Pilgrim Uniting Church

Pilgrim Uniting Church
Pilgrim Uniting Church
	File:Pilgrim Uniting Church, Adelaide.jpg
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Location	Flinders Street, Adelaide, South Australia
Country	Australia
Denomination	Uniting (since 1977)
Previous denomination	Congregational (1865 – 1977)
Website	pilgrim.org.au
History
Former names	Stow Memorial Church; Union Church in the City;
Status	Church
Founded	7 February 1865
Dedication	Rev. Thomas Quinton Stow
Dedicated	12 April 1867
Architecture
Functional status	Active
Architect	Robert George Thomas
Architectural type	Church
Style	Gothic Revival
Specifications
Capacity	1,500
Materials	Glen Osmond stone
Administration
Synod	South Australia
Clergy
Ministers	Rev. Mark Hewitt; Rev. John Hughes;
Laity
Organists	Peter Kelsall; Christopher Bridge;

Pilgrim Uniting Church is a Uniting church located on Flinders Street, Adelaide in South Australia.

Social justice, as articulated by the Uniting Church in Australia in the inaugural Statement to the Nation (1977), and the Statement to the Nation (1988) for Australia's Bicentennial celebrations, is at the basis of the church's work. Pilgrim offers music programs to the public, and has the largest organ in Adelaide.

History

Pirie Street Wesleyan Church

The congregation was originally at the Gawler Place Wesleyan Chapel. The first minister at the Pirie Street site was Daniel Draper.^[1]^[2] The first service was held on 19 October 1852.^[3]

William Bowen Chinner was organist and choirmaster at Pirie Street from 1869 to around 1899. His nephew Norman Chinner filled the same positions from 1939.^[4]

Stow Memorial Church

The first Congregational chapel in South Australia was a temporary structure on North Terrace. George Strickland Kingston was the architect for a building in Freeman Street (now Gawler Place), with the congregation then moving to the Flinders Street site.^[5]

Stow Memorial Church, at 12 Flinders Street, Adelaide, was named in memory of the Reverend Thomas Quinton Stow, who had officiated at the first service in a tent on Adelaide's Park Lands in October 1837. The foundation stone was laid on 7 February 1865^[6] and the inaugural worship service was held on 12 April 1867.^[7] The first minister was Cadwallader William Evan. The organist, who served for 45 years, was James Shakespeare.^[8]

Union Church in the City

Pirie Street Methodist and Stow Memorial congregations united on 1 June 1969 to form the Union Church in the City. In November 1975 the church changed its name to become Pilgrim Church.^[9] The congregation joined the Uniting Church at its inauguration in 1977.

Buildings

Pirie Street

The foundation stone for the Pirie Street Wesleyan Chapel was laid on 15 July 1850.^[10] The church was designed by Henry Stuckey. Completion of the building, after Henry Stuckey's death in 1851, was under the supervision of Edmund Wright.^[10]

After the merger of the two congregations the building was bought by the Adelaide City Council and demolished in 1976.^[11] Wright was also the architect of the Methodist Meeting Hall, located between the Pirie Street and Flinders Street churches. The hall was built in 1862 and is the only remaining part of the Pirie Street property and is now part of the Adelaide Town Hall complex.

Flinders Street

The foundation stone of Stow Memorial Church, at 12 Flinders Street, Adelaide, was laid on 7 February 1865.^[7] It was designed in the Gothic Revival style^[12] by Robert George Thomas, who was among the first colonists, arriving in South Australia in 1836 aged 16 years.^[13]

Stow Hall, built 1872^[14] alongside at 16 Flinders Street, has been a popular venue for amateur theatre productions.^[15]

Organs

The organ in the Flinders Street building was initially installed in 1855 in the Pirie Street building^[16] with that from Flinders Street being sold to St John's Lutheran Church in Malvern.^[17] Improvements over the years have made it the largest organ in the state of South Australia.^[18]

Notable people

Pirie Street Methodist Church

Stow Memorial Church

Mostyn Evan
William Roby Fletcher, minister, appointed 1876
Matthew Goode
William Muirden^[22]
William Parkin
Arthur William Piper^[23]
James Zimri Sellar^[24]
Thomas Hyland Smeaton
Alfred Depledge Sykes, minister 1904–1906 and 1907–1913^[25]
Charles Todd^[26]
George Wright (1917–1975), a judge of the Supreme Court of Western Australia, was the son of the Reverend George H. Wright, a minister at the Stow Memorial Church