Obadiah has joined the “Churches in South Australia” Facebook group, where people post pictures of churches. And that’s where the name William Kingsnorth Mallyon came up. He was a bank manager with the National Bank, but as a peripatetic worker, he designed ten churches beginning at Redhill (south of Crystal Brook) to Streaky Bay in the far west.
Posted to Redhill in 1880, he taught himself the architectural skills to design St Andrew’s. As a banker, he knew how to raise the required £500.
The “Architects of South Australia” website records what happened next: “Elected a synodsman to represent St Paul’s, Port Pirie, Mallyon gained a direct line to the newly-appointed Dr Kennion, a bishop who actively encouraged the foundation of ‘English’ churches across the state. Parish building committees applied to the Adelaide head office for permission to build and for loans up to £200 from the Bishop’s Home Mission Society. Mallyon was referred to applicants, helping them selectively to build modest, extendable places of worship on the tightest of budgets. Although his masonry churches will have been built according to a standard specification, a range of designs with or without sanctuaries, with or without porches and vestries, with towers or without, was evinced. It would be unfair to say that the smaller churches possess a naïve charm and the bigger ones a pretentious grandeur; they result innocently from the sacrifice of struggling congregations, challenging circumstances and limited building expertise. An amateur by his own admission, Mallyon made up for unstudied design and rudimentary drawing with punctilious administration, mostly conducted by handwritten letter . He emerged an architect recognised to be a zealous project-manager who carried out contracts to the letter, seeking full value for every penny expended.”
And here’s some of the results:
Mallyon’s First Church, St Andrews Redhill (A private house): Image Credit Quenton Earl
St. Mary’s Anglican Church,Watervale: Image Credit Quenton Earl
St Aidans Saddleworth (Now a B and B) Said to be Mallyon’s favourite: image Credit Mari Walker
St Mary of Bethany Anglican Church, Goyder: Image Credit Quenton Earl
Pictures from the Churches in South Australia Facebook group
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So what was God doing? The assassin’s bullets grazed Donald Trump but killed firefighter Corey Comperatore, whose story The Other Cheek told a few days ago. Sydney Minister David Ould (he might want Obadiah to say Parramatta) made an insightful tweet.
Proof there’s some thoughtful commentary on X.
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Farewell Wendy: As the Australian Christian Lobby’s National Director – Politics retires, she gifted The Other Cheek with a far-reaching piece of research. Asked what she would campaign on if she stayed with ACL she nominates Aboriginal deprivation and instances a comparison of Longreach and Maningrida, two towns of comparative size. But Longreach, the almost totally white town, gets a “18-bed hospital facility providing acute care, general surgery, emergency, medical, paediatrics, gynaecology, obstetrics, ophthalmology, outpatient and elective health services as well as a retrieval and transfer service. 24-hour accident and emergency care is available, and the hospital can respond to emergencies through the Triple Zero (000) system. Maningrida, in the heart of Arnhem land, has a simple community health centre.
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Quote of the week: Nine days before he realises that he believes that Jesus is the son of God, C. S Lewis, after a long conversation with J. R. R. Tolkien, writes to his boyhood friend Arthur Greeves, “”Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened.”