Mesac THOMAS

THOMAS, MESAC (b. Typorth, near Aberystwyth, Wales, 10 May 1816; d. Goulburn, NSW, 15 March 1892). Anglican bishop.

Son of Thomas and Elisabeth (née Williams), Mesac Thomas was educated at Owestry Grammar and Shrewbury Schools, and Cambridge University (BA 1840, MA 1843, DD 1863). While at Trinity College, Cambridge he became (1839) the foundation secretary of the Cambridge Camden Society (renamed the Ecclesiological Society in 1841). Thomas' participation reflected evangelical interest (later withdrawn) in the Society's promotion of reinvigorated church principles and architecture. For Thomas, however, these remained practical interests throughout his career.

Thomas was ordained deacon 1840 and priest on 25 July 1841 by Bp Henry Pepys of Worcester. He served as a curate in Birmingham 1840-43, incumbent at Tuddenham St Martin, Suffolk, from 1843-46, and vicar of Attleborough, Warwickshire (amidst the working classes of Birmingham) until 1851. The Colonial Church and School Society (later Colonial and Continental Church Society) was created in 1851 out of a union of two earlier evangelical missionary societies. Thomas was appointed full-time clerical organising secretary. He gained insight into English church management, demonstrated his own leadership, and took an active interest in the expanding work of the Church of England's overseas missionaries and chaplains, notably in Europe.

His appointment (with Abp C T Longley's nomination and the support of the influential Bp Tait of London) as first bp of Goulburn, NSW, by Letters Patent dated 14 March 1863 delighted Sydney's Bishop Frederick Barker (q.v.). It was opposed by a leading Goulburn district layman, Charles Campbell, but he subsequently became Thomas' liberal and firm friend and diocesan chancellor. The Rev Ernest Hawkins, secretary of both SPG and the Colonial Bishoprics Fund also opposed the appointment, on grounds of procedure and churchmanship. Thomas' later claims that this opposition led to less funding for his diocese from the SPG and the Colonial Bishoprics Fund Hawkins called invidious and peevish, without addressing the truth of Thomas' claims.

Consecrated in Canterbury Cathedral on 25 March 1863 Thomas arrived in Sydney on 13 March 1864 and in Goulburn 8 April. His wife, Mary Campbell (née Hasluck) (q.v.) whom he married on 7 Nov 1843, proved, although a reluctant emigrant, a hospitable bishop's wife and his constant travel companion. He energetically increased the number of clergy in his vast but sparsely populated southern NSW diocese (from 13 in 1864 to 26 at his first synod in 1867, 35 before sub-division of the diocese in 1884 with the creation of the diocese of Riverina, and up to 34 by 1892), travelling in some years more than 5000 km, driving his own carriage and pair, risking floods, highway robbery, accidents and his own and his wife's health in repeated crossings of the mountains, the central slopes and the dry western plains of his diocese.

Thomas envisaged the colonial dioceses as integrated with the home church in affection, doctrine and discipline, and expected the home church to reciprocate this loyalty with men and money. Persistent, like his fellow bishops, in demanding funds for the colonial as well as the missionary churches, faced with wealthy landowners absent in Britain, with drought and rural poverty, Thomas returned to England in 1874-75 seeking clergy and funds. Locally, the Goulburn Church Society formed in 1864 (following Barker's example in Sydney) fostered lay support, stressed interdependence of parishes and diocese, and funded clergy stipends (state aid was abolished by 1864) and building.

The cooperation needed between laity and clergy in funding and managing the diocese was recognised in the formation of a diocesan synod in 1867. Thomas followed Barker's policy seeking enabling legislation from the NSW legislature. Thomas set high standards for his clergy in administration, often appearing remote, aloof, even brusque with critics. Pious, earnest, hardworking and firm in his evangelical theology, he held a high view of his own episcopal authority: he could become impatient with people and synods. His mishandling (as senior provincial bishop) of W S Smith's (q.v.) election to Sydney exposed him to criticism from those Australian bishops anxious to elect another candidate as their primate. Yet he could be stubbornly loyal and humane, not least to John Gribble (q.v.), whom he received back from his WA ministry, and sent to establish another Aboriginal mission at Warangesda on the Murrumbidgee.

Like many of his fellow Australian colonial bishops, his determination to focus diocesan unity and his episcopal authority in the building of a cathedral created conflict. His fine Blackett-designed St Saviour's Cathedral, Goulburn, was dedicated after ten years 'of hard fundraising on 29 April 1884. Conflicts of personality, and over the undefined rights of diocese and parish, created a cathedral dispute that divided the diocese and preoccupied Thomas' later years, marked also by his mental depression and serious illness. Not surprisingly, his diocese also suffered. He died of a heart illness.

ADB 6; B Thom, Letters from Goulburn (Canberra, 1964); SMH 24 March 1872; B Underwood, Faith at the Frontiers ... (150 Years of the Commonwealth and Continental Church Society) (London, 1974)

ROBERT S M WITHYCOMBE