John Dunmore LANG

LANG, JOHN DUNMORE (b. Greenock Scotland, 25 Aug 1799, d. Sydney, NSW, 8 Aug 1878). Presbyterian minister, politician, educationalist, propagandist.

Lang grew up in the ship-building area of Greenock, pastoral Largs, and cosmopolitan Glasgow. He idolised and 'rather feared' his domineering, churchgoing mother to whom 'I owe everything', and who 'dedicated me to the Christian ministry from my birth'. Lang received a strongly Calvinist understanding of the world. His bigotry, his Pauline vision of himself as an apostle to the colonies, and many of the ideas that informed his interpretations of the colonial experience, originated in the elder Mrs Lang's Presbyterianism.

On the other hand, the Presbyterianism of Lang's day had also imbibed a scholarly worldliness that extended from the elementary school to the university. Lang was affected by this through the reading of the classics, and in his pride at being a 'University-bred man'. He was influenced toward enlightenment rationalism and utilitarianism by the Scotland of the Edinburgh Review. Lang enrolled at Glasgow university aged fourteen. While he later promoted the impression of himself as a 'man of letters', the reality was that Glasgow provided little solid training, apart from its classical or ecclesiastical content. Some contemporaries came to the conclusion that, while aggressive and a 'mental pugilist', Lang's intellectual gifts were 'not of a high order'. His life and work was marked by an unresolved eclecticism, combining opposing elements of rationality and romanticism, ritualism and evangelicalism, republicanism and imperialism, the love of God and the love of Mammon.

Glasgow was more important for the development of Lang's religious beliefs. Glasgow Divinity Professor Stevenson Magill impressed 'an active, practical, and worldly evangelicalism' on the young student, while Thomas Chalmers 'nurtured in the young student an evangelical piety, [and] stimulated a concern for the problems of society and a wide and generous interest in the natural world'. It was also in Glasgow, which harboured a hatred of Catholics springing from a still swelling Irish immigration, that Lang acquired his anti-Irish bigotry. Glasgow's urban contrast to the rural surrounds of his youth probably also swayed Lang towards acceptance of the common vision of an agricultural society populated by moral yeomen living in villages centred on church and school. He was in later years to oppose the squatters who resisted the use of the land for agriculture on the scale that his vision would require. He also supported massive immigration to the colonies and attempted to lift the moral tone of the colonies through the promotion of education. His ideal was linked not only to a utilitarian vision, but to a moral imperative that mixed the Benthamite 'greatest happiness' credo with the 'righteousness' ethos inherent in Lang's evangelicalism. The basis laid by this agrarian vision predisposed Lang to accept the ideas of 'homestead' and Jacksonian democracy which he was to imbibe on his trips to the United States from 1840. From this would flow his championing of radical politics in Australia.

Lang was licensed by the Church of Scotland Presbytery of Irvine 1 June 1820. In Oct 1822 Lang followed his brother George in emigrating to NSW. Opposed to patronage, he was determined 'not to aspire to any dead man's shoes in Scotland'. He was the second Presbyterian minister in Australia, the first on the mainland, and joined the great wave of emigration in which 'the Scots ... were the spearhead of middle class emigration to the other side of the world'.

Lang's theology was pietistic and energetic. On arriving in Sydney he gathered a church around him, while residing with the acknowledged leader of an existing group of Presbyterians, Commissariat head William Wemyss. He began preaching in temporary premises while fundraising went on for a church, extending services to Parramatta and Windsor, and later to the more distant Hawkesbury. He quickly antagonised both the Anglican Scots governor, Brisbane, and members of his own congregation by his insistence on Church of Scotland forms on the one hand (alienating Secessionists like Wemyss), and on the other by his unbending insistence on the established rights of the church when dealing with government. His rift with Brisbane deepened when Lang attacked him in the press and stirred political condemnation back in Britain, causing a general lack of support. Using the funds available, he contracted his father and brother Andrew to erect a plain but simple stone church, 'Scots Church', opened in 1826, but never out of debt during Lang's ministry. His representations to the Colonial Office saw Brisbane directed to grant state aid to Lang's church. Lang then accepted a stipend as a colonial chaplain, which carried with it de facto state recognition of the presence of the Church of Scotland in the colonies. To deal with the problem of supplying ministers to outlying churches such as Ebenezer, on the Hawkesbury, Lang sailed to Britain in 1824 in search of recruits.

The influence of Chalmers, his rationalist and classical education, and native arrogance pulled Lang towards involvement in public issues. This struggle dominated Lang's life up until his entry to the NSW Legislative Council. The chief minister of his order in the colony, he constantly mixed his divine calling and public service with personal ambition. Lang was not tied to money: he rather sought 'notoriety', the sun of public acclaim granted to the Wentworths and Macarthurs of the colony's public life. At one time or another he involved himself in almost every contemporary debate. His clerical position immediately catapulted him into politics, at first fighting for grants to build his church, and then for salaries and extra ministers. Many of these ministers he encouraged to emigrate to teach in his Australian College, a school he eventually hoped would grow into a tertiary institution. Built by funds and labour Lang himself had imported, the college was seen by Lang as a service to Presbyterians and colonists alike. It did well through the 1830s, but his neglect of its affairs allowed it to slip into decay, until it closed in 1854.

Lang's contentiousness was legendary. He was gaoled several times for libel and defamation. He outraged many by his merciless epitaph on his long time enemy, John McGarvie, and was horsewhipped for his comments on a man's private life. From 1855-7 he also underwent considerable personal sorrow and hardship in a bitter fight with the Victorian government after his son Andrew was convicted of embezzling bank funds. In 1867, the Catholic Abp Polding called for a day of prayerful reparation for Lang's 'blasphemies'. Several times he caused divisions in his own congregation over personal attacks made on L E Threlkeld (q.v.) and William Wemyss, and was accused of having duped every minister of the church that he had persuaded to come to the colonies. He took on the colonial government over the Anglican monopoly of the right to marry, winning an extended court case, and resisted the Church and Schools Corporation's gift of land under T H Scott.

His methods were overly abrupt and questionable, drawing upon himself charges, at best, of 'lack of scruple' and, at worst, of 'fraud'. The minister he brought out to pastor the Portland Head church, John McGarvie, accused Lang of importing him on false pretences, there being neither local support nor manse when he arrived. The division between the two, founded on McGarvie's disappointment and Scottish 'Moderatism', and Lang's unflinching sense of self-righteousness, long embittered Presbyterian life in NSW. This was particularly so after 1832, when McGarvie led a breakaway group from the Scots church congregation, and after 1836 when the latter became increasingly associated with the Presbytery of NSW which had refused to back Lang's campaign to have drunken and dissolute Presbyterian ministers disciplined. On the pretext of widespread immorality in the Presbytery, Lang formed the Synod of NSW in Dec 1837, among a group of ministers he had just imported from Scotland. In Jan 1838, the Presbytery of NSW ejected Lang as a member, and, under the Presbyterian Church Temporalities Act, denied him access to state funding and church facilities. Lang set up churches in opposition to those he had charged with intemperance (causing church splits in at least two cases), and began preaching voluntaryism.

The failure of a bid by the governor to mediate led Lang to sail to Britain again in 1839 to argue the case for colonial independence of the Church of Scotland. This was refused both by the Colonial Office and the Church of Scotland itself. These failures 'marked his demise as an ecclesiastical leader in mainstream Presbyterian circles in NSW'. (Bridges) After touring eastern America, and causing a storm of protest in Scotland and NSW over the voluntaryist claims made in his Religion and Education in America, Lang returned home in 1841 and joined the Synod of Australia. He was brought before the Synod in 1842 after a running battle over stipends, voluntaryism, and on whose authority a minister should leave his parish, and was deposed. In response he formed a church 'unconnected with the State' supported the Free Church in the Scottish Disruption of 1843, and demanded that it recognise his own group.

Across these years he became increasingly concerned about the 'flood' of Irish immigrants coming to Australia, and was outspoken on this, in the most bigoted manner, as part of a 'popish plot' to Romanize Australia. He saw the struggle over 'Puseyism' as a reflection of this plot. The answer, he felt, was the importation of more (particularly Scots) protestants to act as a working class in Australia, and the recruitment of more evangelical clergy. When these were not available in Scotland or England, he turned to northern Ireland, Switzerland and Germany. He helped found the Nundah Aboriginal Mission (near Brisbane) with German missionaries such as Christopher Eipper (q.v.), Karl Schmidt (q.v.) and Johann Hausmann (q.v.). In 1850 he founded the Australian Presbyterian Church, Synod of NSW, with Barzillai Quaife and William Ritchie, but it was never strong. It was unrecognised by other Presbyterian organisations because of its virtual identification with its leader, and remained loose-knit because of disagreements over church organisation. Typical of Lang himself, the Synod did away with 'all major aspects of Presbyterian Church law' but 'decided that it must emphasize its missionary function' and argued that 'flexibility was necessary to function at all in remote parts'. In contrast with his early years, by the late 1830s Lang was declaring orthodoxy to be 'a matter of very little consequence' compared with 'the formation of an intelligent, and virtuous and Christian population'. The attempt by the Church of Scotland's Synod of Australia (CSSA) to regain possession of the Scots Church failed when Lang won a Privy Council appeal quashing a local decision in favour of the Synod. While in Britain yet again, he took court action against the Presbytery of Irvine, which had deposed him on the prompting of the CSSA, and had the decision reversed. This gave him the grounds for demanding readmission to the CSSA, which rescinded the deposition in 1863. As a result, the Synod of NSW ceased to exist in 1864, joining with other churches in the General Synod of the Presbyterian Church in NSW from the end of that year.

In 1847 he attempted to revive the fortunes of the Australian College by importing student ministers on Evangelical Alliance principles, which did not require the students to be Presbyterians. The resistance he had built up through his methods, and the unwillingness of other denominations to be submerged by his efforts, defeated his scheme. Another attempt came when the University of Sydney was being founded in the 1850s: Lang pushed hard to have the University of London's confederation of colleges model accepted, with his Australian College as the constituting body. He failed in this, but continued a long and bitter wrangle with the PCEA and the CSSA over the foundation of a Presbyterian college at Sydney University, including his desire to be founding principal. He was squeezed out by old enemies and people wary of his ruthlessness, but caused considerable disruption to the foundation of the college by repeatedly challenging appointments and even the legality of the College itself. Lang was severely disappointed in not being elected first moderator of the General Assembly of the PCNSW, though he became moderator in 1872 (his jubilee year).

Lang's repeated journeys involved placing other clergy in charge of the Scots church, many of whom proved more popular as clerics than Lang himself. Lang's inability to brook a rival inevitably led to controversy and splits in the congregation. He was criticised for these constant journeys and absences: in a time when a sea voyage could take 3-6 months, he sailed to Britain nine times between 1824-74. The length of his life and the volume of his writings meant that he could effectively defend and alter the appearance of his own contributions to history. He often 'shifted emphasis from his own indiscipline and shrouded the debate in a question of principle' (Elford). Further, though a critic of all other doctrines, he often sacrificed his normally self-righteous stance of 'aggressive denominationalism' in order to seek his own ends, displaying an astonishing naiveté, and a complete lack of self-critical faculty. Implicit in his view of himself as a saint on the Pauline model, he considered himself a martyr to the machinations of this world. This 'martyr' image was matched by an idiosyncratic millenarianism. At least some of Lang's dynamism must be attributed to the 'hope and consolation' he obtained from his expectation of the 'speedy' 'sudden' and 'unexpected' return of Christ. Combined with a naturally overbearing character, this conviction often burst forth in vitriolic denunciation of the moral character of the age, and apocalyptic predictions over the fate reserved for his enemies.

His difficulties as an ecclesiastical figure caused him to accept in 1843 an invitation to stand as a Legislative Council representative for Port Phillip, which began a long and equally turbulent career in politics. He variously represented parts of Sydney, Moreton Bay, and Port Phillip some eighteen years. He grew increasingly radical as years went by, supporting republicanism and Australian independence, from 1850 growing 'immensely popular' as 'the tribune of the people'. As such he had repeated conflicts with conservatives such as William Wentworth, whose favour he had courted in his early years in the colony. The temporarily successful move to have clergy declared ineligible to stand for election to the Council was widely interpreted as being directed specifically at Lang. Across a long life, he supported the establishment of Vic and Qld as colonies separate from NSW, immigration from the protestant areas of Britain as opposed to Irish Catholics, radical reform on the American model, and education schemes by the handful. Perhaps recognising the contradictions between his personal involvement in the divine, the literary, and the political, Lang had ever a self-justificatory element to his writing. He founded and produced three newspapers, the Colonist (1835-40), the Colonial Observer (1841-44), andThe Press (1851) all of which he used to attack his enemies in politics and presbytery. He was a prolific writer, though seldom producing anything of high literary value among the some 13 000 pages of material he published, much of it repetitive, ill-organised and egotistical.

Lang retired from active ministry in his church in 1872, his congregation pensioning him on the basis of his promise not to become involved in further management of the church. When his successor Gilchrist demitted in May 1877, Lang stepped back in and declared himself sole pastor. Members of the congregation locked him out, forcing him to gain entry with the services of a builder and several constables. It was a good summation of his life - legally, he won, but in the process caused so much disruption and opposition that the victory turned out to be pyrrhic. Lang died at his home of apoplexy and was interred at Devonshire St cemetery. Debate followed him even after death: his wife and cousin, Wilhemina Lang, refused both a letter of condolence from the congregation, and a £3000 government grant, on the basis that both had ill-treated her husband while he was alive. Likewise, historians have remained divided as to his importance, with some suggesting he was the most important public figure of his time, and others little more than an historical irritant.

D W A Baker, Days of Wrath: A Life of John Dunmore Lang (Melbourne, 1985); B J Bridges, Ministers, Licentiates and Catechists of the Presbyterian Churches in New South Wales, 1823-1865 (Melbourne, 1989); K R Campbell, 'Presbyterian Conflicts in NSW, 1837-1865' JRH, 5, 1969; A Dougan, 'The Kirk and Social Problems of the Eighteen Thirties in New South Wales', JRAHS, 48, 1963; K Elford, 'The theology of clerical participation: John Dunmore Lang and Direct Clerical Participation in Politics', Journal of Religious History, 5, 1969; K Elford 'A Prophet Without Honour: The political ideals of John Dunmore Lang', JRAHS, 54; N D McLachlan, "'The Future of American: Some Bicentennial Reflections', Historical Studies, 1977; J D Lang Papers, MLA2226, ML.

SELECT WRITINGS: Reminiscences of my Life and Times: Both in Church and State for Upwards of Fifty Years, DWA Baker (ed); Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales (various editions); 'The Little While of The Saviour's Absence...' (Melbourne, 1872, ML); 'The Characteristics of the Present Age Identical with those of the Age Immediately before the Flood...' (Brisbane, 1868, ML).

MARK HUTCHINSON