Henry HUSSEY

HUSSEY, HENRY (b. Kennington, London, England, 27 Aug 1825; d. Hackney, Adelaide, SA, 6 May 1903). Printer and preacher.

The second son of George Edward Hussey and his wife, Catherine, he migrated with his family to Adelaide in 1839. After a variety of casual employment, he began working for a printer in 1841. He was to be associated with the printing trade for the rest of his life. Soon afterwards he came under the influence of the colony's evangelical clergymen. In 1844, although 'certainly not a decided Christian', he became a Sunday school teacher at the Anglican Trinity Church and in 1849 co-superintendent of the new Sunday school at Christ Church North Adelaide. Hussey regarded the incumbent of Christ Church, the Rev W J Woodcock, as his 'godfather'. In 1853, although uneasy about the Church of England practice of infant baptism, he was licensed as a lay reader by Bp Augustus Short and began conducting Sunday services at villages near Adelaide.

In 1850 Hussey set up business as a printer. The following year he published his first religious periodical, the monthly Church Intelligencer and Christian Gleaner, and in 1854 he commenced the South Australian Sunday-school Magazine. In 1854 he travelled to the US and at Bethany, Virginia, was baptised by immersion by Alexander Campbell, one of the founders of the Disciples of Christ. From London he returned to Adelaide in 1855 and published a number of pamphlets justifying his new religious views.

Hussey always enjoyed theological debate, with himself as the defender of scriptural truth. At various times he attacked Tractarians, Roman Catholics, Unitarians, Swedenborgians and British Israelites, all with vigour. With a letter of commendation from Alexander Campbell, in June 1855 Hussey joined the Church of Christ meeting in Franklin, later Grote, Street. After a split in the congregation he withdrew and preached independently. Soon afterwards he began his association with Bentham Street Christian Church, where Thomas Playford was pastor. Hussey took up the position of Sunday school superintendent in 1860, was appointed assistant pastor in 1867, and succeeded Playford as pastor in 1873. He also compiled a history of SA, which as an unpublished manuscript provided the core of Edwin Hodder's History of South Australia (1893). Hussey's quest for source material brought him into contact with George Fife Angas (q.v.), for whom he was private secretary from 1865 until Angas's death in 1879. Together they launched a campaign to alert their fellow colonists to the 'true character of Popery', which involved the distribution of thousands of pamphlets and copies of Foxe's Book of Martyrs, and foundation of the Protestant Advocate, a polemical weekly paper. In 1875 Hussey was a candidate for the SA House of Assembly, but withdrew from the contest when victory became doubtful. In 1878 he began another journal, the Gospel of the Kingdom, later the Australian Quarterly Journal of Prophecy. In 1891 he retired from the pastorate of Bentham Street Church, but resumed in 1893, without his former vigour. Hussey's domestic life was subordinate to his religious and publishing activities. In Dec 1858 he married Mary Ann Reid, sister of Richardson Reid, later the incumbent of Trinity Church. She died after childbirth in Dec 1860 and their son died in 1882. In Nov 1861 he married Agnes Neil, by whom he had a son and two daughters. In addition to numerous articles and pamphlets, Hussey published several books. These include The Australian Colonies (1855) and an autobiography, More than Half a Century of Colonial Life and Christian Experience (1897, reprinted 1978), which provides vivid insights into the outlook of an evangelical activist.

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DAVID HILLIARD