James FORBES

FORBES, JAMES (b. Leochel-Cushnie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, 1813; d. Melbourne, Vic, 12 Aug 1851). Presbyterian minister in Melbourne.

Forbes was educated at the local parish school and Aberdeen University. On 29 June 1837 he was ordained by the Presbytery of Glasgow. At the invitation of the Rev John Dunmore Lang (q.v.) he arrived in Sydney in Dec 1837 and in Jan 1838 moved to Port Phillip where he quickly established a congregation. By taking advantage of the Church Act of 1836, he received a subsidy from the government in order to provide a building for the church. In June 1839 he was called by this congregation to become the founding minister of Scots Church, Melbourne. When the Presbytery of Melbourne was constituted in June 1844 he was elected moderator. He was instrumental in having churches planted in Geelong, Portland Bay, Belfast and Campbellfield.

With the 1843 Disruption in the Church of Scotland Forbes sympathised with the new Free Church and resigned from Scots Church and founded Knox Church, taking most of the influential and wealthy Presbyterians in Melbourne with him. Through his leadership, in June 1847, the Free Church of Australia Felix was formed. The new denomination took an extreme voluntarist stand during Forbes' lifetime.

Forbes was involved in the formation of a number of societies in early Melbourne. He was the principal founder and secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society which held its first meeting in Scots Church on 4 July 1840, and in 1845 of the Presbyterian Female Visiting Society (later the Melbourne Ladies' Benevolent Society). He was also president of the Melbourne Total Abstinence Society, secretary of the Melbourne Mechanics' Institute, and Vice-President of the Melbourne Debating Society.

Apart from his work as a pastor and churchman his main interest was in the area of education. In Nov 1838 he opened Scots School with one of his elders, Robert Campbell, as headmaster. After he left the Church of Scotland on 3 July 1848 he opened John Knox School and in 1850 founded Chalmers Free Church School, and the Melbourne Academy (later Scotch College) in October 1851. He also supported education work among the Aborigines and the establishment of bush schools.

A forthright man, he took every opportunity to express his views in the Port Phillip Gazette and later in his own Port Phillip Christian Herald established in January 1846. He was able to use the latter to promote his voluntarist views even to making religious instruction optional. From 1847 to 1848 he also edited the Free Presbyterian Messenger. He married the daughter of James Clow, Helen Johanna, in August 1845. He died from an ailment of the trachea.

J Campbell Robinson notes of him that 'His preaching was simple ... He preached to win souls, and all who heard him had the responsibility of eternity brought clearly before them'. (Robinson 1928:22) In prayer he would often, in addition to weekly prayer meetings, have concerts of prayer with his elders to intercede for his congregation and the nation. His ministry is well summarised in the inscription on the monument erected in Melbourne General Cemetery: 'A man of inflexible integrity. A minister of untiring devotedness'.

ADB 1; J Campbell Robinson, Melbourne’s First Settled Minister (Melbourne, 1928); A Macdonald, One Hundred Years of Presbyterianism in Victoria (Melbourne, 1937); E Sweetman, Victoria's First Public Educationalist (Melbourne, 1939); R S Ward, The Bush Still Burns (Melbourne, 1989)

STEWART D GILL