Emilia Louise BAEYERTZ

BAEYERTZ, EMILIA LOUISE (née ARONSON) (b. England, 29 March 1842; 26 April 1926). Evangelist.

A sickly child of wealthy Jewish parents, Emilia left school at the age of 13. As a young woman she was engaged to be married but suffered a breakdown when her fiance died. Sent to Australia with her brother to recoup her health, she lived with her sister in Melbourne. She m. Charles Baeyertz a bank manager and Anglican 16 Oct 1865, without the knowledge of her family, who spurned her as a result.

Settling in Colac, Emilia had two children and became involved in the activities of the local Anglican church without ever converting to Christianity. Following the death of her husband in a gun accident in 1871, Emilia became a Christian and continued her association with the Church of England throughout her life. Once converted Emilia quickly became involved in jail and hospital visitation, Sunday School teaching, house to house evangelistic work and evangelism among Jews in Melbourne. By 1878 she was conducting successful meetings for the YWCA in Melbourne. Her reputation was made with missions in two gold-mining centres, Sandhurst and Ballarat, where crowds thronged to hear her simple homely anecdotal style of preaching which was combined with her careful avoidance of emotional excess and uncompromising presentation of sin and redemption.

Invited to SA in Sept 1880 by a group of Baptists, Mrs Baeyertz conducted missions in virtually every Baptist church in the colony during the following two years. The Baptists were delighted with her efforts and some churches reported over 100 conversions. Her efforts touched particularly the young and those already associated with church life and her meetings exclusively for men also reaped an evangelistic harvest.

Upon leaving SA Emilia conducted successful evangelistic campaigns in Victoria and Brisbane and in 1889 she journeyed to New Zealand where she spoke to large crowds in the major cities. Shifting her attention to North America she preached to large gatherings in Los Angeles, Hamilton, Toronto, Boston and Ottawa, often preaching under the auspices of the YWCA. Missions followed throughout Britain in 1892 where her work gained wide acceptance among evangelicals of different denominations.

Baeyertz continued her evangelistic work into the new century but never graduated to the ranks of evangelists such as R A Torrey with their extensive city wide campaigns.

D Hilliard, Popular Revivalism in South Australia from the 1870.s to the 1920s (Adelaide, 1982); J Walker, ‘The Baptists in South Australia, 1863 to 1914’, BTh thesis, Flinders University, 1990; No name, From Darkness to Light. The life and work of Mrs Baeyertz, no date

JOHN WALKER