Henry DOWLING

DOWLING, HENRY (b. Stone Easton, near Bath, England, 30 Nov 1780; d. Launceston, Tasmania 29 March 1869). First ordained Baptist minister in Van Diemen's Land.

At 13 Dowling went to sea with the East India Company. At 17 he found employment in London and began attending church. Preacher Calvinist William Huntington, S.S. (Sinner Saved), of Province Chapel, Little Tichfield St, Oxford Market, and Baptist divine of Shoe Lane, the Rev Samuel Eyles Pierce both greatly influenced him and Pierce baptised him. Dowling then associated with the London Itinerant Society. Moving to Worchester, he became a lay-preacher in the Countess of Huntington's chapels in the Malvern Hills and pastored a chapel in Worchester.

At 24 he married Lucy Copas but she died childless within a year. He then married Elizabeth Darke. In 1813 he was called to preach at the Particular chapel in Stanwell St, Colchester, and stayed to pastor the church for 21 years.

In 1830 his son, Henry, sailed to VDL. In 1831 Dowling escorted his daughter Mary to the colony. On 6 July 1834 farewell services were conducted at the Colchester chapel as Dowling and the remainder of his family were emigrating to join the other two. This was his second attempt to migrate. They arrived in Hobart Town on 2 Dec 1834 and then travelled to Launceston. From 31 Jan 1835 he rented the court house for services but by June 1836 his congregation numbered scarcely 20. He became a circuit-rider ministering to outlying districts. While on his quarterly travels to visit the Baptist congregation in Hobart Town, he preached the gospel in country districts literally 'from house to house', baptising many in the streams and pools. In 1836 he was paid £100 from government funds as an unrestricted catechist to the penal gangs and £150 per year thereafter.

Dowling, a man of considerable stamina and physical strength, was generally liked. He held to the Six Principles of Dr John Gill. He had received no ministerial training and what he preached at the beginning of his ministry he held to the end. He revered the itinerant Baptist preacher, the Rev William Gadsby and as likely modelled his ministry on his. Dowling found favour with all the Protestant denominations in the colony and readily involved himself in public meetings, whether Christian or not, antitransportation among them. He was a keen supporter of Temperance and Total Abstinence societies. On 27 Dec 1840 his York Street chapel was opened in Launceston.

In 1846 he suffered his first stroke. On 24 May 1853 his wife Elizabeth died. On 5 June 1854 he married Mrs Hannah Reid and the same year he declined the continuation of government support of £150 per year.

Dowling never gained a great following. Many of the 220 children he had dedicated in the colony were absorbed into other denominations. There were only a couple of Baptist chapels outside the two population centres. In 1865 'Old Daddy Dowling' made his last visit to Hobart Town. He continued to fulfil the duties of pastor of the Launceston church until 1867. During his years of ministry he baptised 300 people but only one, Daniel Allen (q.v.), became a full-time preacher. Dowling's death in 1869 meant that the Strict and Particular work in the colony was now bereft of effective and lasting leadership. The York St chapel ceased to function as a Particular Baptist work in 1916. The one in Hobart Town closed in 1886.

L F Rowston, Baptists in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania, 1988); L F Rowston, Incidents in the life of the Rev. Henry Dowling (Melbourne, 1971)

LAURENCE FREDERICK ROWSTON