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Newtown Greats - Edward Saunders

Two great pioneers

In the history of Australia’s Salvation Army there was no greater partnership than that of John Gore and Edward Saunders.

By John Smith

The synergy of effective partnerships is a vital part of the story of European settlement in Australia. Tales of the deeds of Hume and Hovell, Burke and Wills, and Bass and Flinders dominate the annals of Australian exploration post 1788.

The Salvation Army can also lay claim to a powerful partnership, in the providential meeting in Adelaide of two men who had been converted through the ministry of the Christian Mission in England. That partnership – between John Gore and Edward Saunders – became the catalyst for the commencement of the Army’s work in Australia.

JOHN GORE

John Gore (pictured) grew up as the son of a local preacher in the village of Sutton St Edmunds in Lincolnshire, England. Against his family’s wishes, John left home at the age of 18 and arrived in London, via Hull in Yorkshire. Here he became a milkman in London’s East End and led a “fast life”. Then a handbill stuck on a railway arch announcing a Christian Mission tea meeting, caught his attention and became the medium whereby John not only came not only face to face with William Booth but “the light of God got into his soul”. John was converted at this meeting on 3 September 1867 at the Edinburgh Castle (Hotel), Stepney.

William Booth immediately put him to work conducting meetings, with the advice: “Young man, remember, that if you are going to get people saved you must be prepared to do something out the ordinary.”

A number of events followed John’s conversion: he was reconciled with his father, he married Sarah Smith (another Christian Mission convert), they moved to live in Sheffield in Yorkshire, and later John heard a lecture on Australia, which culminated in his decision to migrate.

John and Sarah Gore, with their growing family, arrived in Adelaide by the Union Steamship the Clyde, on 30 April 1878. John secured employment as a platelayer with South Australian Railways and attended a mission hall, where he worshipped with a group of Bible Christians.

A fateful meeting

John confessed that at this time he had got into “a cold, half-dead state of soul”. Then in April 1880 (exactly two years after his arrival in Adelaide), he began attending meetings at Adelaide’s Wesleyan Church in Pirie Street, led by a Yorkshire temperance evangelist, Matthew Burnett. In one of these meetings John was moved to give his testimony, detailing his conversion and confessing his rekindled zeal and a desire to express it!

Seated in that meeting was 30-year-old Edward Saunders, a member of that church’s congregation. Having been the treasurer of the Christian Mission station at Bradford in Yorkshire, he responded to John Gore’s by exclaiming: “Glory to God! I, too, am a Christian Mission convert!”

EDWARD SAUNDERS

Born in Orleton Shropshire, England in 1850, Edward Saunders was contracted as a bonded labourer to a stone mason as a young man, and quickly became a fully qualified stone mason. During this time he attended a Christian Mission meeting in Puller’s Theatre in Bradford. Following a sermon by evangelist James Dowdle (“the saved railway guard and his hallelujah fiddle”), Edward became soundly converted. His elevation to treasurer of Bradford station after two weeks, entitled him to be a delegate at the Christian Mission conference in London in 1878 – the conference where the name “Christian Mission” was changed to “The Salvation Army”.

At this time Saunders planned to migrate to New Zealand with his wife and three small children. They made that move in July 1879, sailing on the SS Lusitania.

During the voyage Edward’s wife became ill and grew worse within sight of the South Australian coastline. The family decided to abandon their voyage in Adelaide and remain there for a time. Very soon after their arrival in Adelaide, Mrs Saunders died.

To ensure the family’s livelihood, Edward the stonemason also established a greengrocery. The business premises and family residence was on the corner of Field and Gouger streets, Adelaide.

Getting the Army started

When Edward Saunders attended the Wesleyan Church in Pirie Street to support the meeting by Missioner Matthew Burnett on that autumn night in April 1880, he had no idea that the course of his life was about to change. Needless to say, he also had no inkling that the establishment of The Salvation Army in Australia was soon to take place, despite having witnessed the inauguration of this movement two years earlier.

Yet this was the outcome when Edward invited John Gore to his house for supper that evening after the meeting. Such a synergy of joy and passion about the possibilities inherent in their “conversion backgrounds” existed between these two men as they conversed well into the early hours of the next day. John and Edward recounted in detail their Christian Mission experiences and their joint desire to make real the final command of Captain Dowdle to Edward when he sailed from Plymouth: “Now Saunders you must not rest until the Army flag is flying in those southern lands.”

Yet their enthusiasm to get the Army started was tempered by the thought that they would “need to have authority from the General, 12,000 miles away”!

Knowing that they must do something, the pair resolved to meet at 7pm that same evening in Light Square to conduct an open-air meeting in The Salvation Army pattern

It may have looked an inconsequential group – Saunders, Gore and a crippled newspaper seller named Barham – but their zeal for God and their passion for the lost meant that they continued to hold these open-air meetings. Then Gore and Saunders were invited to conduct another meeting at a church in Port Adelaide.

One month after the Pirie Street encounter, the fervour and the fire in the idea that the Army should be up and marching in Australia, and that it would be “a grand success”, led both John and Edward to write separate letters to General Booth in London with an urgent request that officers be sent to give direction and leadership to the work they had commenced, and they even sent money to pay the fare of such an appointee.

The pleading nature of Edward’s letter – “Oh do send us help, and may it come speedily, is my earnest prayer” – certainly indicated the urgency and passion of this duo.

Meanwhile they continued to hold open-air meetings and prayer meetings in Edward’s home, and in the stable at the rear of his home. About a dozen people, who had also been converted in the Christian Mission in England, aligned themselves with the growing company.

After receiving an encouraging response from William Booth, but with no immediate promise of officer re-enforcement, they conducted a half-night of prayer in the Saunders home on Tuesday 31 August 1880. After prayer and discussion, they formulated a plan to commence an open-air meeting in Botanic Park on the following Sunday, 5 September, to be followed by an indoor meeting in a hired hall– all under the name of The Salvation Army.

So, with Edward’s greengrocer’s cart as a rostrum and the Bilhorn organ played by his Scottish-born wife, the leadership partners, John and Edward, their families and their growing band of believer-supporters, conducted the first meeting in the name of The Salvation Army in Australia –under a river red gum tree for shade from the warm Spring sunshine.

Edward Saunders commenced proceedings, yet John Gore’s closing words – “If there’s a man here who hasn’t had a square meal today, let him come home with me” – became, unwittingly, a sort of manifesto for the subsequent practical and humanitarian ministries of the Army across Australia.

The pair hired buildings for indoor meetings and despite opposition through misunderstanding, hostility and even violence, the Army’s work grew.

“Secretary” Saunders’ pleading letter for help to William Booth in November 1880 was already being answered, as The Founder moved to despatch Captain and Mrs Thomas Sutherland to lead the newly-formed Salvation Army in Australia.

Percival Dale wrote: “During the time ‘Secretary’ Saunders was using every spare moment in laying the spiritual foundations of The Salvation Army, he was employed as foreman-in-charge of the erection of the German Club and Albert Hall buildings in Pirie Street in the heart of the city of Adelaide. In 1889 this property was purchased by the Army for use as a composite centre for corps and social work ... divisional headquarters, social and trade departments and the People’s Palace.” The Army in fact retained ownership and occupancy of that property until fire destroyed it in 1975.

When the Sutherlands arrived in Adelaide in February 1881, 68 Salvation Army soldiers paraded at the wharf to greet them.

The Sutherlands brought a supply of uniforms with them. Edward was given officer rank in September 1883 and assumed special responsibility for resourcing the Army's property requirements. He left Adelaide in 1883 to build a new hall in the heart of Sydney to accommodate the growing number of people choosing to attend the Army’s meetings there. The foundation stones for that building were placed by Colonel Ballington Booth and Sir Henry Parkes.

Saunders the builder

Thus Edward Saunders began his legacy in designing and constructing numerous significant Salvation Army properties. These included buildings at Newtown, Junee and Wagga Wagga, as well as the 1900 Officers’ Training Garrison in Victoria Parade East Melbourne. This castle-like property was used for its original purpose until 1978, when the centre for officer training was relocated to Royal Parade, Parkville. However the façade of the training garrison still stands and is a significant heritage landmark on Eastern Hill in Melbourne.

From 1889 until 1912 Edward served as the Army’s property secretary across Australia and New Zealand. He travelled extensively in this role; his family estimated that in that appointment he spent nine out of 13 years away from home, and he averaged total journeys each year of approximately 25,000 miles.

Two of Edward Saunders’ sons became Salvation Army colonels. One grandson became a colonel and another a lieutenant-commissioner. Three great grandchildren became officers serving in the United States. Of these, Robert, became a commissioner and served at International Headquarters in London. Edward died in August 1923, aged 73, and is buried at Box Hill Cemetery in Melbourne.

The Gore heritage

John Gore continued his work at the railways for a time but eventually took the rank of Captain, and travelled with his wife, Sarah, and their musical family to their first officer appointment at Kapunda in South Australia. His fearless evangelistic spirit was a hallmark of his service in many appointments across the country. One report, given in 1886 from the Adelaide suburb of Bowden, said: “Things are pretty lively at Bowden. Captain Gore and his daughters play trumpet, his son plays the cornet and his wife beats the drum.”

John and Sarah Gore opened other corps in South Australia, at Norwood and Port Adelaide and over the years they made significant contributions to the life and ministry of the Army. In December 1886 John and Sarah were appointed to the Eastern states and held appointments first in Newcastle and other centres before John was appointed to be the Army’s printing officer in the Sydney office.

Their son, Will Gore, who was instructed in playing a cornet by Captain Thomas Sutherland, became the “bandmaster” at each corps his father commanded. At the age of 16 he was the commissioned bandmaster at Adelaide 1 Corps and had formed a “staff band”, which travelled to participate in the Intercolonial Congress in Melbourne in 1887. Will went on to become the officer bandmaster of the Melbourne Staff Band from 1904 to 1914. A pocket cornet used by Will Gore is displayed in the Army’s museum in Melbourne.

Barbara Bolton in her book Booth’s Drum noted that, “Amongst the musicians whose compositions regularly appeared in the band journal was Will Gore, who contributed some 200 original pieces and arrangements.”

John Gore remained an out-of-the ordinary Salvationist and was widely loved for his radiant spirit, sincerity and zeal. He was awarded the Order of the Founder in 1924, cementing his place in the history of The Salvation Army.

On 12 March 1927, John Gore unveiled a stone tablet on the spot underneath the gum tree where he stood with Edward Saunders and others 47 years before to conduct that historic meeting which led to the founding of The Salvation Army in Australia. In 1931, in his 85th year, John Gore was promoted to glory.

The Gore-Saunders partnership was not only a powerful one in human terms, but their passion, motivation and energy – as well as their planning and actions that shaped The Salvation Army in this country – were divinely inspired.