duty to seek it ... We only want a Heart to seek the Lord, then he will be found of us, and that to our salvation.⁵⁶

Jones’ emphasis on the Holy Spirit’s role in spiritual formation is typical of the moderate Calvinism of early to mid-nineteenth century English Congregationalism.⁵⁷

Other excellent examples of concern for conversion can be found in the records of the Pitt Street church and its various societies. For example, the church required interviews and referees from prospective members with evidence of conversion paramount. In response to one enquiry from the deacons in 1864, a letter from William Johnston Allen (addressed to John Fairfax) outlines at length Allen’s opinion of the spiritual fitness of George

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Weldon and William Langley who had applied for membership. Allen declared it to be of the “utmost importance” that the church “should be composed alone of living stones, of men alive from the dead, with hearts on fire with the love of Christ”.⁵⁸ He added, with characteristic evangelical emphasis on the importance and reliability of experience:

I have done all that I could to point both Weldon and Langley to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world but I fear as yet they have only heard of Jesus, instead of experimentally knowing him as their Saviour and Lord.⁵⁹

Much of the energy or ‘activism’ of the Pitt Street church societies was unambiguously conversionistic in ambition. The First Annual Report of the Ladies Bible and Domestic Mission in 1869 highlighted the efforts of their ‘Bible-Woman’, Miss McAlpin. The Report described how Miss McAlpin visited the homes of the “poor, ignorant, and degraded” and, as described through the eyes of the middle-class committee, had “to contend with the normal evils of that class, viz: uncomfortable homes, dirty apparel, neglected children, and the most mournful of all, intemperance”.⁶⁰ The Report noted that in view of the physical needs she encountered, a fund needed to be established as “the body must be refreshed before spiritual food is offered”. However, the Report added with characteristic emphasis on the importance and reliability of religious experience that, with their Bible-Woman, “The true and simple Word of God is adapted to all” and “her desire in conversion is simply to be the instrument of the ‘Holy Spirit’ in leading Sinners to Jesus, and causing the truth to be understood, felt, and received”. In 1871 the Mission reported similarly:

The Bible woman continues very earnest in her efforts to ameliorate the condition of the poor and the wretched, the sick and the dying, taking with her the word of God, and invoking the aid of the Holy Spirit; she has often been instrumental in leading sinners to repentance, and to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.⁶¹

Here we have conversionism, activism, biblicism and crucicentrism, writ large. This serves as a salutary reminder that although we are discussing the distinctive features of evangelicalism, ‘conversionism’,

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‘activism’, ‘biblicism’, and ‘crucicentrism’ in turn, in any one sermon, society or activity of the Pitt Street Congregational Church all four were commonly expressed. In this respect the life of John Fairfax was among its leading representatives.

Conclusion

John Fairfax remained true to the heartfelt, earnest, independent, ‘conversionist’ evangelicalism of his formative years. Though rightly famous for founding one of the world’s great newspaper dynasties, he would have much preferred to be remembered as a dedicated Christian whose ownership of a major newspaper was one aspect of a life consecrated to Christ. The ‘busy for both world’s’ story of John Fairfax continues in the next article by examining John Fairfax as a fine exemplar of what was arguably the greatest distinguishing feature of nineteenth century evangelicalism, its astonishing and unrelenting ‘activism’. In fact, so great was the range of Fairfax’s non-commercial activities that it is easy to forget that he spent most of his time managing a world-class newspaper in a highly competitive commercial environment.

Notes:

1. JF Fairfax, The Story of John Fairfax (Sydney, 1941) 21. The ‘world and church’ carries the idea of what is more often today described as ‘church and society’.

2. J Fairfax, “What Should the Young men of the Colonies Be?” An address delivered before the YMCA in Sydney in 1856, 2. Unfortunately Fairfax’s understanding of the phrase ‘both worlds’ is nowhere outlined. However, it is reasonable to assume that he had in mind the idea of this world and the next, the temporal and the age to come. The themes of ‘the church and the world’ and ‘both worlds’ will be more fully pursued in the second article.

3. I hope that future research will more fully reveal the way Fairfax understood and used the Herald in relation to his commitment to a colonial society founded upon a liberal civic Protestantism.

4. Regarding religious belief in Australian society and how this has been ignored or underestimated by Australian social historians, see the following articles in Lucas: T Frame, “Geoffrey Blainey, Religion and the Churches in Australian Society,” Lucas 23 & 24 (1997-1998) 83-109; M Hutchinson, “… Yet we wish to be all one …,” Lucas 8 (March 1990) 7-13; R Linder, “Australian Evangelicals in Politics in the Victorian Age: The Cases of JD Lang, WG Spence, and JST McGowan,” Lucas 13 (June 1992) 34-60; and R Ely, “Protestantism in Australian History: An Interpretative Sketch,” Lucas 5 (March 1989) 11-20. See also JD Bollen, Religion in Australian Society (Sydney, 1973); S Piggin, Evangelical Christianity in Australia (Oxford, 1996), and ‘ “Not a Little Holy Club”: Lay and Clerical Leadership in Australian Evangelical Evangelicalism, 1788-1988,’ Studies in Church History 27 (1991) 369; B Mansfield, “Thinking About Australian Religious History,” in Robert Withycombe (ed), Australian and New Zealand Religious History 1788-1899. A Collection of Papers and Addresses Delivered at the 11th Joint Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Theological Schools and Society for Theological Studies Held at Burgmann College, Australian National University, 5-8 September 1988 (Canberra, 1988) 3-18; and G Shaw, “Judeo-Christianity and the Mid-Nineteenth Century Colonial Civil Order,” in M Hutchinson & E Campion (eds), Re-Visioning Australian Colonial Christianity (Sydney, 1994) 29-39. Recent literature surveys include: M Hutchinson, “Re-Visioning Australian Colonial Christianity,” in ibid, 3-7; H Carey, “Religious History,” in G Davison, J Hirst, S Macintyre (eds), The Oxford Companion to Australian History (Melbourne, 1998); H Carey, I Breward, A O’Brien, R Thompson, “Australian Religious History, 1980-2000, Part 1: Surveys, Bibliographies and Religions Other Than Christianity,” Journal of Religious History 24.3 (October 2000) 296-313.

5. See Ely, “Protestantism in Australia,” 12; & Piggin, Evangelical Christianity, xi-xiii & 32.

6. Regarding the neglect or negative stereotyping of nineteenth century evangelicalism and/or Nonconforming evangelicalism in Britain, see: J Muson, The Nonconformists (London, 1992) 1, 67; H McLeod, Religion and Society in England, 1850-1914 (London, 1996) 2-5, 95, 221-222; T Larsen, Friends of religious equality: Nonconformist Politics in Mid-Victorian England (Woodbridge, 1999) 1-12, 203-206, 251-252; DW Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain (London, 1989) ix-x and “Under the Southern Cross: Connecting North and South in Evangelical Scholarship,” Lucas 23 & 24 (1997-1998) 122-126; D Hempton, Religion and Political Culture in Britian and Ireland (Cambridge, 1996) 134; and D Rosman, Evangelicals and Culture (London, 1984). D Thompson, Nonconformity in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1972) 15-16, suggests Nonconformity “comes off badly in the general text books”, that Anglican historians lack knowledge or understanding, secular historians view it in a piecemeal fashion and have “misunderstood and distorted it” while Nonconformist historians have not helped their own cause by writing hagiography. M Noll, “Revolution and the Rise of Evangelical Social Influence in North Atlantic Societies,” in MA Noll, DW Bebbington, GA Rawlyk (eds), Evangelicalism: Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North America, the British isles, and Beyond, 1700-1990 (Oxford, 1994) 131, notes a “skewing of historiography towards establishment evangelicals”.

7. Regarding the neglect or negative stereotyping of nineteenth century evangelicalism generally and/or Independent evangelicalism in Australia, see: Piggin, Evangelical Christianity, xi-xiii; Linder, “Australian Evangelicals in Politics,” 34-39, 58-60; and B Dickey (ed), Australian Dictionary of Evangelical Biography (Sydney, 1994) v-viii. There is also a tendency to describe early–mid nineteenth century evangelical Nonconformity through the filter of later Victorian and Edwardian evangelicalism. Larsen, Friends, 6 & 251-2 highlights this point.

8. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 2-3, See also DW Bebbington, “Evangelicalism” and “Evangelicalism: Britain,” in AE McGrath (ed), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought (Oxford, 1993) 183-187.

9. There is some debate as to whether Fairfax was born in 1804 or 1805. Souter is persuasive in his preference for 1805. See Gavin Souter, Company of Heralds (Melbourne, 1981) 621.

10. John Fairfax was not the founder of the Sydney Morning Herald as is often suggested. For a recent example, see LH Turnbull, Sydney: Biography of a City (Sydney, 1999), 95.

11. Fairfax, The Story of John Fairfax, 160.

12. For example, see M Roe, Quest for Authority in Eastern Australia (Melbourne, 1965) 17-33; D Cryle, The Press in Colonial Queensland (St Lucia, 1989) 3.

13. A contention of my forthcoming PhD thesis.

14. Fairfax was the longest serving of the first generation of AMP directors. He was on the board 1849-52, 1856-62, 1864-65 and 1869-77. See “Great Australians who built AMP,” New & Information [AMP House Journal], iii.2 (May 1962) 12.

15. The full title was The Temparence Advocate and Australasian Commercial and Agricultural Intelligencer.

16. See JT Massey, The YMCA in Australia (Melbourne, 1950) 492-500.

17. The Sydney Morning Herald, 15 March 1854, noted proudly that it never accepted the criticisms of Chisholm by JD Lang whom they described as having accused her of “insidiously labouring for the advancement of Popery,” whereas the Herald “never partook of these suspicions” and “gave her credit for the motives she professed”. M Kiddle, Caroline Chisholm (Melbourne, 1996) 25, says that once Chisholm’s work was underway, “the press, particularly the Sydney Herald, rallied to her side and urged the public to support her”. This was soon after Kemp and Fairfax had taken over the Herald.

18. Despite the fierce competition between the Empire and the Herald there is no doubt that Fairfax and Parkes formed a close personal bond. See Parkes Correspondence, Mitchell Library.

19. Kendall, arguably Australia’s greatest poet before Henry Lawson, knew the Fairfax family well. He attributed the melancholic tone of his verses entitled “Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Four” to the “death of my intimate friend Charles Fairfax”. See AM Hamilton-Grey, Kendall our ‘God-Made Chief’(Sydney, 1929) 62. On Fairfax’s death in 1877, Kendall published the poem In Memory of John Fairfax.

20. Fairfax, The Story of John Fairfax, 159.

21. Ibid, 160.

22. Souter, Company of Heralds, 72.

23. Goulburn Herald, as recorded in In Memorium: Obituary Notices and Funeral Services 1877, 31. See also the comments in the Dubbo Despatch.

24. Sir James Reading Fairfax (1834-1919), Sir Warwick Oswald Fairfax (1901-1987) and Sir Vincent Charles Fairfax (1909-1993) all awai biographical treatment. This lack of interest of course evaporated to cover the sensational demise of the Fairfax family’s control of John Fairfax Ltd in the late 1980s. Among other works, RB Walker’s The Newspaper Press in New South Wales, 1803-1920 (Sydney, 1976) is helpful as regards the Herald. For historical background, see: CMH Clark, A History of Australia (6 vols; Melbourne, [dates]) vols 3 & 4, though the treatment of John West is dubious, to say the least; G Nadel, Australia’s Colonial Culture (Sydney, 1957); Roe, Quest for Authority, though his discussion of the Herald is questionable; WG McMinn, Nationalism and Federalism in Australia (Melbourne, 1994); and JB Hirst, The Strange Birth of Colonial Democracy (Sydney, 1988). Useful comment on the Herald also exists in major biographies of leading colonials such as AW Martin, Henry Parkes (Melbourne, 1980) and JM Ward, James Macarthur Colonial Conservative, 1798-1867 (Sydney, 1981). Regarding Fairfax’s evangelical Nonconformity and liberalism the following works are particularly helpful: Piggin, Evangelical Christianity; D Pike, Paradise of Dissent (Melbourne, 1967); Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain; Larsen, Friends; McLeod, Religion and Society in England; Hempton, Religion and Politcal Culture; and HK Girvetz, The Evolution of Liberalism (London, 1969).

25. Of these, the Fairfax Family Papers are crucial, with letters to and from John and Sarah Fairfax, an 1887 memoir of John Fairfax by his son and chief successor at the Herald, Sir James Reading Fairfax, the most prominent items. Other invaluable items at the Mitchell Library include: two addresses of Fairfax, “The Colonies of Australia” (a lecture delivered on his return to Warwickshire in 1852) and “What Should the Young Men of the Colonies Be?” (an address delivered before the YMCA in Sydney in 1856); letters to Henry Parkes preserved in the Parkes Correspondence; “In Memorium: Obituary Notices and Funeral Services,” which contain widespread testimony regarding the character and contribution of John Fairfax upon his death in 1877; the records of the Pitt Street Congregational Church, so central in Fairfax’s life; plus items catalogued under the names of ministers or friends of Fairfax such as Rev Dr Robert Ross, Rev W Cuthbertson, Rev John Graham, David Jones, Thomas Holt, and GA Lloyd (to name only a few).

26. James Reading Fairfax, ‘A History of John Fairfax,’ Unpublished MS, 31. Fairfax Family Papers.

27. Cited by Fairfax, Story of John Fairfax, xvii. Regarding his grandfather, John Fairfax’s father, William Fairfax, James Fairfax wrote, “I never heard much of … [him] … but think he was a good, respectable man, and did not make much stir in his native town”. See ibid, xvii. Fourteen years older than his wife Elizabeth, William Fairfax had been born in 1763 and died in Warwick in 1835.

28. James Reading Fairfax, ‘A History of John Fairfax,’ 1. These included: St Bride’s, Follet Street; the Surrey Chapel; Camden Chapel in Camberwell; and Queen’s Street Chapel. Fairfax, Story of John Fairfax, 8.

29. James Reading Fairfax, ‘History of John Fairfax,’ 5.

30. ‘Farewell Address, Presented to Mr John Fairfax, May 1, 1838.’ Fairfax Family Papers.

31. Bebbington, “Evangelicalism” and “Evangelicalism: Britain,” in McGrath (ed), Blackwell Encyclopedia, 183-7; and Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 2-3.

32. Ibid, 7-8.

33. Ibid, 8.

34. Ibid, 6-7. In this regard, Jonathan Edwards wrote: “Conversion is a great and glorious work of God’s power, at once changing the heart, and infusing life into the dead soul; though the grace then implanted more gradually displays itself in some than in others. But as to fixing the precise time when they put forth the very first act of grace, there is a great deal of difference in different persons; in some it seems to be very discernible when the very time was; but others are more at a loss … In some, converting light is like a glorious brightness shining upon a person, and all around him … In many others it has been like the dawning of the day, when at first but a little light appears.” J Edwards, “Narrative of Surprising Conversions,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards (2 vols; Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1984 reprint) I.355.

35. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 6.

36. Edwards, “Narrative of Surprising Conversions,” 355.

37. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 43, 46.

38. Ibid, 46.

39. Ibid, 74.

40. Ibid.

41. Ibid, 57.

42. Ibid, 74.

43. Cited in ibid, 52.

44. MJD Roberts, Review of DW Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, Journal of Religious History 17.1-4 (1992-1993) 108.

45. As was the custom, Fairfax lived with his master from age twelve until completing his apprenticeship when twenty. In theory, Fairfax had another year to run on his apprenticeship but was granted his indenture earlier in view of his sound progress. See Fairfax, The Story of John Fairfax, 6-7.

46. Ibid, 10.

47. James Reading Fairfax, ‘Chapter 1 of a Life of John Fairfax,’ unpublished MS, ML, 3. The Register of Members and Attendance 1856-1857 of the Pitt Street Congregational Records in the Mitchell Library confirms a consistent pattern of attendance by John Fairfax.

48. James Reading Fairfax, ‘A History of John Fairfax,’ 1.

49. Response of Fairfax to his children on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday in 1855. Fairfax Family Papers.

50. It is worth noting that James Fairfax was not presenting his parents with any particular difficulties at this time. His ‘chaperon’ on the voyage over had been no less a Schoolmaster than WT Cape, who on arrival in London wrote to Fairfax assuring him of his son’s propriety during the voyage and commenting that “if in his travels through life he makes friends as he did during the voyage … he will do very well”. Cape to Fairfax, 4 June 1855, Fairfax Family Papers. Family friend, Rev Alfred Pope, wrote from Warwickshire to report on James’ progress, noting that he left “favourable impressions” wherever he went. Pope also noted “we have all been interested in his Colonial Patriotism. In his opinion Sydney is unrivalled and England suffers greatly in comparison with it. The only superiority belonging to the Mother Country is her Railroads.” Pope to Fairfax, 29 September 1855, Fairfax Family Papers.

51. Sarah Fairfax to James Reading Fairfax, 1 January 1854 (her emphasis), Fairfax Family Papers.

52. Sarah Fairfax to James Reading Fairfax, 17-24 April 1855 (her emphasis), Fairfax Family Papers.

53. Sarah Fairfax to James Reading Fairfax, 14 June 1855 (her emphasis), Fairfax Family Papers. John and Sarah’s longing for son James appears to have been fulfilled. While I have not studied Sir James in great detail it appears that throughout his long life he maintained a commitment to the Congregational Church and an evangelical flavour to his faith. For example, he once wrote in tones strikingly similar to that of his father: “Although my elder sons have left this home … this question is very frequently in my mind … does it seem reasonable to suppose that they have given serious thought as to whether they accept the faith in God their fathers professed and acknowledge Jesus Christ as their Saviour … ? There is nothing in which the bonds of family life are so strong as true religion. There is nothing so dangerous … as putting off the time of deciding to serve God … The time must come when human love, sympathy, friendship, however deep … will not meet our needs, we must look beyond, to a loving Father in Heaven for help … The time must come when we must receive or reject the offer of the love of Christ and his salvation. So is it to be in the strength and vigour of mind and of manhood or the feeble efforts of declining years? Pray do not let it be the latter. Give to God some of your best days. ‘That question was settled fifty years ago’ said my father when aged seventy two. Let that be settled with you, for your own hearts desire it. Tell God our Father that you are His sons, that you will serve him. ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ & thou will be saved and thy house.’” James Reading Fairfax, Draft letter to his children (his emphasis), Fairfax Family Papers.

54. Church Book, Independent Chapel, Pitt Street, Sydney, 5-6, Pitt Street Congregational Church Records. Fairfax listed the following names: James Hayward, William Pascoe Crook, Hannah Crook, Robert Bourne, Ann Bourne, Sarah Stafford, Henrietta Stafford, Ambrose Foss, George Hutchison, Thomas Dunton, George Wagg, William Jarrett.

55. Rev Dr Robert Ross, “Grace and Glory: A Sermon preached on the occasion of the death of Mrs Louisa Foss, January 9, 1853,” 3.

56. David Jones to eldest daughter Eliza Ross, 22 September 1849 (his emphasis). Ross Family Letters.

57. On the moderate Calvinism of English Congregationalism and the Pitt Street church, see “Principles of Religion” in the Year Book of the Congregational Church, Pitt Street, 1869, 13-15. This includes: “all who will be saved were the object of God’s eternal and electing love” (Item XIV); and that “the Scriptures teach the final perseverence of all true believers” (Item XV). Pitt Street Congregational Church Records. On Congregational doctrine, see also Souter, Company of Heralds, 5; R Ely, “The Religion of John West: Orthodox Protestant, Deist, Atheist, or What?” Lucas 25 & 26 (June and December 1999) 48 and note 23 on 70-1; H Jackson, “Aspects of Congregationalism in South-Eastern Australia 1880-1930,” unpublished PhD thesis, Australian national University, 1978, xi, 8-10, 169-70, 239, and Churches and People in Australia and New Zealand (Sydney, 1987).

58. Allen to Fairfax, 15 January 1864, Pitt Street Congregational Church Records, Correspondence 1862-1889.

59. Ibid.

60. First Annual Report of the Ladies Bible and Domestic Mission, 1869, Pitt Street Congregational Church Records, vol 54, “Miscelanea, Extracts from Minutes, Reports, Newspaper Cuttings etc,” 1837-1969.

61. Yearbook of the Congregational Church, Pitt Street, Sydney, 1871. Pitt Street Congregational Church Records.