John HAM

HAM, JOHN (d. Sydney, NSW, 14 Mar 1852). Baptist minister in Melbourne and Sydney.

John Ham, married to Ann Job Tonkin, was pastor at Wolverhampton, Warwick and Birmingham before his severe asthma problem prompted him to come to Australia. Intending to travel to Sydney, Ham arrived in Melbourne on 13 Dec 1842 and was persuaded to help the Baptist cause in Port Philip. He became the foundation pastor of the Collins Street Baptist church with a chapel opened on 14 Dec 1845. Ham became the pastor at Bathurst Street church in Sydney as successor to Rev John Saunders (q.v.) in Jan 1848. By this time his Calvinism had taken on an unsectarian and undogmatic evangelical hue as he insisted on preaching the gospel to the unsaved. This more liberal approach attracted controversy among the Bathurst Street Particular Baptists which was probably only silenced by his death.

His sons Thomas (1820-70), Theophilus (1828-92), and Cornelius (1837-1909) became leading figures in church and community in Melbourne.

B S Brown, Members One of Another (Melbourne, 1962); K R Manley, In the Heart of Sydney. Central Baptist Church 1836-1986 (Sydney, 1987); M Chavura, 'Attitudes towards Calvinism among Baptists of New South Wales', CSAC Working Paper 2,1992

K R MANLEY