The battle for Brisbane
The battle for Brisbane
Despite its divisive beginnings, The Salvation Army in Queensland managed not only to survive but to thrive.
Garth R. Hentzschel*
The Salvation Army commenced its spiritual warfare in Brisbane some time in 1880 and its narrative became an intriguing saga. The official line has been that there were many attempts to commence Salvation Army work in Brisbane that all collapsed. Yet the uncovered narrative is more ominous. These first Brisbane Salvationists began as a small group, thousands of kilometres from other Salvation Army centres. They were not unlike Salvationists elsewhere in that they made a gallant stand and suffered persecution in the streets. One newspaper reported, they engaged in a “guerrilla warfare,” which was “fierce and unscrupulous”. However, in 1883 The Salvation Army in Brisbane also suffered a schism, where the official officers were ousted and a separatist movement formed. This could have engulfed The Salvation Army in a scandal that crushed its future in Queensland. So what went wrong?
An eventful beginning
The first activity of The Salvation Army in Queensland could easily be passed over, yet it was an indication of things to come. Not only did this first encounter give the example of a dual ministry, of spiritual and physical intent, but it also paralleled the psycho-historical storms The Salvation Army would have to contend with in this new colony.
In the 1870s, the only form of travel was via long sea journeys. Thus 1873 saw the Honorary Secretary for the Christian Mission, Mr Owens, travel to Australia by sea. The British Government appointed him welfare officer on a migrant ship. The Christian Mission gave Owens a farewell meeting on 10 February 1873, with the vessel carrying 300 migrants leaving soon afterwards. The ship dropped off its passengers at Rockhampton and headed for Sydney. On its way it ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef and broke apart, “fortunately without loss of life”. Mr Owens writes about the event in detail, not only describing the disaster but also his brave Christian witness throughout the event. He gathered all the passengers and crew for prayer and singing, and testified that Jesus could give peace in fine or stormy weather. Passengers and crew were taken to the shore in the middle of the night and, while avoiding attacks from the local indigenous population, Owens helped care for the other victims until they were rescued a week later.
Let the battle begin
William Booth had not planned to spread his Christian Mission around the world but God’s guidance forced his hand. Some time between 1876 and 1878 a galvanised iron Gospel Mission hall was built on the corner of Albert Street and Charlotte Street, Brisbane, right in the heart of the worst area of the city. The Christian Mission, operated by Mr and Mrs A. K. McNaught, soon ran along the same lines as The Salvation Army. One of McNaught’s letters to General William Booth appeared in the London War Cry on 4 October 1880, and indicated that the Mission not only had Salvationists from London arriving at their hall but they were holding open-air meetings and street marches. They had also been receiving The War Cry. The McNaughts stated that they’d tried working with the Methodist churches but this had failed, and now they sought recognition from William Booth to become affiliated with The Salvation Army.
Not much is known of Mr and Mrs McNaught but what is known is that Mrs McNaught was the “preacher” and was aided by an M. McNaught. Mrs McNaught’s audacity to run a Chrsitian Mission in Brisbane at this time was amazing, especially considering a report four years later stated that so many people showed “ramparts of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition” by still denying women their rights in the colony of Queensland.
Many of the McNaught clan in Brisbane were in the building trade, therefore they could have built the Mission hall themselves. They were also very active in Christian circles. They truly had tried to work with the Methodist-based churches, for a J.U. McNaught ran the Wesleyan Book Depository, performed Christian work in the Fortitude Valley area and helped run Christian lectures throughout 1879. William McNaught was also a Primitive Methodist preacher of the Brisbane circuit but went on leave in 1878, maybe to assist with the family Mission work.
Then came The Salvation Army
With numerous letters from the Australasia area requesting to start The Salvation Army, General William Booth was forced to send officers. The first Salvation Army officers arrived in Adelaide, 11 February 1881. It has been suggested that Captain and Mrs Thomas Sutherland were sent to the southern colony instead of Brisbane because the northern Mission “collapsed”. However, the McNaught’s mission did not collapse and what can only be assumed is that Booth gave his blessing for the Mission on Charlotte Street to turn into The Salvation Army. For around the beginning of 1881, reference to Salvation Army activities in Brisbane appeared and McNaught painted the sign “SALVATION ARMY BARRACKS” above the door of the Mission Hall.
Evidence of The Salvation Army’s beginnings in Brisbane show a firm and constant line from McNaught’s Mission to today’s Salvation Army. The Bulletin, November 1881, reported that “Brisbane has long had its Salvation Army – an Army which has resolutely stood its ground in spite of the attacks of larrikins”, with the workers “labouring in our midst for some time past”. Also throughout 1881 and 1882 reports showed that the Salvationists under McNaught’s leadership gave evidence of “good work being done among the poorer classes by the self-denying labours”. This brought to the mind of Brisbanites the ministry of The Salvation Army and information on the organisation started to appear in the local papers.
Queensland Salvationists may have felt a little snubbed when on 21 September 1882 the next contingent of officers arrived in Australia, but were again sent to the southern colonies. Then Major and Mrs James Barker arrived in the south, with seven more officers following in November 1882. Adelaide could only boast three corps even though they had a number of officers, yet Brisbane was about to open their second corps without any assistance. To add insult to injury, Barker in the south was placed in charge of the Australasian work, seemingly with no communication with Brisbane. It would become obvious that no Queenslander would take orders from the southern colonies or even the motherland, England! The Salvation Army was dramatically impacted by the social mindset of the colony.
The first officer to Queensland
The soldiers of The Salvation Army in Brisbane, under the McNaught family, had commenced their corps in isolation and had run it for over two years. Then The Brisbane Courier announced to its readers on 27 November 1882 that Captain P.W. Cairns had been dispatched from London and that a new “neat hall” at Sandgate would soon be opened by The Salvation Army. Captain Cairns and two Lieutenants from England held their first meeting on Saturday 13 January 1883 to “formally open the CAMPAIGN against sin, drunkenness and the devil”. Around 100 people met at the bridge where Captain Cairns unfurled The Salvation Army flag. “The unfurling of the flag was greeted with loud hallelujahs from the Army, and derisive cheers by the crowd”. The group then marched to the barracks in Charlotte Street, via Queen Street, being hindered by larrikins along the way. A meeting then followed where Cairns explained the aims of The Salvation Army but it was continually interrupted.
The following Monday, Brisbane Council debated the rights of The Salvation Army to parade on public streets but on this account Salvationists won the day. Articles and letters in local papers appeared, arguing for and against The Salvation Army. An interesting observation was made by one of the press, who said that McNaught’s original followers discredited the name of The Salvation Army with their eccentricities and lack of tact. The report finished by declaring that “If they enlist under the new banner there will be much opposition”. This turned out to be a prophetic utterance for “much opposition” did not only come from the community but also from within the Army’s own ranks.
The schism
William Booth commissioned Captain Cairns to take over The Salvation Army’s work in Brisbane, but Queensland of pre-Federation had a unique identity and a fierce sense of independence mixed with a desire for lustful imperialism. There were five mindsets present in Queensland in the 1880s which influenced the events of The Salvation Army in Brisbane that were about to transpire:
- First, there was a desire in Queensland to be independent and resist authority from southern colonies and overseas. This would have caused some problems for The Salvation Army, with leaders sent to southern Colonies.
- Second, Queenslanders saw themselves as more of a country than a colony and as with any respectable European country, they too deserved an empire. From 1860 Queensland annexed 120,000 square miles of land from what is now the Northern Territory and began to look further a field to islands in the Pacific for land claims. On 3 April 1883 Queensland officially annexed New Guinea (Papua). Although this received the support from other Australasian colonies, it was in direct defiance of England. Captain Cairns arrived from England to take charge just before the annexation, so would not have endeared himself to the anti-English feelings of the Brisbanites over this event.
- Third, the expansion into the Pacific Islands allowed Queensland to substitute the free convict labour with something more sinister. From 1863 “Kanakas” (the Polynesian word for men) arrived in Queensland and were treated by some in the colony as near slaves. In the 1880s approximately 47,000 Kanakas were working in the Queensland sugar industry. This created another hurdle for The Salvation Army, as this movement was opposed to racial inequality and indigenous populations in many countries had become soldiers and officers.
- Fourth, Brisbane, as with any capital city of a potential “Empire” was no utopia, with its larrikins and harletons. Larrikins were a part of the Australian urban landscape and gangs of young people amused themselves with violence and petty crime. Through the 1880s they attacked The Salvation Army on numerous occasions. In one case an explosive device was set off during an open-air meeting to show the Salvationists “what Hades was really like”. Along with the larrikins there were dens of iniquity. In the very spot The Salvation Army had its barracks were the morally dark streets of Brisbane. A letter presented to Brisbane Council in 1879 shows the concern residents had about the number of houses of ill-fame on Charlotte and Albert Streets. The Salvationists’ stand against this moral issue placed them in direct confrontation with the brothel owners who would have done anything to silence the soldiers of Christ.
- Finally, Brisbane was suffering from religious indifference and difficulties. Although new churches had been established, Christian Missions developed and the business community showed their spiritual conscious with the “Early Closing and Sunday Observance Associations”, all was not well with the Brisbane churches. In July 1879 debate occurred on the power of the Bishop over money and boundaries of the parishes. These issues came to such a point that the Bishop was locked out of the church. Other problems in the spiritual life of the colony included a decrease in membership and lack of candidates for ministry in the Methodist Church , and Missions could not secure support or finances for their work. This was the spiritual and political climate in which the Brisbane Salvation Army soldiers had waged their spiritual “guerrilla” warfare and the scene which met the first Salvation Army officers.
With this fierce independence of the colony of Queensland and the debate with England over the annexation of Papua New Guinea, Brisbanites awoke to the news on Wednesday, 24 January 1883, that The Salvation Army in their town was about to fall apart. Just 11 days after Captain Cairns arrived in Brisbane, Mrs McNaught confessed to the Brisbane Telegraph that, “Captain Cairns wants absolute and unquestioned control” of The Salvation Army in Brisbane and that the McNaught family was “not prepared to give” up their leadership.Mrs McNaught also claimed that General Booth had not instructed them to hand over power and that, “Captain Cairns brings no diploma, commission, or other authoritative document from Headquarters entitling him to the position he claims”. The paper then finished the report by declaring that news columns would not engage in the controversy any longer. The radical Bulletin was far less politically correct in their language over this leadership “scandal”.
Of all the players in this sad saga, Captain Cairns was the one most hard done by, for not only did the people in Brisbane oust him but Salvation Army historians claimed he was “untrained and inexperienced” and “found it impossible to succeed”. However, evidence suggests otherwise. Cairns, born in Glasgow, Scotland on 20 April 1852 was an evangelist for the Quarrier’s Homes before becoming a Salvationist. This “home” at the Bridge of Weir, 15 miles south of Glasgow, consisted of over 40 children's cottages, a church, a large school, a fire station, workshops, farms and other facilities. It, and other homes, were established for orphans and very impoverished children. Its founder, William Quarrier, believed that children could be lifted out of their circumstances by placing them in a loving, Christian-based family and by being trained to participate in hard work. Working as an evangelist in this environment, Cairns was anything but untrained and inexperienced. As a soldier of Sheffield Corps, he was also described as “excellent”.
When Cairns and his wife decided to migrate, General William Booth commissioned them as officers and ordered to take over the work of The Salvation Army in Brisbane. Therefore Cairns held the commission and had authority from Headquarters. It would appear that social events such as those discussed above may have caused the ill feeling of the Brisbanites against Captain Cairns, rather than Cairns’ own persona. The issue was simply that Brisbane Salvationists wanted a Queensland owned and operated Salvation Army.
Are two really better than one?
Brisbane was soon to have two Salvation Armies. The Saturday after the schism, 27 January 1883, an advertisement appeared for the McNaught-led “Brisbane” Salvation Army. The following week, 3 February, The Salvation Army under Captain Cairns, with William Booth as General, advertised its meetings. The paper placed the local Salvation Army’s advertisement above Cairns’. Neither side would give in.
The papers were true to their word and nothing more of the schism was printed. This, although aiding the protection of The Salvation Army’s name, did nothing to help Captain Cairns with his ministry. The Salvation Army in all other cities was winning free advertising through the columns of the newspapers but the Brisbane papers became silent. Cairns tried hard to represent General William Booth’s Salvation Army but the locals were against him. A fortnight later, on 17 February, Cairns capitulated stating that there was too much prejudice and interference and no suitable buildings made available to him.
The end of the beginning
After Captain Cairns’ capitulation, the local papers thought they would hammer the last nails into the coffin of The Salvation Army in Brisbane by printing a number of anti-Army propaganda reports. These reports included a letter questioning the practice of The Salvation Army to allow children to testify about their salvation and the expulsion of Officers from Switzerland. But The Salvation Army was not dead! The narrative continued.
The “Brisbane” Salvation Army grew, continuing to hold open-air meetings and to win converts. In May 1885 Mr M. McNaught visited Ballington Booth in Melbourne and handed his work over, therefore rejoining William Booth’s international campaign.
Captain Cairns moved his supporters to Ipswich, opened two corps and won many leading people of the colony to The Salvation Army. Some of Cains’ converts later become officers and one soldier had a Brisbane suburb named after him.
In the years to follow, throughout Queensland The Salvation Army would rapidly grow into a strong evangelical and social agency for God and for good. This saga shows how even in defeat and through human disagreement, Christ’s work can still be victorious.
About the Author
*Garth R. Hentzschel B.Ed.(Prim.), M.Ed.(S.G.C.), (QUT), B.Admin.Lead. (UNE).
A Salvationist residing in Brisbane, Garth has soldiered in many corps throughout the Australia Eastern Territory holding leadership in both senior and junior corps programs. He has published three books on Salvation Army history. Garth is a sessional academic, conducting lectures and tutorials for Queensland University of Technology and Christian Heritage College in the areas of Education, Youth Work and Social Sciences. He is currently undertaking his doctoral thesis on the impact of relocation on teenagers.