John Flynn (minister)

Early life

Educated at Snake Valley, Sunshine and Braybrook primary schools, he matriculated from University High School Parkville, aged 18. Unable to finance a university course, he became a pupil-teacher with the Victorian Education Department and developed interests in photography and first aid. In 1903 he began training for the ministry through an extra-mural course for 'student lay pastors', serving meanwhile in pioneering districts of Beech Forest and Buchan. His next four years in theological college were interspersed with two periods on a shearers' mission and the publication of his Bushman's Companion (1910).

Ministry

Always thinking of the needs of those in isolated communities, in September 1910 Flynn published The Bushman's Companion which was distributed free throughout inland Australia. He took up the opportunity to succeed E. E. Baldwin as the Smith of Dunesk Missioner at Beltana, a tiny settlement 500 kilometres north of Adelaide. He was ordained in Adelaide for this work in January 1911. The missioners visited the station properties in a wide radius of Beltana, and their practical and spiritual service was valued in the isolated localities. Flynn used it as an opportunity to look at the potential for something bigger. By 1912, after writing a report for his church superiors on the difficulties of ministering to such a widely scattered population, Flynn was made the first superintendent of the Australian Inland Mission. As well as tending to spiritual matters, Flynn quickly established the need for medical care for residents of the vast Australian outback, and established a number of bush hospitals.

By 1917, Flynn was already considering the possibility of new technology, such as radio and aircraft, to assist in providing a more useful acute medical service, and then received a letter from an Australian pilot serving in World War I, Clifford Peel, who had heard of Flynn's speculations and outlined the capabilities and costs of then-available planes. This material was published in the church's magazine, the start of Flynn turning his considerable fund-raising talents to the task of establishing a flying medical service. The first flight of the Aerial Medical Service was in 1928 from Cloncurry, Queensland. A museum commemorating the founding of the Royal Flying Doctor Service is located at John Flynn Place in Cloncurry.

Marriage

Flynn married the secretary of the AIM, Jean Blanch Baird, on Saturday 7 May 1932 at the Presbyterian Church in Ashfield, Sydney. He was 51 years old and the marriage came as a surprise even to his close friends.

Death

He finally retired and died in Sydney. He was cremated and his remains placed under a large boulder from the Devils Marbles. The Northern Territory Department of Public Works had taken the rock from a site sacred to its traditional owners, but after many years of negotiations the rock was returned to its original location in 1998. It was replaced with one acceptable to the Aboriginal people, both of the original rock's home and the people on whose land his grave lies.

His widow Jean died at the Pitt Wood Presbyterian nursing home at Ashfield, Sydney, New South Wales on 27 August 1976.

Awards

Flynn was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1933.

Commemoration

Flynn is featured on the reverse of the polymer Australian twenty-dollar note.

Flynn's name has also been adopted in commemoration of him, including:

Books about Flynn include: