David James KNOX

KNOX, DAVID JAMES (b. near Inniskillen, Ireland, 4 June 1875; d. Sydney, NSW, 21 June 1960). Anglican clergyman.

D J Knox came to Australia aged five with his parents, who farmed in the Bowral district of NSW. Converted during a local mission, he studied at MTC (1897-99) under Nathaniel Jones (q.v.) whose millennial teachings about the gathered church were fundamental to Knox's ministry. Like H S Begbie (q.v.) he promoted an urgent even combative evangelicalism far distant from the more reserved low churchmanship of the diocese of Sydney at the turn of the century.

Ordained in that diocese in 1899 he established the parish of Mill Hill 1902-1912 on these positive evangelistically-oriented lines, then proceeded to St Luke's, Whitmore Square, Adelaide 1912-22 where he sought to energise a city parish emasculated by the re-arrangement of parochial boundaries designed to limit the reach of evangelical ministry. The two areas carved off saw the development of extreme Anglo-Catholic centres, especially at St George's, Goodwood under Canon Percy Wise, another difficult and combative priest. Knox's principal contribution while in Adelaide was to lead the local supporters of CMS into the establishment of an SA Branch in 1917, contrary to the wishes of Bp A Nutter Thomas, who feared this voluntary associational emphasis and the expansion of evangelical self-consciousness in his high church diocese. Knox also set up the Evangelical Trust of SA in 1922 which was designed to protect and promote the evangelical cause in Adelaide. Unfortunately, in the hands of subsequent rectors of St Luke's, it became entangled in parochial politics and finances, and lost the strategic advantages Knox had sought to contrive.

Returning to NSW he served at Wollongong 1922-4, Chatswood, 1924-32, and Gladesville 1932-49. He was an active committee man, but sometimes the victim of his intensely-held convictions. He promoted religious instruction and took a key role in the early development of the Board of Education of the dio of Sydney. He promoted youth wort at Chatswood which led to the later diocesan Youth Department. He recruited men and women for the ministry and missionary service: Rhoda Watkins (q.v.) and Ethel Nunn from Adelaide were early fruits of CMS (SA).

He was a constant user of the Bible, emphasising the doctrine of grace, rejoicing in the Reformation, promoting the evangelical cause. He established another Evangelical Trust in Sydney, worked hard for the Australian Church Record, promoted the Diocesan Board of Missions in the 1930s, and was active in the Anglican Church League efforts to elect Howard Mowll (q.v.) as abp in 1933. In his retirement he worked to establish an Anglican cause at Terry Hills. He was thus the essential conservative evangelical clergyman and party man, energetic and dedicated with wide personal links and a reputation as a godly prophet.

M L Loane, Mark These Men (Canberra, 1985); B Dickey, 'The origins of the Church Missionary Society in South Australia, 1910-1917', JHSSA, 17, 1989

BRIAN DICKEY