These snippets were originally assembled and published as part of our 200th Anniversary year in 2025, and may be added to with other interesting odds and ends as we discover them.
By the time St. John’s was 70 years old, efforts were already being made to recall and write down its history. Local historian and churchwarden Ernest Whitfeld [link] gave a talk on origins of the Mission House in 1896, and…
There are some remarkable carvings in St. John’s Church, and also places intended for carvings which were never completed. We have recently found a 1935 letter from architect Alexander North outlining his proposals for those protruding blocks. His ideas might…
Inside nearly all the places of worship in Launceston and surrounding districts, there have been placed honour boards, plaques, windows and other memorials to commemorate those members of each congregation who fought and in many cases, gave their lives, in…
We don’t know for sure what kind of pulpit was used when St. John’s first opened in 1825. The earliest photo of the interior shows a very tall and beautifully carved pulpit on a pedestal, and it was moved from…
By the 1820s, early Launceston was gradually changing from a settlement of tents and huts into a small town, and with the completion of St. John’s Church in 1825, an opportunity arose to install a town clock in its tower,…
Before St. John’s Church was built, and before the appointment of Revd John Youl as chaplain to the settlement, Christian ministry was haphazard and occasional. Revd Robert Knopwood was the only clergyman in Van Diemens Land from 1803, and rarely…
We all have our preferred places to sit in church – sometimes out of habit, sometimes because it seems warmer, or the sound is better. From the early days of St. John’s, “pew rents” were a normal part of the…
In 1899, plans were well in hand for the building of “the great extension” of St. John’s – the present dome area, transepts, chapel, chancel and sanctuary. The nave rebuild was stage 2, and was eventually completed in 1938. But…
Revd Felix Albert Fernau, curate at St. John’s 1902-6, was a remarkable, if nomadic character, who made a name for himself caring for victims of epidemics and leprosy, but also worked as a missionary in New Guinea and in the…
Launceston Church Grammar School occupied what is now the Colonial Hotel, adjoining St. John’s in Elizabeth St, and connections with the church were historically strong. When the great “extension” was completed in 1911, the side chapel was referred to as…