Frederic BARKER

BARKER, FREDERIC (b. Baslow, Derbyshire, England, 17 Mar 1808; d. San Remo, Italy, 6 April 1882). Second Anglican bishop of Sydney.

Frederic Barker was the fifth son of the Rev John Barker (1762-1824) and his wife Jane (1768-1838), née Whyte. His grandfather was chaplain to the duke of Devonshire in Ireland and later dean of Raphoe, while his father was for thirty years vicar of Baskow. After early instruction at home, notable for his mother's religious influence upon him, Frederic was educated at Grantham School and Jesus College, Cambridge (BA, 1831; MA, 1939; DD, 1854). The exceptionally tall (194 cm) Barker was noted more for his athleticism than his scholarship, gaining not the normal honours, but a mere pass degree. His religious outlook brought him under the influence of the evangelicals who had gathered around Charles Simeon. Here Barker found men who respected the Protestant reformers, who read their Bibles daily, who prayed extemporarily yet loved the Book of Common Prayer, who preached the depravity of man, free sovereign grace, the cross and justification by faith, and were unanimous in their rejection of Roman Catholic dogma. He left Cambridge with a firm and lifelong commitment to evangelical principles and practice.

Barker was made deacon by the bp of Rochester on 10 April 1831 and was ordained priest by Bp J B Sumner of Chester on 10 April 1832. He was appointed to the perpetual curacy of Upton, near Liverpool on 11 April 1832. His personal qualities included a certain gravity and thoughtfulness, a stateliness of manner, a firmness and decisiveness, yet a personal warmth and gentleness which inspired affection in those who knew him well. To the casual acquaintance he seemed somewhat hard and critical. His natural inclination to satire was something against which he had to struggle.

A short-term appointment as a Home Mission Society missioner to Ireland in late 1834 gave him experience of the needs and problems of the Church of Ireland, the disputatious tendency of many Irish, and a lasting repugnance for Irish Catholicism. Something of his stamina and evangelical fervour can be seen in the 800 miles he travelled and the 52 sermons he preached in the next month. He was offered at least two Irish parishes but returned to take up the appointment to St Mary's Edge Hill, Liverpool, on 23 Jan 1835, resigning Upton in 1837. On 15 Oct 1840, Barker married Jane Sophia, elder daughter of John and Janet Harden of Brathey Hall, Ambleside. Jane's family were friends with the Wordsworth circle and with Thomas Arnold of Rugby. She brought to the marriage a lively wit, a frankness and quickness of intellect artistic qualities, a charming manner and a sympathetic and caring nature.

In his diocesan bishop, J B Sumner, Barker found an ardent evangelical who taught him much about gaining people's confidence and directing his energies towards church extension. The methods of financing a program of a new church each month in the diocese from the Church Building Society and other sources were instructive to the young Barker. Sumner's strategies for finding the stipends for new appointments and for alleviating dependence on pew rents were to influence Barker's approach to similar problems in Sydney. Barker also benefited from the internal improvements to the diocese which included subdivision to form new sees, the creation of new archdeaconries with jurisdiction over the old deaneries, and the reduction of non-residence. The clergy were encouraged to improve pastoral standards along evangelical lines by visiting the sick to read and expound the Scriptures, holding cottage meetings, giving lectures, and seeking lay assistance in pastoral work. Strong evangelical clergy were attracted to the major towns and St Aidan's College, Birkenhead was set up under Dr Joseph Baylee in 1846 to train non-graduate ordinands. Sumner encouraged his clergy to create day and Sunday schools and formed a diocesan Board of Education in 1838 and a training college for teachers in 1840.

St Mary's Edge Hill was a new church on the rural fringe of Liverpool in 1835, attended by a mixture of the wealthy and the poor. Here, over nineteen years in the company of a group of dynamic evangelicals, Barker was able to develop his talents as a parish minister. He began by introducing an evening schoolroom service for the poor and, in 1850, building St Stephen the Martyr's church in the working class part of the parish. By 1854, when Edge Hill had become part of suburban Liverpool, both his day and Sunday schools boasted a regular attendance of 350 pupils. Plans were afoot for the erection of another daughter church in a poorer area of the parish. His parish was active in forming an auxiliary of the diocesan Church Building Society and in supporting CMS and the Irish Home Mission. Barker acted as chaplain to the County Refuge, preached regularly in the open air, and worked to raise funds to employ Scripture readers. His publications, The Supposed Sacrament of Penance (a printed sermon, 1838), Rise of the Errors of the Church of Rome (1840) and Pharisaism (1854) focused on criticisms of Catholic doctrine and practice. His devotional work Thirty-six Psalms, with Commentary and Prayer for use in families (1854) lay unfinished for a number of years before publication because of the demands of a busy parish.

Recurrent illness in 1846, 1849 and 1852 took its toll. On the death of his elder brother, Barker was prepared to consider the duke of Devonshire's offer of the less demanding rural Baslow parish. He was inducted in April 1854. Three months later he was offered the bishopric

Three months later he was offered the bishopric of Sydney, which had been vacant since February 1853. Attempts to find a successor to W G Broughton had failed until Sir George Grey, the newly appointed Secretary of State for the Colonies, looked for an evangelical, rather than a High Church, candidate. It was Sumner, now abp of Canterbury, who suggested Barker.

Barker was sensitive to High Church criticism of the offer and to his health limitations. After receiving reassurance that episcopal work was not as demanding as a town parish, he consented and was consecrated on St Andrew's day at Lambeth parish church. Barker began to look for financial support and clerical recruits before sailing on 28 Feb 1855. Three recruits accompanied the Barkers while five others were to follow. Their shipboard life was regular: morning and evening prayer were conducted each day and two services on Sunday. Three mornings a week were given to Greek NT and three to other theological subjects. At Port Phillip the party was cordially received by Dean Macartney (q.v.) only to learn that Bp Charles Perry (q.v.), whom Barker had hoped to consult on a range of matters, was on his way to England. Their arrival in Sydney on 25 May 1855 was eagerly awaited by Archdeacon William Cowper (q.v.). Barker was installed as the second bishop of Sydney on 31 May 1855 in St Andrew's temporary cathedral.

Even though the Barkers viewed Sydney as a short-term missionary assignment, they were not prepared for the culture shock of the blatant materialism of Australians in the gold-rush decade. Jane's journal eloquently captures the frustrations they experienced at having so few reliable evangelical clergy to support them and no senior colleague for Frederic to turn to for advice. They were appalled at the lifeless outward observance of Christianity. Except for Archdeacon Cowper, all the city clergy were High Churchmen, unsympathetic to the Barkers' evangelicalism.

Initially, Barker immersed himself in matters of detail over which he took meticulous care in the belief that the efficient discharge of his duties, his positive leadership and the courteous treatment of clergy would win over the disaffected. Barker's first concern was to increase the supply of ministers. He encouraged young English and Irish evangelicals to offer for service and gave high priority to the establishment of a new theological college on the model of St Aidan's Birkenhead. Already Barker had urged the Rev William Hodgson (q.v.) to accept the challenge of developing the new college. The means were found in the estate of the late Thomas Moore (q.v.) and from this emerged Moore Theological College, which accepted its first three students on 1 March 1856.

Under Hodgson and his successors the Revs R L King (q.v.) and A L Williams (q.v.), forty-seven men were trained for the diocese. By 1882 eighty percent of the clergy had formal theological training. Of these, three in eight were Moore College men but, because few were graduates, they came under criticism for being so narrowly educated. Yet the contribution of the college was not able to stem the diminishing presence of clergy to nominal Anglicans in the diocese as the ratio of clergy to people fell from 1:1157 in 1855 to 1:1704 in 1882. The college also played a significant role by providing sixty ordinands for Melbourne diocese, twenty for Bathurst, seven each for Goulburn and North Queensland and five for Ballarat.

In his first month in Sydney Barker attended a meeting of the local BFBS branch, signalling his willingness to co-operate in non-denominational society work. This contrasted with the aloofness of his predecessor and won him election as a vice-patron of the NSW Auxiliary. When the Sydney City Mission was founded in 1862, Barker was ready to support its work amongst the poor. In contrast, he showed a decided reluctance to be involved in any religious society which might cause divisions in the ranks of Anglicans and he would not permit his clergy to share pulpits with ministers of other denominations. Nor was he prepared to sanction any co-operation with Roman Catholics and he warned Anglicans not to subscribe to the 1865 appeal for St Mary's cathedral building fund.

During August 1855 Barker made a tour of parts of the diocese to formulate plans for development. The extent of the see, together with the rapidly growing population, determined Barker to work for sub-division. He sought an endowment of £10 000 to found a new diocese centred on Goulburn. This was achieved by 1863 and Mesac Thomas (q.v.) was appointed bp. In 1869 Barker turned his efforts to the formation of another diocese at Bathurst with the evangelical Samuel Edward Marsden (q.v.) as bp. The key to these achievements was the Sydney Church Society. The adaptive Barker modelled it partly on Sumner's Chester Church Building Society, partly on the London Church Pastoral Aid Society and partly on Bp William Tyrell's Newcastle Church Society. Its underlying philosophy was that evangelism was best achieved by placing churches and by co-opting the laity to visit the homes of the unchurched, the clergy could draw nominal Anglicans to hear gospel sermons. As a consequence, the twofold objects of the Church Society were to raise finance for new church buildings and to supplement the stipends of clergy in parishes which were not self-sufficient. This became all the more necessary with the withdrawal of state aid to churches in 1S62. Barker's consultative approach and the Church Society's structure gave laymen a responsible role in the decision-making process. The society differed from its Newcastle counterpart in leaving church schools to the concern of local parishes and in allowing the field of Anglican overseas missions to the traditional societies, particularly the evangelical CMS. Ministries to Aborigines and the goldfield Chinese were in its charter but social welfare work was left to non-denominational specialist societies.

Church Society income never exceeded 4.2% of total diocesan receipts. Nevertheless, it was able to subsidise nearly one-third of the least viable parishes of the diocese and ensure ministerial continuity. The underlying problem was that population was strung out along railways and the Illawarra coastline. Wherever population density increased, lay people took a delight in raising elaborate Gothic-revival church buildings. These were very demanding on the limited resources of the diocese. The lack of established wealth was reflected in a paucity of benefactors. But a financial revolution was achieved in freewill giving. While state aid diminished to less than one-eighth its 1862 level and pew rents remained at about 13% of total income, church offertories grew from nothing to over 30% by 1882. To tap this trend, Barker led the diocese to accept that the proceeds from two specified Sunday offertories each year should be directed to the Church Society. Between 1866 and 1882 total giving was increasing at a faster rate than church attendance, signifying a greater level of commitment from Sydney Anglicans. Their main concerns, however, were with buildings rather than ministers, their own parish rather than church extension. The only creative attempt to break from the parochial focus was the Rev Dr J Corlette's unsuccessful proposal that worker-priests should he employed. The Church Society never grew into, the force that Barker had hoped. Its work amongst Aboriginal Australians lacked direction and continuity, with an apparent inability to identify any coherent groups of Aborigines to reach, while that amongst Chinese dwindled as they left the goldfields in the mid-1860s.

A school for the daughters of clergy was established by Jane Barker in 1856. In the same year a site for a permanent residence for the bishop was acquired at Randwick and building began. Work was also recommenced on St Andrew's cathedral. In 1858 Barker set about reorganising church schools. He also gave encouragement to the formation of Sunday schools and a diocesan Sunday School Institute. New parishes were created as men became available from England, Ireland or from Moore College. A Home Visiting and Relief Society was formed in 1862 to provide relief for those in necessitous circumstances. District Visitors Association branches were formed in many of the parishes and were strongly supported by women.

Barker's preaching followed the dictum that a sermon was 'an exhaustive treatise on a single text practically applied'. Some of his and his clergy's preaching revealed a limited hermeneutic and problematic exegesis. This was exemplified in their directly equating the OT temple to the contemporary church, intensifying the predisposition to build lavishly. Although many of the clergy claimed to be evangelical, their preaching lacked the essential focus on atonement and redemption that Barker's had. Many of the surviving sermons reveal a focus on moral reformation, rather than spiritual salvation. Social change would arise from the collective force of individual regeneration and moral living. Barker encouraged his clergy's outreach with the saying 'a house-going clergyman made a church-going people'. He and his clergy gave community leadership in the 1864 floods on the Hawkesbury and Shoalhaven rivers and in the 1869 drought.

The organisational culture of the Sydney Anglican church was not aligned to working-class values. Most parishes found difficulties in effectively communicating the gospel to the poor, although some near-city parishes attracted the upper end of the working class whose members were keen on self-improvement and social advancement. A number of the inner city parishes, which ministered solely to the poor, found it hard to remain viable. The notable exception was St Barnabas' church in George Street where Barker had placed a working-class layman, Thomas Smith (q.v.), as a stipendiary layreader. Smith was so successful that Barker ordained him to a very fruitful ministry. Few other ministerial recruits emerged from the poor. Barker threw his support behind the 1874 missions in twelve city ministerial parishes. The lack of quality missioners in Australia and the temptation for his clergy to regard missions as a panacea for their own evangelistic shortcomings made Barker more hesitant in accepting the proposed 188U missions.

Constitutional matters were not Barker's strong point. He had to rely heavily on the advice of others, particularly Alexander Gordon QC, the diocesan chancellor. Barker met with Bp Perry in 1857 and, together with Bp Tyrrell of Newcastle, favoured an approach to the colonial legislatures for legislative enactment for a church constitution. Others preferred a simpler enabling act, while SA Anglicans proceeded by way of a consensual compact. A diocesan conference in Sydney in 1858 only highlighted the differences which existed, many fearing the extent of episcopal veto.

Matters came to a head in 1860-61 as a result of the King judgment in the Supreme Court which cast doubt on the validity of his letters patent, and because the colonial parliament's refusal to pass legislation in the form which he and Tyrrell had proposed. Accordingly, Barker felt the time was right for a visit to England to consult legal and episcopal authorities to solve the impasse. The recent developments in science and theology worried Barker, as did legal decisions about the relationship of church and state in self-governing colonies. He was determined to press ahead with plans for synodal government to protect the church against the perceived threats of ritualism, secularism and unbelief. The main issue between 1864 and 1866 was the form of legislative enactment. Tyrrell had shifted his position and had come to accept that the provincial synod should be more powerful than the individual diocesan synods. Barker, on the other hand, wished to proceed conservatively by retaining as much of the traditional relationship of church and state and of the autonomy of the diocesan bishop as possible. In most respects he was supported by Mesac Thomas.

In 1866, an Act for the management of Church property in accordance with constitutions already agreed upon was passed by the NSW parliament. The first diocesan synod opened the opportunity for ordinances to regulate the life of the diocese and provided, under Barker's adroit chairmanship, a forum for debate on a range of contemporary concerns. The first provincial synod under Barker's presidency as Metropolitan was held in 1868. It provided a useful medium for the exchange of ideas and for concerted action in matters affecting all three NSW dioceses. When all the Australian bishops gathered in Sydney for the consecration of St Andrew's cathedral in 1868, Barker convened a meeting of bishops to canvass the desirability of a general synod for the Australian church. Agreement was reached to form such a synod despite constitutional difficulties. Limited powers, diocesan differences, colonial rivalries and distance prevented general synod becoming a real force in Australian Anglicanism during Barker's time.

Education emerged as another challenge to Barker's diplomacy and leadership. The King's School, Parramatta required reorganisation twice during Barker's episcopacy before it was placed on a firm footing. In elementary education Barker was quick to take up the opportunities afforded by the 1848 dual system. By 1861 there were 107 diocesan schools. In 1857 he established the Church of England Training School for teachers. In 1856 a position of inspector of Anglican schools was created. It was filled first by the Rev John Burke, then by Dean W M Cowper (q.v.) and in the 1870s by the very successful Rev E G Hodgson. The 1866 Public Schools Act abolished the dual system and brought all state-aided schools under control of the Council of Education. During its passage, Barker secured amendments which gave clergy the right of entry into board schools to provide special religious instruction. He tried to inspire his clergy to reach all nominal Anglican children. Parkes's 1880 Public Instruction Act challenged the whole fabric of Barker's educational endeavours. While agreeing that there was the need for reform of education, Barker opposed the withdrawal of state aid. His opposition was construed by many Protestants to be tantamount to supporting Catholic schools. Barker was fighting for the existence of a concept where education in a church school was a focus for evangelism and instruction in Christian living. Many of his clergy, unequal to the struggle or predisposed to liberal secular ideas, deserted him. While accepting that the diocesan school system would wither still further, Barker continued to fight for and won an increased right of entry for his clergy into state schools to give special religious instruction. Meanwhile, diocesan Sunday schools saw dramatic growth with attendances trebling between 1867 and 1880.

Further diocesan reforms after 1867 included the establishment of rural deaneries of four or five parishes as a way of overcoming isolation of many of the younger men who went straight from theological training into small parishes. The deaneries provided them with the opportunity for regular contact and discussion with senior clergy. Rural deans were given the responsibility to inspect and report on the condition of the church and buildings and the provision of religious instruction in schools. In 1869 a board of nominators was established to make a presentation to the bishop for clerical appointments to parishes. This was made more democratic in 1875, giving the parish representatives more say in the process. Nonassignable right of presentation was given to any person who built a church and parsonage and provided a stipend of £300 a year. Other synod ordinances which Barker initiated included a tribunal for the discipline of clergy, a superannuation fund and a clergy widows and orphan's fund. Barker worked to have £300 a year recognised as the minimum desirable stipend for his clergy to place them above want. An endowment fund was established in 1871, although it was slow to command support from church people.

Synod was also used to promote support for foreign missions. The Melanesian Mission was particularly popular, the more so when its first bishop, J C Patteson, was martyred in 1871 on Nukapu. Barker was criticised for not giving the lead in opposing law reforms proposed by Sir Alfred Stephen. He was painfully aware of the divisiveness of this issue when the Stephen family were such loyal supporters of the diocese. The Chester model was again used in 1875 to establish a Lay Readers' Institute as a way of supplementing the overworked clergy. Anglican divisions on social issues arose again in 1876 when Barker refused to allow synod to be used as a platform by temperance reformers. He pointed out that this was to confuse the gospel with middle class cultural values and to focus on the manifestation rather than the cause of this working class problem. He considered evangelism was a more appropriate activity.

Barker returned to England in 1870 to seek advice on the changing legal status of the colonial church, particularly with respect to a general synod. At the same time he explored the possibility of the creation of a new diocese in North Queensland which was still under his oversight as Metropolitan. Although unsuccessful on this occasion, he was able to achieve the appointment of G H Stanton (q.v.) as bishop when he returned to England on 13 March 1877 for the 1878 Lambeth conference of bishops. He was confirmed in his resistance to the inroads of liturgical innovation and theological speculation. The death of Jane at Randwick on 9 March 1876 took its toll on Barker, intensifying his conservative inclinations. Many thought that, because of his age, he would resign while in England in 1878. It must have been a surprise to learn that the bishop had remarried on 22 January and would return after Lambeth. His bride was Mary Jane (1848-1910), elder daughter of Edward and Mary Woods of Liverpool.

Barker's return involved him in the consolidation and perfection of much of the administrative work he had achieved in the previous twenty years. His last work was in the preparation of a general church property trust bill. The 1879-80 education crisis demanded much of his energies and in Dec 1880 his health failed him. After three month's convalescence he left for England in March 1881 to spend the summer resting in the Lake District. He was well enough to travel to Italy for the winter but died at San Remo. He was buried in Baslow churchyard.

The enduring legacies of Barker to Sydney diocese were the strong body of evangelicals amongst the ninety-eight clergy, the smoothly-functioning synods in which lay and clerical representatives of the parishes had an equal part in decision-making, the various organisations which gave richness and purpose to church life and an evangelical culture which permeated the churches and homes of Sydney Anglicans. There were shortcomings. Important among these were the methods for the continuation of the evangelical succession in the diocese, the lack of any substantial endowment to safeguard the continued supply of clergy from Moore College, and the gradual fall in church attendance amongst the nominal Anglican population of the diocese.

R Border, Church and state in Australia 1788-1872 (London, 1962); W M Cowper, Episcopate of the Right Reverend Frederic Barker ... A memoir (London, 1888); M L Loane, Hewn From the Rock: Origins and Traditions of the Church in Sydney (Sydney, 1976); M L Loane, A centenary history of Moore Theological College (Sydney 1955); S Judd and K Cable, Sydney Anglicans (Sydney, 1987); K J Cable, 'Mrs. Barker and her diary', JRAHS, 54:3 (1968); E D Daw, 'Synodical Government for the Church of England in NSW: The First Attempt', JRH, 6:2 (1970); R S M Withycombe, 'Church of England Attitudes to Social Questions in the Diocese of Sydney, 1856-1866', JRAHS, 47:2 (1961); D G Anderson, ‘The Bishop's Society 1856 to 1958: A History of the Sydney Anglican Home Mission Society’ (PhD thesis, University of Wollongong, 1990); P D Davis, ‘Bishop Barker and education’ (MEd thesis, University of Sydney, 1963); G S Maple, ‘Evangelical Anglicanism—dominant defensive or in decline? A study of church life and organisation in the Diocese of Sydney during the episcopate of Frederick Barker, 1855 to 1882’ (MA thesis, Macquarie University, 1992 and for detailed refs); W W Phillips, ‘Christianity and its Defence in NSW, circa 1860 to 1890’ (PhD thesis, ANU, 1969).

G S MAPLE