Paul CLIPSHAM

CLIPSHAM, PAUL (b. Bardney, Linc, England, late 1849 or early 1850; d. Gilgandra, NSW, 20 Nov 1924). Methodist editor.

Clipsham, converted at fifteen, began a commercial career and became a lay preacher. After training at Richmond College near London he migrated to Australia to minister for the Wesleyan Methodists in Qld (1874, ordained 1878), and in the Bourke Street Circuit, Sydney (1884-6). Due to a continuing illness which he later identified as 'heart weakness', he resigned from connexional ministry and became the editor from 1888 of the Weekly Advocate, the denominational newspaper published in Sydney on behalf of the NSW Conference, re-named the Methodist from 1892. He founded the Wesleyans' Epworth Printing and Publishing House in Sydney during 1893, while editor 1888-90, 1892-3, 18981907. The Wesleyan annual conferences (until 1901) and the Methodist annual conferences thereafter (following Methodist union in 1902) retained him as manager of their publishing activities from 1893 until his retirement in 1919.

Clipsham's business acumen made the Advocate/Methodist financially viable and built a fledgling publishing venture into a recognised church department by 1898. His greatest contribution was as an apologist for evangelical Methodism. His thinking more than that of any other person moulded his church through its weekly newspaper for two decades from 1888. While he valued historic Wesleyanism and viewed it as chosen and equipped by God to lead in the transformation of Australian society he affirmed Methodist union and its cooperation with the 'common Christianity' of Protestantism.

Viewing the British Empire as an expression of the kingdom of God, he interpreted the Boer War in South Africa as a crusade to defend and extend Christian values. Within NSW he fought for 'national righteousness', including the recognition of God in the constitution and public affairs, but without identifying the church with the divisiveness of party politics. He campaigned with vigour against the 'trinity of evils' (intemperance, immorality and gambling) which, along with Sabbath-breaking, he believed to be threats to the nation's prosperity. Impatient of industrial conflict, he advocated the ballot box as the best solution, and strongly supported law and order. While editorials and comments were not signed by Clipsham, his influence is apparent in the ethos which the Advocate/Methodist fostered as it instructed and exhorted its readers. A portrait of Clipsham hangs in Eskdale, the Uniting Church Archive, North Parramatta.

Methodist Church of Australasia, NSW Conference, 24th Conference, Minutes, (Sydney, 1925) 92-3.

ARTHUR N PATRICK