Page:Distinguished Churchmen.djvu/87

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE RIGHT REV. ALFRED BARRY, D.D.
61

who, whimsically enough, was called the Archdeacon of Calcutta—Calcutta being about 6,000 miles away! Afterwards, in 1836, he was consecrated as the first Bishop of Australia; and from that time Church advance was rapid and steady. As years rolled on new Bishoprics were created, and the Church organisation followed up the extension of Colonial Settlement.

“The Synodical Government of the Church in Australia and, in fact of the Colonial Churches generally, was brought about in the year 1850, when six Bishops met at Sydney under the presidency of Bishop Broughton. The Church in Australia is now completely organised as to government; it has its Diocesan Synods meeting annually, its Provincial Synods meeting every three years, where the Dioceses are formed into provinces, and every five years its General Synod, embracing the whole of Australia and Tasmania. There are now in Australia as many as sixteen Bishoprics, viz., Sydney, Goulburn, Bathurst, Newcastle, Grafton and Armidale, and Riverina—these forming the province of New South Wales; Melbourne, Ballarat and Tasmania, in the south-east; the three Bishoprics in the north—Brisbane, North Queensland and Rockhampton; Adelaide, in South Australia; and Perth, in Western Australia. Recently there have been created two which may be called missionary Bishoprics—one in Carpentaria, on