Phone +61 2 4927 5399 | ||
Address 1B Parry St, Cooks Hill NSW 2300, Australia | ||
The church of St John the Evangelist, Newcastle, also called St John's Cooks Hill, is an Anglican church in Newcastle, New South Wales. It is the oldest remaining church building in Newcastle, completed in 1860. The building, designed by Edmund Blackett in the Victorian Gothic style, is located close to the city centre in the suburb of Cooks Hill.
History
The church was originally build for the largely mining population of Newcastle. The first bishop of Newcastle, Bishop Tyrrell had noted that only the wealthy of the district attended Christ Church, and in order that the people may be “reclaimed from practical atheism”. The new parish included the suburban area at that time as far as Waratah, Lambton, Adamstown and Cardiff, in addition, of course, to its mining core in the Glebe and Merewether. In 1856 a school and parsonage were commenced on 1½ acres of land “at present in a state of bush and abutting on the Lake Macquarie Road ” later to become Darby Street). This land was donated by the Australian Agricultural Company (AA Coy), and the new parish was founded on March 1, 1856 by Bishop Tyrrell. The Revd. L.H. Rumsey was appointed as the first Rector. He held a master's degree in Arts at Oxford and came to Newcastle in 1856 direct from England for what Bishop Tyrrell described as “real missionary work”.
The building of the church was commenced in 1857 and the foundation stone, which cannot now be located, was laid on Saturday, 21 July of that year. The building consecrated on February 20, 1860. It seems that Bishop Tyrrell purchased designs for a school and a large church and managed to get his money’s worth by using the church design three times—St John’s, Newcastle; St Paul’s at West Maitland and St. Paul’s at Ipswich (at that time part of the Diocese of Newcastle). Although a William White is credited as the architect of St Paul’s, West Maitland, it is possible that he worked from the design or made construction drawings.
The money was made available through the AA Coy and Mr. Walter Stevenson Davidson, a director and a banker, co-instigated in 1854 a fund to provide money for the construction of churches and schools in this area where the Company had derived considerable wealth through mining and agriculture.
The fund raised £8,357.17.9 and of this Mr Davidson personally contributed £5,000. £2,956.9.0 was added by fifty-one other Anglican shareholders with interest of £401.8.9. A portion was allotted to the Peel River area (Tamworth) and the remainder was for St. John’s church and schoolroom.