Coal, Steel and the Holy Cross: Post-War Churches and Chapels of the Hunter Region, NSW

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to the growing body of scholarly research into the boom in church construction that took place in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s. Building on recent work by Lisa Marie Daunt and others, it focuses on a regional location as a noteworthy arena of this activity and seeks to understand the forces behind the appearance of a number of striking examples of modern church and chapel architecture.

Due to its development as a major mining and industrial manufacturing centre, the Hunter region of New South Wales became a place of significant church construction. After the Second World War the region experienced a wave of church building activity as authorities looked to accommodate expanding congregations and as new religious territories emerged, particularly within the suburban growth areas of Newcastle. This paper examines key developments in church design and construction within the Hunter region in the post-war decades by considering three areas of architectural change and innovation: the simplification of traditional form, the introduction of new spatial arrangements, and the creation of physically and visually rich interior environments through the use of textured materials. Structuring the study around these areas clearly reveals how change took place in the transition from a conservative modernism to a range of innovative designs. The paper argues that not only do these changes reflect the impact of liturgical reform and the desire to enhance the church-going experience of modern-day worshippers, they also need to be understood in terms of a shift away from the patronage of established local architectural practices to the commissioning of Sydney architects who were employing new ideas for church and chapel design.

Acknowledgments

The author kindly thanks the following people for their help in the preparation of this paper: Lisa Marie Daunt, for her valuable advice and feedback on a draft version; Brian Suters, for an enjoyable conversation about his church designs, and Gionni Di Gravio, for assistance in accessing the Gannon architectural drawings held within the Special Collections (Archives) department at the Auchmuty Library, University of Newcastle.

In writing this paper, the author was mindful of the dark shadows that are part of the post-war history of religious practice within the Hunter. Even though its church buildings are places of tremendous community importance, some have also been sites of heinous acts of child sexual assault and abuse as revealed by the 2013-2017 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and other investigations. The author would like to pay his respect to the victims of this abuse who have passed and those who continue to bear the pain and anguish caused by these acts and the institutional silencing that has taken place.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Lisa Marie Daunt, “Communities of Faith: Regional Queensland’s Innovative Modern Post-war Church Architecture,” in Proceedings of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand 36, Distance Looks Back, edited by Victoria Jackson Wyatt, Andrew Leach and Lee Stickells (Sydney: SAHANZ, 2019), 65–78.

2. Daunt, “Communities of Faith,” 65.

3. “Constructing Religious Territories: Community, Identity and Agency in Australia’s Modern Religious Architecture.” Symposium Convenors Lisa Marie Daunt and Philip Goad, Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne, 24 August 2018. Other papers and studies to emerge from, and following this symposium include Michael Bogle, “Loder & Dunphy 1957–1960: Methodism competes with ‘the hotel, the club and the cinema’,” (2018), www.academia.edu/37548981/_Bruce_Loder_and_Milo_Dunphy_Churches_1957_1960_Methodism_competes_with_the_hotel_the_club_and_the_cinema_ (accessed 24 May 2022); Philip Goad and Lisa Marie Daunt, “Constructing Faith: Postwar Religious Buildings in Australia,” Architecture Australia 108, no. 3 (May-June 2019): 55–59; Elizabeth Richardson, “Worship,” in Australia Modern: Architecture, Landscape & Design, edited by Hannah Lewi and Philip Goad (Port Melbourne, Vic.: Thames & Hudson, 2019), 260–267. Preceding the symposium were studies by Lisa Marie Daunt, “Quoting Ian Ferrier (1928–2000): Contributing to Queensland’s Post-war Modern Church Architecture,” in Proceedings of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand: 34, Quotation: What Does History Have in Store for Architecture Today?, edited by Gevork Hartoonian and John Ting (Canberra, ACT: SAHANZ, 2017), 101–111, and Elizabeth Richardson, “Negotiating Modernism: How Church Designs of the Post-war Era Negotiated Modernism in an Attempt to Renew their Image and Relevance within an Increasingly Secular Society,” in Proceedings of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand: 34, Quotation: What Does History Have in Store for Architecture Today?, edited by Gevork Hartoonian and John Ting (Canberra, ACT: SAHANZ, 2017), 608–618. A more recent contribution to the subject area is Sven Sterken and Lisa Marie Daunt, “Tempered Modernism: Karl Langer’s Architecture for the Lutheran Church in Queensland,” Fabrications 31, no. 3 (2021): 398–426.

4. The region gets its name from the Hunter River which rises in the Barrington Tops and winds its way 468 kilometres south-west and then south-east to the ocean at Newcastle.

5. For historical accounts of the establishment and growth of religious practice within the Hunter region see A. P. Elkin, The Diocese of Newcastle: A History of the Diocese of Newcastle, N.S.W., Australia (Glebe, NSW: Australian Medical Publishing Co., 1955); Joan Murray, A Vision Splendid: Christ Church Cathedral, A Parish History (Hamilton, NSW: Magazine Associates, 1991); Harold Campbell, The Diocese of Maitland, 1866–1966 (Maitland, NSW: The Diocese, 1966); Beverley Zimmerman, The Making of a Diocese: Maitland, its Bishop, Priests and People, 1866–1909 (Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 2000); John W. Delaney, City of Cessnock Roman Catholic Church 1788–1988 (Cessnock: Cessnock Public Library, 1984); A. C. Archer, A History of St. Ann’s Presbyterian Church, Paterson (Adamstown Heights, NSW: Paterson Historical Society, 2004); Rebecca J. Copland, United We Stand: A History of St. Philip’s & the Hunter Street Presbyterian Church, Newcastle, 1860–2005 (Sydney: Presbyterian Church of Australia, 2005); Wilfred Glynn Litster, Light on the Northern Coalfields: A Short History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Greater Newcastle Area, 1898–1998 (Wallsend, NSW: Newcastle Centenary Committee, North NSW Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, 1998).

6. See “Cessnock Church Opening,” Newcastle Moring Herald, 23 October 1954, 4.

7. See M. G. A. Wilson, “The Coalfield of the Lower Hunter Valley,” New Zealand Geographer 15, no. 1 (1959): 18–41; M. G. A. Wilson, “Recent Trends in the Coal Industry of N.S.W.,” Australian Geographer 8, no. 4 (1962): 173–182.

8. Hunter Valley Research Foundation, The Hunter Valley Region (Newcastle, NSW: Ell’s Bookseller & Publisher, 1968), 43.

9. Hunter Valley Research Foundation, The Hunter Valley Region, 38.

10. Hunter Valley Research Foundation, The Hunter Valley Region, 46.

11. Hunter Valley Research Foundation, The Hunter Valley Region, 40.

12. For a biographical outline of both the Pender and Gannon architectural practices see Les Reedman, Early Architects of the Hunter Region: A Hundred Years to 1940, second edition (Newcastle, NSW: RAIA, 2009).

13. See “Newcastle Methodism Moves Forward: Kotara Church Opening,” Methodist, 20 November 1947, 5.

14. “New Birmingham Gardens Church,” Newcastle Morning Herald, 15 March 1948, 3.

15. These churches were Church of the Holy Family, Merewether Beach (1952); Our Lady of Perpetual Succour War Memorial Church, Wingham (1954); Church of St Joseph, Cessnock (1954); Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Tighes Hill (1955); Church of St Augustine, South Singleton (1957); Church of St Gabriel, Wickham (1960); Church of St Peter, Stockton (1961); Church of St Catherine, Greta (1962); Church of St Brigid, Branxton (1962); St Luke’s Memorial Church, Cooks Hill (1962); Church of the Holy Spirit, Kurri Kurri (1963); Church of St Columba, Adamstown (1963) and the Church of Our Lady of Victories, Shortland (1964).

16. “New Church at Taree,” Sydney Morning Herald, 7 October 1930, 5.

17. “New Church at Taree,” 5.

18. See John W. East, “Australian Romanesque: A History of Romanesque-Inspired Architecture in Australia” (Research Report, University of Queensland, 2016), 41–46, 78–87.

19. See “Modern Church Architecture,” Building 67, no. 397 (24 September 1940), 29. St Columban’s also featured in the August 1952 special issue of Building: Lighting: Engineering devoted to church architecture.

20. Barry Maitland and David Stafford draw a parallel between the internal column structure of this church and that of the Roman Catholic Church of Notre-Dame du Raincy, near Paris, by Auguste Perret, of 1923. See Barry Maitland and David Stafford, Architecture Newcastle, A Guide (Newcastle, NSW: RAIA [Newcastle Division], 1997), 21.

21. “Cessnock Church Opening,” 4.

22. “New Kurri Kurri Church Opened,” Newcastle and Maitland Catholic Sentinel 33, no. 12 (September 1963): 179.

23. McPherson started practice in 1935 with the design of the War Memorial Hospital in Waverley. His first church commission, in 1937, was for St. Swithun’s (Church of England) in Pymble, dedicated in August 1940. After the war he was employed to design a group of buildings for the Methodist Church in Wagga Wagga, before moving onto a number of church design commissions in the early 1950s.

24. See Norman W. McPherson, “Modern Church Design,” The Anglican, 25 September 1953, 8; Norman W. McPherson, “Expression of Purpose,” The Anglican, 12 November 1954, 9; Norman W. McPherson, “Expression for Worship,” The Anglican, 19 November 1954, 10; Norman W. McPherson, “How Liturgy Influences Design,” The Anglican, 26 November 1954, 10.

25. “Letters to Editor: Modern House Design,” Sydney Morning Herald, 14 August 1952, 2. See Max Collard’s response to McPherson’s letter, “Architecture For Australia,” Sydney Morning Herald, 18 August 1952, 2.

26. “Sydney Church Building Revival,” Sydney Morning Herald, 3 June 1953, 13.

27. “Sydney Church Building Revival,” 13.

28. “Sydney Church Building Revival,” 13.

29. “Break with Tradition by New Church in Newcastle,” The Anglican, 17 May 1957, 3.

30. The creative use of modern lighting within the Church of St George gained it and its architects the 1958 NSW Meritorious Lighting Award, administered by the Illuminating Engineering Society of Australia (NSW).

31. McPherson wrote an article on cross design and placement within the modern church. See N. W. McPherson, “The Cross in Church Architecture,” The Anglican, 5 July 1957, 8.

32. “Official and Diocesan: Dedications: Hamilton South,” Newcastle Diocesan Churchman, 1 June 1957, 65.

33. Robin Boyd, “Seeking Vital Image in Church Design,” Walkabout 28, no. 8 (August 1962): 20–22.

34. Boyd, “Seeking Vital Image in Church Design,” 21.

35. Amongst the literature of the late 1950s and early 1960s was Edward D. Mills, The Modern Church (London: The Architectural Press, 1956, 1957); Rudolf Schwarz, Vom Bau der Kirche (Heidelberg: Verlag Lambert Schneider, 1938), translated as The Church Incarnate: The Sacred Function of Christian Architecture, translation by Cynthia Harris (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1958); Peter Hammond, Liturgy and Architecture (London: Barrie and Lockliff, 1960); Joseph Pichard, Modern Church Architecture, translated by Ellen Callmann (New York: Orion Press, 1960); Peter Hammond, ed., Towards a Church Architecture (London: The Architectural Press, 1962); Albert Christ-Janer and Mary Mix Foley, Modern Church Architecture: A Guide to the Form and Spirit of 20^th Century Religious Buildings (New York: McGraw Hill, 1962).

36. Kenneth McConnel had gained significant experience in church design prior to the war, in partnership with other architects. With Joseph Fowell, he designed the Sulman award-winning St Anne’s Roman Catholic Church in North Bondi (1934) and the rebuilt St Charles’ Catholic Church in Ryde (1934). As Fowell, McConnel & Mansfield, his practice was responsible for the Church of St Mary in North Sydney (1938), the Shephard Memorial Church of St Peter, Proston, Queensland (1939), the Church of St Joseph, Neutral Bay (1941), St Philip Neri Roman Catholic Church, Northbridge (1942), and the Church of the Holy Family, Parkes (1942).

37. Jennifer Taylor, “Peter Johnson and the Architecture of McConnel Smith and Johnson: The First Forty Years,” Architecture Australia Special Issue (2007): 7.

38. Taylor, “Peter Johnson and the Architecture of McConnel Smith and Johnson,” 7.

39. For short descriptions and photographic images of the Smith-designed Presbyterian churches see Cross-Section no. 107 (September 1961): 1 and Cross-Section no. 136 (February 1964): 3. Also see “A Sequence of Presbyterian Churches,” Architecture Australia 75, no. 2 (March 1986): 59–61.

40. See Terrigal Presbyterian Church 50^th Anniversary, booklet (Terrigal Presbyterian Church, 2013); Malcom D. Prentis, St David’s Kirk: A History of the Presbyterian Church in Dee Why (Dee Why, NSW: Dynamic Press, 1977).

41. The fourth transept was originally meant for seating but instead became the vestry as the client could not afford to build a vestry separately. See “A Sequence of Presbyterian Churches,” 61.

42. This was a core consideration in the design of Presbyterian churches in Australia during the 1960s, as articulated by James W. Gibson in his Except the Lord Build: A Manual of Building for Presbyterian Congregations (General Assembly Presbyterian Church of Queensland, 1967), 26.

43. The church was featured in Cross-Section no. 137 (March 1964): 2, and in Architecture in Australia 55, no. 3 (May 1966): 101–102.

44. The author would like to thank one of the anonymous paper reviewers for highlighting this similarity.

45. The C. B. Alexander College, as it is now named, received both the 2014 NSW (AIA) Award for Enduring Architecture and the 2014 AIA National Award for Enduring Architecture. The National Award citation recognised how subsequent changes and additions have been undertaken with sensitivity in relation to the language of the original design. See “2014 National Architecture Awards,” Architecture Australia 103, no. 6 (November-December 2014): 106–107.

46. “Catholic Church Plan: £30,000 Chapel to be Built in Newcastle,” Newcastle Sun, 27 March 1961.

47. “Why Not … A City Chapel In Newcastle?” Newcastle and Maitland Catholic Sentinel 30, no. 7 (April 1962): 99.

48. Rev. Fr. R. Callinan, “Liturgy and Life,” Newcastle and Maitland Catholic Sentinel 33, no. 11 (August 1965): 8.

49. For the Church of St Joseph, Sydney Hirst & Kennedy abandoned the high pitched and gabled roof form, opting for a flat roof of Klip-Lok instead. The church is rectangular with a staggered wall of brick and glass comprising its south-eastern side. Two curved walls of Gosford sandstone form the front of the church with the main entrance behind. See “New St Joseph’s Church at Merewether,” Newcastle and Maitland Catholic Sentinel 31, no. 6 (March 1963): 84.

50. “New Chapel in Newcastle,” Newcastle Morning Herald, 30 March 1970, 4.

51. See “Modern Styling,” Newcastle Morning Herald, 25 May 1972, 11.

52. Philip Cox as quoted in Patrick Bingham-Hall, Philip Cox: An Australian Architecture (Sydney, NSW: Pesaro Publishing, 2020), 25.

53. Robin Boyd, “The State of Australian Architecture,” Architecture in Australia 56, no. 3 (June 1967): 459.

54. Boyd, “The State of Australian Architecture,” 463.

55. “Greeks Pay £3350 for Church Site,” Newcastle Morning Herald, 5 May 1950, 6.

56. “Greek Church Planned for Wallsend,” Newcastle Morning Herald, 12 January 1952, 2.

57. “Greeks Provide Own Church,” Newcastle Morning Herald, 29 October 1956, 3.

58. See Brian Jones, “The Holy War: Out of the Ghettos,” The Bulletin, 6 November 1965, 25, 27; Bob Beale, “A Forked Road for Greeks,” Newcastle Herald, 20 November 1982, 7; Anastasios Myrodis Tamis, The Greeks in Australia (Port Melbourne, Vic.: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

59. This is in relation to plans by the Archdiocese-aligned Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Apostles at Islington to purchase and develop church property. See “Church Appeal Launched,” Newcastle Morning Herald, 6 March 1962, 3.

60. Hammond, Liturgy and Architecture, 10.

61. Brian Suters in conversation with Paul Hogben, 19 May 2022.

62. As explained in Robert Maguire and Keith Murray, Modern Churches of the World (London: Studio Vista Limited, 1965), 24.

63. Brian Suters in conversation with Paul Hogben, 19 May 2022.

64. For a description of St Paul’s at Bow Common see G. E. Kidder Smith, The New Churches of Europe/Las Nuevas Iglesias de Europa (London: The Architectural Press, 1964), 30–33.

65. Maguire and Murray, Modern Churches of the World, 93.

66. Brian Suters in conversation with Paul Hogben, 19 May 2022.

67. See Scott Bevan, “Well-Drawn Life,” Newcastle Herald (Weekender), 4 August 2018, 4.

68. Barry Maitland and David Stafford saw the gabled roofs as an attempt to connect the church to its suburban context. See Maitland and Stafford, Architecture Newcastle, A Guide, 157.

69. See Ken Woolley and Ancher Mortlock & Woolley: Selected and Current Works, The Master Architect Series IV (Mulgrave, Vic.: Image Publishing Group and Craftsman House, 1999), 72–75. Barry Maitland and David Stafford point to Alvar Aalto’s use of brick and exposed timber trusses as an influence on the material selection and qualities of the Student Union. See Maitland and Stafford, Architecture Newcastle, A Guide, 153.