Revd. John Ramsden Wollaston, the first Archdeacon of the Archdiocese of Western Australia and a pioneer of faith and worship was born in London on 28 March 1791, he was educated at the Charterhouse School where his father Revd. Edward Wollaston was a Master and his maternal grandfather, Revd. William Ramsden DD, was Headmaster.
It was at The Charterhouse School, that from age eleven, Jon received his grounding in self-discipline; he went on to win an exhibition to Christ's College, Cambridge. Here he took his BA in 1812 and his MA in 1815. Like the majority of the Wollastons and Ramsdens, he took Holy Orders becoming Deacon in 1814 and Priest in 1815; he was Curate of Wrothan, Kent 1814-1815 and Vicar of Elenham, Essex 1815-1818. He was appointed Permanent Curate of West Wickham, Cambridge in 1825.
In 1819, he had married Mary Amelia Gledstanes and they had a family of five sons and two daughters. Wollaston began to find the living from his cure at West Wickham insufficient for his growing family and the practices of the Church of England were changing at the time. So for some time he considered whether he should emigrate to Australia to give his family what he thought would be greater opportunities than England might offer.
In 1840, in response to advertisements by the Western Australian Land Company offering land for settlement at in Western Australia, John Wollaston decided to take up land there. Wollaston was fifty years old, he had no experience in farming, he was not of great physical strength and his wife Mary had been brought up in a moderately well off family, accustomed to servants and a life of ease. To emigrate to a pioneer country under these circumstances was a courageous step. The five-month voyage during which they were "exposed to all the dirt and misery of the ship with an unwholesome salt diet" was a nightmare especially for Mary who was ill most of the time. But worse was to come!
Firstly accommodation had to be found and Wollaston purchased a 'house' that had been built by the captain of a whaler that had been wrecked the previous years, a house that Wollaston described as "nothing but a string of huts such as a labourer in England would not think much of" and "in a filthy state, well stocked with vermin and smelling of oil". But worst of all the Governor of Western Australia refused to pay him "till [a] church is finished", the salary of 100 pounds a year the British Government had assured him of.
Despite this decision and finding the Anglican community apathetic and neglected, He immediately took the initiative in reviving the organisation of the Colony's Anglican Church. In February 1842 he convened a conference of the colony's five clergy in Perth, where the church's problems were assessed and a statement drawn up urging Bishop Broughton to visit Western Australia and set matters in order. Broughton could not come and Wollaston could not implement his suggestion that clergy conferences should become annual.
In May 1842, with his financial position rapidly becoming desperate, Wollaston and his sons, with little other help, set about to build a church, holding services wherever they could until the church was opened on 18 September. With such innovations as windows of calico soaked in turpentine and oil to make them translucent the church, St Mark's Picton, was the second consecrated in Western Australian and is preserved as a national monument.
In 1848; a new and more sympathetic governor, Fitzgerald, transferred him to the parish of St John's, Albany. Here he found the parish church, started in 1835, partly completed with only the walls and part of the tower complete; there was no roof. With characteristic determination and ignoring the parishioners' assertions that the parish could not afford it, he completed the nave in a few months just in time for the visit of Bishop Augustus Short and Archdeacon Hale of the new diocese of Adelaide. Short decided that enough of the structure was complete and on 25 October 1848 he consecrated the church. John Wollaston therefore has the distinction of having been associated with the building of the two oldest churches in Western Australia, St John's Albany and St Mark's at Picton.
Short, impressed by Wollaston's qualities, appointed him Archdeacon of Western Australia early in 1849. For the next seven years Wollaston covered many hundreds of miles on horseback throughout the settled areas of the colony in over-powering heat or pouring rain to supervise his archdeaconry. On 3 May 1856, within two months of his fifth and final archdiaconical tour of 972 miles he was dead, it is suggested chiefly of exhaustion. Thankfully his redeeming sense of humour and his great faith were his greatest assets. His philosophy shows in his comments that "No persons have more cause to pray with thanksgiving than ourselves and it is my greatest comfort to do so".
John's Journals have been published and a theological college in Western Australia is named after him.
*Mr. Ray Boyle is Churchwarden of Our Lady of Walsingham, Rockhampton and a great-great grandson of the Venerable John Wollaston who was first Archdeacon of Western Australia and pioneer of faith and worship in the Province. He has an interest in the Promulgation of John Ramsden Wollaston as a local Saint and hero of the Anglican Communion by the Anglican Province of Western Australia. The full article is on the internet at http://acca.asn.au/Vol1003H/301p1101.html
Bibliography:
Don Wollaston The Wollastons - from Domesday On.
Henry Woods Wollaston The History of the Wollaston Family
Editor's notes:
John Ramsden Wollaston was a descendent of the Bishop's Castle branch of the family. I have not been able to contact Ray Boyle and so I apologise for not clearing the copyright of this item