David REES

REES, DAVID (b. Gelliddraenog, Wales, 1804; d. Toorak, Vic, 9 Jan 1885). Exponent of Baptist unity.

Son of devout Baptist parents (his father a deacon for 30 years), Rees was converted when 19. Four years later he entered Horton Academy, Bradford, to prepare for the Christian ministry. After two years, he commenced his ministry at Nottingham, where the chapel doubled its size to accommodate increased congregations. He subsequently served at Sheffield, at Isleham, Cambridgeshire, then at Braintree, Essex from January 1846. The church book there notes: 'Mr Rees was considered a man of considerable intellectual power, but lacking a popular talent'. Nevertheless during 13 years' ministry at Braintree 117 new members were received into the church. Rees was a doughty warrior for the rights of nonconformists. While in Sheffield, he led the movement that gained for dissenters the abolition of Easter dues. At Braintree, he successfully championed the removal of local church rates.

At the prompting of the Baptist Missionary Society, he emigrated to Australia. Arriving at Melbourne in July 1859, a widower with six children, he undertook brief pastorates at Aberdeen St, Geelong, at Sandhurst (Bendigo) and Kyneton. In May 1861 he accepted a call to the Baptist Church at South Yarra, then little more than a sparsely settled village. The congregation was unable to guarantee him a salary. He was never to receive more than £100 per annum. But Rees devoted himself to the work and church membership grew. Within five years he had inspired his people to replace their inadequate meeting house with a fine tabernacle-style building in Chapel St.

While at Sandhurst, he had made a survey of the goldfields for the recently formed Victorian Baptist Association. However that body lacked the ability to undertake effective church extension, for the constituent congregations were struggling, preoccupied with their own problems. Stirred by the needs of isolated settlers, Rees endeavoured to enthuse his own church and his brethren to work for their aid. He insisted that any concerted enterprise must express the essential unity of the Body of Christ and not spring from expediency. In 1862, he and a few others were able to revitalise the ailing organisation, having its major objective: 'the advancement of the cause of the Redeemer'. That Association is now the Baptist Union of Victoria.

Even under changed conditions in Victoria, Rees maintained his strong nonconformist stance, insisting upon the separation of church and state. His resolutions, opposing government grants of land to churches as 'repugnant to reason, and unjust in operation' so tending 'to confound the distinction between truth and error', were adopted by the Association's assembly and forwarded to parliament. They also provoked dissension among Baptist churches.

In March 1868, indifferent health and a serious throat affliction compelled Rees to resign his pastorate. He was never able to return to the settled ministry. However, when health permitted, he travelled widely throughout Victoria encouraging weak and infant congregations. In 1871 he was instrumental in the formation of the Victorian Baptist Home Missionary Society to plant churches and train ministers. Rees was a man of broad sympathies. Not all Baptists were prepared to follow his counsel 'to evince a readiness to unite and cooperate with all who love the Saviour, in seeking to save souls from death and to extend the knowledge of salvation among the people'. In spite of uncertain health, he continued his itinerations until his death.

Baptist Union Archives, Hawthorn, Victoria; B S Brown, Members One of Another (Melbourne, 1962); H Crago, David Rees - a father of union (Melbourne, 1985); F J Wilkin, Our First Century (Melbourne, 1939)

BASIL S BROWN