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.
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…
By default, the majority of the population of colonial Launceston, convict and free, was considered “Church of England”, and the “Episcopalian Burial Ground” was consecrated in 1823 in what is now Cypress Street. An estimated 9000 people were buried there…
While earlier plans for the extension of St. John’s proposed a lengthening of the building eastwards, and some felt a complete demolition was best, Alexander North’s 1893 plan included the vast dome area and transepts, the present chancel and sanctuary,…
Even in the first decades of St. John’s Church, the size of the building was seen as inadequate for the growing town. A small eastern chancel, added in 1866, hardly improved the seating capacity, and by 1884, Leslie Corrie had…
Launceston residents will be familiar with Balfour Street, named after Lieutenant-Colonel William Balfour, who was appointed civil and military commandant of the Port Dalrymple settlement in 1825, and came to Launceston with his wife Charlotte and children in April that…
Born in 1872 in Rochester, England, to a family with strong musical traditions, organist and organ builder George Hopkins arrived at St. John’s in 1912, to find the 1862 organ, formerly in the west gallery of old St. John’s, had…
Arriving in Van Diemen’s Land in 1837, John Cameron was a successful businessman and landowner. He was a strong supporter of St. John’s Church, and commissioned Ferguson and Urie of Melbourne to create the beautiful Ascension window, likely Launceston’s most…
Born in 1905, Ernest Wynne-Evans served with Church Missionary Society (CMS) from the mid-1920s until 1929, leaving to study for ordained ministry. He served as assistant curate at St. John’s in 1931-32, and was sent out again through CMS Tasmania,…
John Youl arrived at George Town in 1819 as the first appointed chaplain for the young Port Dalrymple settlement, and St. John’s Church was built during his time, but died less than 2 years after its opening, and before it…
From 1893, St. John’s reached out to the poor and vulnerable by establishing a Mission House, firstly in the former Queen’s Head Hotel in Wellington St. (now the site of Coles supermarket carpark), and then in a purpose-built centre in…