Joseph Coles KIRBY

KIRBY, JOSEPH COLES (b. Buckingham, England, 10 June 1837; d. Semaphore, SA, 1 Aug 1924). Congregational minister and social activist.

Joseph Kirby was the son of Mary Bevan Coles and John Kirby, Independents with Quaker connections. He was educated at a Friends' boarding school, where his life-long commitment to the temperance cause was kindled. Quitting school at 13 to work in the family flour milling business, he continued his education informally through the Buckingham Institute and Library, pursuing an interest in social issues. As a youth he experienced conversion and became conscious of a call to the ministry. In 1854, following John Kirby's bankruptcy, the family emigrated to NSW where Joseph again worked in the family business.

In Sydney, Kirby associated himself with the Pitt Street Congregational Church, formally joining the church in the late 1850s. His street preaching brought public ridicule, and the Pitt Street diaconate disapproved of his attempts to establish a Band of Hope. But he was not deterred. After informal and part-time theological study in 1859, Kirby enrolled at the Congregationalist theological institution, Camden College, as a candidate for ministry. In 1863, he was called to the Congregational Church in Ipswich, Queensland, where he was ordained on 3 Feb 1864. The rest of his working life was spent in ministry with the Congregational Church, at Dalby, Qld, (1864-71), Woollahra, NSW, (1871-80) and Port Adelaide, SA, (1880-1908). A supporter of denominational structures, and critical of isolated Independency, Kirby held high office within Congregationalism, including chairmanship of the SA Congregational Union in 1886 and 1906, and presidency of the Congregational Union of Australasia in 1910.

Kirby's ministries were lively and successful. He left churches united and bigger than he found them, and won the confidence and affection of those whom he served. In his preaching, as in his public life, he was intent on demonstrating how the gospel could be applied. Thus 'every question of private and public morality was set in the light of Christ and Him crucified' (Kiek, 1927: 149). His theology was conservative, characterised by a dogmatic Christology, and not complicated by 'philosophical doubt' or by the challenges of higher biblical criticism, about which he 'understood little and cared less' (Kiek, 1927: 179). In later life his dogmatism increased, and he seemed increasingly out of step with the liberal ethos of SA Congregationalism. As chairman of the SA Congregational Union he tried unsuccessfully to impose some theological conformity. He defended the historicity of the nativity stories and the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, developing 'an almost morbid fear' of the loss of any evangelical theological ground (Kiek, 1927: 279).

Kirby's views about ministry were unconventional and modern. He spoke and wrote about the unnecessarily academic nature of ministerial training, arguing that ministers needed to be trained in psychology and pedagogy, in 'business-like ways of administration', and in how to relate to different classes of people, as well as in 'sound and preachable' theology. He believed that they needed also to be instructed in the fundamentals of politics, 'lest in discussing problems of land and labour, wages and welfare, they cackle like geese' (Kiek, 1927: 190).

In the public arena, Kirby was an energetic campaigner, applying his interest in social questions to many contemporary issues. A supporter of White Australia, he campaigned against the use of Kanaka and Chinese labour in part because of his fear they would be exploited by unscrupulous and materialistic employers. He fought against government aid to church schools, and for non-sectarian religious teaching in government schools. His greatest efforts and most significant achievements were in relation to social purity and the reform of liquor licensing laws.

Kirby's concern about 'the social evil' of prostitution prompted him to deliver three public lectures on that subject in Adelaide in 1882. These aroused considerable attention and led to the formation of the Social Purity Society of SA, with Kirby as its secretary and several parliamentarians including John Colton (q.v.) as office holders. Although he undertook no analysis of the social conditions which encouraged prostitution, he argued that prostitutes were victims rather than criminals and that the law should censure men who used prostitutes. His remedy was not to provide state regulation for prostitution, which he believed to be morally repugnant as well as a threat to public health and national vigour, but to protect the safety and morals of women and girls by raising the age of consent, and strengthening the laws to do with sexual misdemeanour. Many of Kirby's suggestions were incorporated in the SA Criminal Law Consolidation Amendment Act of 1885, which was widely regarded as a victory for the cause of social purity.

Kirby believed that prohibition was the true goal of the temperance movement, but, like other temperance reformers, sought partial victories along the way. He worked with the SA Temperance Alliance from the 1880s to secure local option legislation, supported 1908 legislation which banned the employment of barmaids, and campaigned successfully for the reduction of liquor licenses in Port Adelaide in 1910. In the 1914-15 campaign for six o'clock closing of hotel bars, which commanded enormous support among the Nonconformist denominations, he played a prominent role. He prepared a 'monster petition' which attracted 37 700 signatures, and was a valued spokesperson for the temperance lobby in the press, the pulpit and on public platforms.

Kirby retired in 1908, but continued to write and speak about theological and pastoral concerns. He also became a propagandist for Aboriginal welfare, Montessori methods of education, prison reform and eugenics as manuscript material in the Mortlock Library of South Australiana indicates.

Kirby is buried in Cheltenham Cemetery. The memorial on his grave is a clock whose hands are set at six o'clock, in testimony to his signal contribution to a great evangelical cause of his day.

J Jose, 'Legislating for Social Purity, 1883-1885: The Reverend Joseph Coles Kirby and the Social Purity Society', JHSSA 18 (1990): 119-134; E S Kiek, An Apostle in Australia: the Life and Reminiscences of Joseph Coles Kirby (London, 1927)

SELECT WRITINGS: J C Kirby, Three Lectures concerning the Social Evil (Port Adelaide, 1882)

JUDITH RAFTERY