Alexander HAY

HAY, Alexander (b. Perth, Scotland, 22 Nov 1830; d. Sydney, NSW, 17 Sept 1918). Presbyterian minister.

Alexander Hay's early life in Scotland was harsh: by the age of 10 he was a wage earner but also a pupil at night school. At 17 he became assistant in a primary school, enabling him to study Latin, Greek, and French. Two years later he won a four-year bursary to St Andrew's University (MA 1853, DD 1884), a first step in studying for the ministry. He was licensed to preach in 1857 and ordained 1859.

After a successful ministry in two Scottish parishes, he migrated to Qld for health reasons, arriving with his wife and family in 1871. He began his distinguished career in the colony with a Presbyterian ministry in South Brisbane. In 1876 he accepted a call to Rockhampton where he remained until retirement at the age of 83 in 1913.

When Hay arrived in Rockhampton he found a Presbyterian congregation of mainly Scottish and Northern Irish birth whose elders were proud to have established the first church of any denomination in the young town. Hay's scholarship, ability and keen mind soon made him a leader in ecumenical and cultural circles in the wider community. Nor was his ability confined to his own town and district. In March 1876 he was appointed tutor and examiner in the newly established Presbyterian Divinity Hall, Brisbane, for six weeks each year. The local newspaper congratulated Presbyterians on having secured a clergyman 'qualified not only for teaching from the pulpit, but also the rising ministry, as it were, from the professor's chair'. Hay recognised the need tor 'a native ministry' to serve the widely scattered Qld communities.

Prior to 1903 all except inland travel from Rockhampton involved an uncomfortable voyage by coastal steamer. Despite this, Hay was Clerk of the Qld Assembly 1881-83; 1886-91. He was elected Moderator of Assembly on four occasions: 1871, 1891, 1901 and 1909. He attended the Conference of Australian Presbyterian Churches in 1884 and the First Federal Assembly in Sydney in 1886 and was elected Moderator in 1888.

In 1888 he suffered a traumatic schism within his own congregation when a number of members, including some elders, followed Cairns, a charismatic preacher from Northern Ireland, to form a separate congregation which later became the John Knox Presbyterian Church. Hay's frequent absences from his own pulpit undoubtedly contributed to this conflict. Hay's congregation, shaken out of complacency, adopted the name 'St Andrew's' for their parish and the fine new church building which was to open in 1894. Meantime Hay as convenor of the Qld committee on the Union of Presbyterian Churches played a leading role in the formation of the Presbyterian Church of Australia in 1901. He was elected Moderator General in the following year.

In 1899 Hay was author of the jubilee history of the church in Qld. In its centenary history (1949) Richard Bardon said of Hay: 'There was laid upon him the care of many churches, and he always knew himself a minister of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland. He never entertained the idea that the area of a minister's responsibility was confined to the bounds of the parish'. At the time of his death in 1918 he was recognised as one of the great figures of Qld church history.

Richard Bardon, The Centenary History of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland (Brisbane, 1949); Alexander Hay, The Jubilee Memorial of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland (Brisbane, 1899); Lorna McDonald, Rockhampton A History of City and District (Brisbane, 1981); Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), 8 Jan 1876; 5 Mar 1877; 25 Mar 1884; 1 Sept 1888; 8 June 1893; 14 May 1900; 17 Sept 1918; St Andrew's Monthly Record Feb, Apr, May 1965; St Andrew's Presbyterian Church Archives, University of Central Queensland (includes MS)

LORNA MCDONALD