John Lawrence IRWIN

IRWIN, JOHN LAWRENCE (b. Brisbane, Qld, 11 May 1905; d. Riverview, Qld, 23 Oct 1972). Salvation Army officer.

John Irwin was one of the best known Salvationists in the history of the Salvation Army in Australia due to his thirty years of witness and compassionate service to the criminals and homeless of Sydney in particular. Irwin never married, the two women in his life being his 'aunts' who raised him in Brisbane encouraging him to attend the Albert Street Methodist Church. He was however, converted to Christ through the influence of a Salvation Army open-air meeting in Stanley Street, South Brisbane, and subsequently at the citadel in Thomas Street, West End.

In March 1940 he entered the Sydney training college of the Army. Twenty five years later the citation associated with his appointment as an OBE read, 'For service to the Community. Brigadier John Irwin is the Salvation Army Court and Prison Chaplain in Sydney. He is President of the Sydney Civil Rehabilitation Committee and has charge of a City Rehabilitation Centre ... he has always shown a great understanding of his fellow men and a willingness to assist even the most hardened criminals'. Prisoners used to speak of him as 'The Prisoners Pal'.

Irwin was a daily visitor to the Sydney Central Police Courts. He was a friend of solicitors, barristers and judges and more particularly of the criminals. Irwin as a teenager had served for a while as a junior journalist ant these early skills stayed with him, his notebooks bearing evidence of this with such comments when stating the four major problems associated with the man who gets into trouble. Lack of spiritual values; prejudice of man towards society; prejudice of society to man and maudlin sympathy.

In 1970 in the Sydney Town Hall at the annual Congress of the Salvation Army he was honoured with the highest award of the International Salvation Army, an award rarely given. The presentation included these words when invested with The Order of the Founder 'His was the kind of service for the submerged tenth which would have been commended by William Booth'. His ministry in courts and gaols touched thousands of men and women some of whom were won for Christ and returned to good citizenship. When he died and tribute was being paid to him, a police motor escort preceded the police pipe band and a contingent of 20 uniformed policemen headed the impressive funeral march through Sydney's city streets. A woman of Sydney's streets said to an officer as the casket moved gently by, 'He was my friend you know'. John Irwin Lodge, Sydney, was named in honour of him.

W Cairns, The Prisoners' Pal (Sydney, 1977); The Year Book of the Salvation Army (London, 1971)

William RAMSAY CAIRNS