Unlocking the treasures of the Melbourne Anglican diocesan year-book

Year-Book of the Diocese of Melbourne - 1 - © Colin Reilly 2014

UNLOCKING THE TREASURES OF THE MELBOURNE DIOCESAN YEAR-BOOK

A paper presented to the Anglican Historical Society

Colin Reilly

22 October 2014

Outline

This evening I want to canvass a number of themes in relation to the diocesan Year-Book andthe opportunities it affords us, both as an historical source and as a resource for reflectionand planning for the future.

First, to provide some context for how the Year-Book came into being and the kinds ofpurposes it may have served.

Next, to describe its development and changing content over time.

Then to show how modern database technology can be applied to the Year-Book informationto reveal insights into our past with the hope that these might inform future decisionmaking.

Finally, to reflect on some of the Year-Book’s shortcomings and the information needs of thisdiocese as an integral part of the national church.

Why a Year-Book?

The successive editions of the Melbourne Year-Book constitute perhaps the mostcomprehensive set of ecclesiological information available for any diocese in the AnglicanCommunion. How this came about is not clear to me but I can venture a few possibleexplanations.

There is a management mantra that claims ‘what cannot be measured cannot be managed’.Now this is not what management guru Peter Drucker actually said1, but it does point to anorganisational tendency to direct our efforts to achieving the numbers that look good. Theinformation we collect and publish does tend to reflect what we consider to be important atthe time.

1 In a commentary on this wrong attribution, Paul Zak concludes ‘So, measurement, yes. Only measurement,no’. ‘Measurement myopia’ 2013 http://www.druckerinstitute.com/2013/07/measurement-myopia/ accessed21 Oct 2014.


To slightly misquote Ecclesiastes, ‘To the making of lists there is no end’2. It is an activity thatcan be dismissed as entertaining small minds, but the making of lists tells much about ourorganisational activity and is, of course, a basic building block for the scientific method. It isby describing and classifying the world around us that we come to understand it and havedominion over it.

Now the diocesan Year-Book is a combination of lists and measurements. [Speaking ofmeasurements, a complete set of the Statistics and Year-Book takes up just over three metresof shelf space.]

The ancient Greeks had a proverb ‘know thyself’, which lends itself as a theme forunderstanding the development and role of the Year-Book. I am now going to describe someof the antecedents to what became the book whose sesquicentenary we are marking today –the Statistics of the Diocese of Melbourne, for the year 1864 published in 1865 by Mason andFirth, Printers, Flinders Lane West, Melbourne.

Why 1864?

But first a digression, why are we commemorating 1864? In his preface to the 1964Centenary Issue of the Year-Book of the Diocese of Melbourne the Revd Sydney Smith, MollisonLibrarian and founding Chairman of the Church of England Historical Society3 stated that:

The first Year Book (though then styled “Statistics of the Diocese of Melbourne for the year1864”) was a small affair of 28 pages when compared with the 1963 issue of 326 …

This 1864 edition was in octavo format but it had been preceded by three quarto issues – aSupplement to the Church Gazette of 15 pages for the year 1861; what appears to be aseparate pamphlet of 16 pages with the title Statistics of the Diocese of Melbourne for the year1862 was printed by W H Williams at the office of The Church Gazette; and a similarly titledpamphlet of 16 pages for 1863 was printed by Mason and Firth.

So, on the one hand it could be claimed that we are a little late in celebrating thesesquicentenary – it should have been done in 2011. On the other hand we are a little early,in that the issue of the Statistics for 1864, which bears a physical resemblance to today’s Year-Book was in fact published in 1865. In 1888 the Statistics for the year 1887 became directlycomparable to today’s Year-Book with the inclusion of a directory of clergy. In 1930 the titleyear for the book took the form 1929-30 and from then on the title year and publishing yearcoincided, the statistics included usually being for the first-named or prior year.

2 Ecclesiastes 12:12 Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is noend, and much study wearies the body (New International Version).3 Frost, John. 1979. ‘A short history of the first 25 years of the Anglican Historical Society to 1979’ reprinted inThe Church Historian, The Church of England Historical Society, Melbourne, 2004.


Antecedents

The earliest published lists I have found are in the first and second volumes of The MelbourneChurch of England Messenger. The last page of volume 1 has a list of twenty clergy and fivelay readers and their placements.4 Volume two has a letter from Bishop Perry on theproposed conference of the members of the Church of England in the Diocese of Melbournedated 17 April 1851. This letter has a schedule listing the clergymen and laymen he hadasked ‘to invite the members of the Church in their respective districts, to meet together …for the purpose of electing representatives’5. This was to be the precursor of the ChurchAssembly, now Synod, of the diocese.

In 1854 the Messenger included returns relating to the diocese that had been furnished by theBishop to the Conference:

A return of clergymen employed in the diocese as assistant ministers, with the names of theparish, the amount of stipend and other emoluments received by each

A return of the number of clergymen, lay-readers, places of worship, and schools, at thegoldfields

A return shewing the different places of worship in the diocese, with the accommodationafforded by each [there were nine churches accommodating 5,671 persons, 23 school-roomsaccommodating 3,840, and four rooms or hired rooms accommodating 420 to 470].6

Now these early lists and returns exemplify two of the purposes that came to be served bythe Year-Book – communication and accountability. In order to introduce what we have cometo know as synodical government there is a need to know who the members are and whatareas they represent, so lists of clergy and lay representatives and parishes are required. Aspart of the acquittal of funds received from the government towards stipends and toencourage subscribers it is important to publish details of the amounts received and howthey have been disbursed.

Statistics of the Diocese of Melbourne

In part, this publication satisfied the requirement in the Act of the Church Assembly for theConstitution of the Council of the Diocese that ‘The Bishop shall every year lay before theAssembly [now the Synod] … a statement for the past year of all monies appropriated orexpended’. But they went beyond that, including details of parish finances and statistics,with lists of clergy and their remuneration (and horse allowance). Of the 68 clergy, six hadstipend payments in arrears. Apart from meeting the statutory obligation, the purpose of thepublication was educative and exemplified what we would now refer to as opengovernment. The introduction to the 1862 issue includes themes that are relevant today:

4 Church of England Messenger 1850, p340.5 Church of England Messenger 1851, pp144-5.6 Church of England Messenger 1854, p254-5.


Clergymen are very earnestly requested to distribute these papers among their parishioners;and all members of the Church are requested to read them. It is hoped that thus theastonishing ignorance which exists concerning the pecuniary matters of the Church will bevery materially abridged. It may be expected, where this is the case, that complaintsconcerning the rightful distribution of Church money will also be very much moreinfrequent, while such as are made will be felt to have some right to be heard, when they arebased upon fact, and not on mere assumption.

[and] Attention is also drawn to the small amount contributed to the General Fund of theDiocese … This is, no doubt, in great measure to be attributed to the fact that the parochialneeds engage first the attention, and exhaust the efforts, of the members of the Church in thevarious parishes. Yet … the sum subscribed to the General Fund [i.e. the precursor to today’sparish assessment], when compared with the number of persons who are returned asordinarily attending Divine Service, shows a very small average indeed, as the contribution ofeach person.

By the following year another frustration familiar to those in authority today has emerged:

It is to be regretted that the unwillingness of the parochial authorities in some parishes tocomply with the request made to furnish the returns, prevents these statements from being asfull and as accurate as it is desirable they should be.

Nevertheless, the cooperation of parish officers and diocesan staff over the last 150 years hasgiven Melbourne a source of publicly available information unparalleled in any otherAustralian diocese.7 Indeed, as the Messenger espoused a hundred years ago in July 1914:

The book is a great credit to our great diocese of Melbourne … It is a model that manydioceses might imitate to their advantage.8

The beginnings of our diocesan financial and statistical records reflect what was happeningin the affairs of state. In the prosperous years of the gold era in Victoria much satisfactionwas derived from the publication of the ‘Blue Books’ – the statistical reports furnished by theColonial Governments to Whitehall chronicling the progress of the Colony of Victoria.Under the leadership of the Government Statist, Henry Hayter, Victoria became in 1873 thefirst colony [in the British Empire] to publish a comprehensive Year Book.9 The Dioceseadopted the term in 1892, when the Diocesan Registry published the Year-Book of the Dioceseof Melbourne 1891, supplanting the Statistics of the Diocese of Melbourne series.

The old title had become something of a misnomer as over the years much information wasincluded that was not of a specifically statistical or financial nature. From 1864 the clerical

7 Cited, for example, as a principal source for Grant, James 2010 Episcopally led and synodically governed:Anglicans in Victoria 1803-1997 North Melbourne, Australian Scholarly Publishing, p x.8 Church of England Messenger 7 July 1914, p1165.9 I had the privilege of working with Henry Speagle (himself a member of the Diocesan Council and a LayCanon) on the 1973 centenary edition of the Victorian Year Book, which can be downloaded from theAustralian Bureau of Statistics website athttp://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/Lookup/1301.2Main+Features11973?OpenDocument.


and lay members of the Church Assembly were listed10, together with the members of theCouncil of the Diocese and lay officers of the Church – Chancellor, Advocate, Architect,Registrar, and Deputy-Registrar of the Diocese. In 1869 the Cathedral Chapter11 was listedand from 1874 there are lists of licensed readers and authorised lay-helpers (all gentlemen),the latter holding ‘the Bishop’s written authority to read the Morning and Evening Prayers,and approved Sermons’.

From 1856 a property in Stephen (now Exhibition) Street had been held in trust by thebishop ‘for the maintenance and education, or otherwise for the benefit and advantage, ofyoung men to be admitted to holy orders’; this was reported in the 1861 accounts, andknown as the Clergy Training Fund from 1875. From 1871 Trinity College accounts wereincluded together with statements of a Moore College Fund (1871 to 1875). In 1877 theSchool Board (for Melbourne Grammar) is listed and in 1883 a section on Colleges andSchools shows the Council and staff of Trinity College and the staffs of Melbourne, Geelong,All Saints’ East St Kilda and St James’s Melbourne Grammar Schools. The Council of theGirls’ High School is listed from 1887.

In 1871 an Additional Bishopric Fund was formed, becoming the Ballarat Bishopric Fund in1872 and disappearing from our Statistics when that diocese was established in 1875.

The grander, but very short-lived, title Statistics of the Church of England in Victoria wasadopted for 1875 as there were now 27 pages devoted to the Diocese of Melbourne and 11 tothe new Diocese of Ballarat, with a further 24 pages of financial reports for the combinedfinances of the two dioceses as ‘In consequence of the division of the Colony into twoDioceses having taken place in the middle of 1875, the statistics for that year, as regards thetwo, are of necessity somewhat mixed’. The eggs were unscrambled the following year, withseparate publications for each diocese. This was perhaps an early indicator of the fiercediocesanism that some would say has dogged and others might say has enlivened thenational church in Australia.

Curiously, although every other cleric, and many lay leaders, were named in thesepublications, such was his place in society that it was not found necessary to identify theLord Bishop of Melbourne other than by title during the inaugural episcopate of CharlesPerry, although from 1873 accounts and regulations were included for the Perry ScholarshipFund ‘founded on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Bishop’s Consecration, for thepurpose of Endowing a Scholarship in Trinity College, Melbourne’.

Detailed parish statistics date from 1861 with respect to finances, but it was not until 1880that pastoral numbers (baptisms, confirmations, marriages, and funerals) were published.

10 A detailed analysis of the membership of the Assembly/Synod, principally derived from lists published in theStatistics/Year-Book, can be found in the ‘Report from the Committee to review the size and composition ofSynod’ in Anglican Church of Australia, Diocese of Melbourne 2012 Synod October 2012. Synod annual reportsPart A, pp5-26.11 For a history of the Cathedral Chapter see chapter XI of Grant, James 2014 St Paul’s Cathedral MelbourneNorth Melbourne, Australian Scholarly, pp84-95.


In 1865 stipends of ministers, curates, and readers are separately identified, and a return ofreaders’ stipends gives details of each reader’s district.

In 1876 clerical officers (that is, the bishop and three archdeacons) joined the list of laydiocesan officers. Rural Deans were listed in the Statistics 1877 and in 1882 the parishes andparochial and reader’s districts in each deanery were listed.

Of the 81 pages of the 1881 Statistics fully 24 (nearly a third) are taken up with the list ofsubscriptions and promises for the Cathedral Fund with about 62 entries a page – nearlyfifteen hundred individual donations or promises. Such was the fastidiousness of therecorders that there is an entry of five pounds for a Bank of England Note (presumablygiven by an anonymous donor rather than the governors of Threadneedle Street).

In 1885 a list of the clergy of the diocese in the order of seniority of ordination was ‘printedin accordance with the resolution of the Church Assembly’, a practice that continued until1930-31, by which time it included the 326 active clergy of Melbourne, Bendigo, Wangaratta,and Gippsland. Seniority was calculated according to date of admission into the province.The first list was headed by Dean Macartney, who at that stage had been ordained for 63years and had served in the diocese for 36. (He died, ten years later, still in office, at the ageof 95.) In the last list, the senior active priest was the Revd Thomas Quinton, who had beenordained 57 years earlier in Sydney on letters dimissory from Melbourne on St Thomas’ Day1874 and had served since 1905 as Minister at Leopold. It is unclear whether the seniority listdisappeared because of a spirit of egalitarianism on the part of the clergy or the exigencies ofthe 1930s depression – the Diocese of Newcastle still publishes such a seniority list in its yearbook.

Also listed from 1885 were parochial nominators for the 25 parishes with rights ofnomination and the secretaries of guardians and vestries.

In 1885, a clergyman who had ‘no personal cause to complain’ wrote to the Messengerpointing out that the Statistics showed growth in the diocese but some of his fellow clergywere shown to be receiving well below the ‘£300, which is usually what is laid down as aminimum sum for an ordained minister to receive’ – the publication of information gavehim the ammunition to fight for comparative wage justice.12

The President’s 24 page address to the Church of England Assembly is listed on the contentspage and bound with the Statistics in 1879, but was printed by a different firm. In 1880Mason, Firth & McCutcheon (long time printers of the Statistics) printed both, but they wereprobably issued separately as they are separately paginated. From 1881 to 1885 the Abstractof Proceedings and the Address of the President are listed on the contents page and areincluded in the bound sets of the Statistics in the Mollison Library, but not in the DiocesanArchives set until 1887.

12 Church of England Messenger 8 July 1885, p16.


In that year appears ‘a list of lands belonging to the Church of England in the Diocese ofMelbourne, of which a record exists in the Diocesan Registry’ indicating the parish, area,description, trust, and how acquired. Of the 270 properties in the Archdeaconry ofMelbourne and Geelong, 129 were Crown Reserves, 69 had been purchased, 68 had beengifted, three had been part gifted and part purchased, and one had been bequeathed. Thelast such list was published in 1903-04.

Another innovation in 1887 was a directory of 142 clergy with their qualifications,ordination details, past and present appointments, and current address. This directory had asimilar format to Crockford’s Clerical Directory, which had first been issued in 1858, but didnot begin to include colonial clergy until the 1870s. [The last issue of Crockford’s to includeall the Australian clergy was 1980-82.] A directory of retired clergy (all nine of them), whohad been excluded from the earlier volumes, was added in 1891. Telephone numbers beganto appear in 1907-08, when 38 (25%) of the 150 active and one of the 17 retired clergyadmitted to using this form of communications, which had first been introduced inMelbourne in 1880. Fax numbers began to appear in 1990; mobile numbers in 1994, justtwenty years ago.13 E-mail addresses started to appear in 1996-97 and are now almostubiquitous, with mainly a few retired clergy resisting this form of communication. So far as Ican tell no one has yet published their facebook or twitter addresses in the Year-Book.

Year-Book of the Diocese of Melbourne

The 1891 edition of the statistics was the first to be styled Year-Book of the Diocese ofMelbourne. Its 178 pages was 21% larger than the last (1890) issue of the Statistics. New itemsincluded a calendar of significant dates in the history of the Australian Church and a table ofdiocesan descent (a genealogy of Australian dioceses). But the larger size is principally dueto the fifty pages of lists of subscriptions to various causes – double the previous year – for adonation of 5 shillings to the Ladies Auxiliary or of 10 shillings to the Bishop of Melbourne’sFund or of a pound to the Cathedral Building or Maintenance Funds you could have yourname published in the Year-Book.

In 1893 the Messenger proclaimed that ‘The Registrar and his assistants are to becongratulated on the production of a volume that compares favourably with any similarwork of any Diocesan Registry in any part of the world’. The writer went on to comment onthe significant growth shown compared to a decade ago, tempered by the setback of thecurrent financial depression affecting stipends: ‘Over 50 [out of 112] of our most hard-working clergy appear to have received less in 1892 than in 1891; others made handsomedonations to the funds of the parish, and by this means avoided painful discussions and the

13 The first was Victor Haste – then an industrial chaplain; Philip Newman, David Peake, Jim Pilmer and DouglasStevens joined the mobile ranks in 1995.


appearance of reduction’. 14 This last assertion may well be true, but the Year-Book itselfprovides no evidence for it.

In a departure from the norm, the 1901-02 edition of the Year-Book included a preface thatcommented on the changes from 1874, before the first division of the diocese with thecreation of the Diocese of Ballarat, to 1902 with the newly created Dioceses of Bendigo,Gippsland, and Wangaratta. A number of comparative statistics are given in this prefaceshowing that, even after the subdivision, Melbourne still had 40 more (131) clergy than in1875, after Ballarat had been created or about the same number as in Melbourne (96) andBallarat (36) at the time of Bp Moorhouse’s arrival in 1876.

The Messenger noted that of the former archdeaconries that were now autonomous diocesesBendigo and Wangaratta had significantly increased income and contributed more to theHome Mission Fund than the year before, while Gippsland made substantial progresstowards providing a residence for its bishop – only Melbourne seemed to have suffered asetback. The writer looked favourably on ‘The inclusion of the four Year-Books in onevolume’ but lamented the absence of the fifth diocese without naming the see of Ballarat:

… the inclusion of the five Victorian Year-Books would have been better, for it would havebeen a complete record of the work of the Church in Victoria. Such a Book would have been asymbol of the unity of the Church, and a means whereby we secure the same, a prophecy ofthe good time when “Diocesanism” will be regarded as an evil only less in degree to thatknown as “Parochialism,” and when inter-diocesan communion will be as complete as maybe in this incomplete world.

1921 was the last year for which the Synod Address (or charge) appeared in the Year-Book;the last published address was from Archdeacon Hindley as Administrator, in which heannounced the confirmation of the election of the Revd Harrington Clare Lees, Vicar ofSwansea, as the next Archbishop of Melbourne.

Deaconesses were listed from 1925 and licensed women workers from 1940-41. However,accounts for the Diocesan Deaconesses' Home were published from 1891 – it is unlikely thata Deaconesses Home would have been embarked upon without prospective inhabitants.15

The Church of England Free Kindergarten Schools first appeared in 1928 … now I could goon for a long time detailing the changes in content, but rather than do that I have prepared amatrix of Year-Book information content using a sample of one issue each decade plus a fewsignificant volumes (1864, being the first octavo issue; 1875, being the only Victoria issue forMelbourne and Ballarat; 1887, being the first issue with a full clerical directory; 1901-02,being a combined issue with the new dioceses of Bendigo, Gippsland and Wangaratta; 1964,being the centenary edition; and 2013 being the most recently published issue. This matrix

14 Church of England Messenger 7 July 1893, pp 109-10.15 See Sherlock, Peter ’Australian beginnings: the first Anglican deaconess’ in Lindsay, Elaine and Scarfe, Janet(eds) 2012 Preachers, prophets & heretics: Anglican women's ministry University of New South Wales Press.


can be used as a guide to the content and level of detail available as a resource for historicalresearch.

I will just make a couple of final observations about content. The diocesan accounts lastappeared in the 1980 edition of the Year-Book (for the 1979 financial year). They have sincebeen published separately for Synod members; in recent years in electronic form. I haveraised with the Registrar the desirability of ensuring some hard copies are produced forretention in the diocesan archives – we should all be conscious of the transitory nature ofelectronic media – and he has agreed to arrange this. The other comment is about the Synodproceedings – until 1968 (reporting on the 1967 session of Synod) the abstract of proceedingsincluded a summary of the speakers and their contributions to the debate. After that timeonly the text of the resolutions is included so we are reliant on the reporting in the diocesannewspaper for the debate, which is unlikely to be as full a report as that formerly retained inthe official record.

The Year-Book is a modest publication. It has no dust jacket proclaiming the virtues of itscontents. I am only aware of one issue that was enlivened with illustrations (other thanadvertising) – the Diocesan Jubilee edition of 1896-97 with a portrait of Bp Broughton, onlyBishop of Australia, and photographs of Bps Perry, Moorhouse and Goe, and of DeansMacartney and Vance. Mr A F France, Editor of the Year-Book, contributed a history of thediocese and the Letters Patent establishing the diocese were reprinted.

On the rare occasions the Year-Book has had a preface, its remarks have included modeststatements of progress by setting out comparative statistics, but without detailedexplanation for that progress other than the more obvious ones associated with theestablishment of new dioceses, leading to temporary reductions in the Melbourne figures.There was, though, a little boasting in 1900-01:

A comparison of these figures with those of other dioceses shows that the clergy on the activelist of the Diocese of Melbourne [202] considerably outnumber those of any other diocese inAustralasia. From the latest available information, it appears that in the Diocese of Sydneythere are about 170 clergy; in that of Adelaide, between 85 and 90 … [and so on]

Now this was hardly a fair comparison in that, as shown in the Table of AustralasianDiocesan Descent published in the same volume, there were five dioceses other than Sydneyin New South Wales, whereas at that time there was only one daughter diocese – Ballarat –in Victoria.

So, apart from its obvious use as a directory of current information, contact details, etc. ofwhat earthly use is the Year-Book? I stated at the outset of this talk that it serves the purposeof accountability, which was, and is, very important for an organisation dependent on theefforts and support of volunteers. The compiler of the 1863 edition of the Statistics hinted atanother purpose:

… it seems very desirable that members of the Church should be informed both of the needsand doings of the Church in other parts of the diocese, besides their own parishes, that so


they may be able to take a larger and truer view of the outward condition of the Church thanthey can if their attention is exclusively confined to their own local needs and proceedings.And thus, that through seeing what is done, what is attempted, and what is suffered in otherparts, a wholesome sympathy may be excited throughout the whole body – “That thereshould be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one foranother; and, whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; and, one member behonored, all the members rejoice with it.”16

It seems to me that a natural extension of this consideration of one another’s situation is tobecome a springboard for what we now call ‘benchmarking’ – assessing our performance bycomparison with others and then striving to do better.

Unlocking the treasures

So we have a great resource of detailed information over a long period of time. How, apartfrom using it to inform local histories, can we make sense of all this data? I would now liketo describe a project I have been engaged in for some time that I hope might become a tool toenable interested people to analyse and explore these data.

Relational database technology is based on a concept with which we are all familiar – familyrelationships and dependencies. Relational databases extend this understanding to therelationships between people, between people and organisations, and between people andorganisations and things (e.g. possessions, money) and actions. Information is recorded intables of entities and can be interrogated and manipulated using SQL (Structured QueryLanguage). The information in such a database can be represented pictorially in a datamodel. Here is a high level data model of my Ecclesia Anglicana Australis database, which Iam using to record information derived from the Year-Book and other sources.

Using what are called intersection tables or entities it is possible to record quite complexrelationships over time. Let me illustrate this with a few examples from my databaseutilising Melbourne Year-Book and other information.

16 Church of England Messenger 1 July 1903, p80.


Figure 1 Ecclesia Anglicana Australis: Principal entities


PERSON

ORGANISATION

CHURCH

OFFICE

EVENTEDUCATIONQUALIFICAT

ION

CHURCHRELATIONSHIP

MEMBERSHIP

ORGANISATIONRELATIONSHIP

OFFICEHOLDING

DIRECTORYCONTENT

DIRECTORYENTRY

PERSONTITLE PERSONDECORATION

PERSONTHEOLOGICAL

EDINSTITUTION

ORDINATION

OFFICERELATIONSHIP

PERSONRELATIONSHIP

OFFICEORGANISATION

EVENTPARTICIPATION

LEGISLATION INFORCE

EDUCATIONQUALIFICATION

HOLDING

TITLE DECORATION

DIRECTORY

PRIMARYENTITY

INTERSECTIONENTITY

REFERENCEENTITY

CLASSIFICATIONENTITY

Legend

COUNTRY

PERSONCOUNTRYOFRESIDENCE

Figure 2 Ecclesia Anglicana Australis: Principal and intersection entities


Figure 3 Some localities in the Diocese of Melbourne

In his charge to this year’s Synod Archbishop Freier spoke about the challenge of engaging‘with the areas of greatest urban growth’.17 An examination of the places that have beenrecorded as the locus of ministry of various forms in the Year-Book shows remarkable reachand flexibility over time. There have been 1,083 localities in the Diocese of Melbourne thathave been parishes, parochial districts, reader’s districts, or sub-districts – the relationshipsof a few of these is shown in Figure 3. In this extract you can see that one of our newestparishes – St Matthias’ Mernda – in fact had an earlier incarnation as a part of a parochialdistrict in the 1920s and 1930s.

17 Freier, Philip. 2014. The President’s address to the 51st Synod of the Diocese of Melbourne, p.6.


Figure 4 Diocese of Melbourne: live parish receipts by archdeaconry, 1961 to 2011 at 2011$

A summary of parish live receipts by archdeaconry over fifty years in Figure 4 showsconsiderable variation in performance. This summary shows how the database can be usedto produce more meaningful information. A Consumer Price Index factor has been appliedto the original data so that money values over time can be more readily compared – in thiscase all money values have been converted to the equivalent of 2011 dollars. The 1961figures seem to be unusually high, explained in part by a major building fund appeal for StAndrew’s Brighton following the fire that destroyed the old church. From 1971 to 2011 thediocesan total shows growth in live income (parish income excluding property andendowment income). The data here from individual parishes have been aggregated to totalsfor the 2011 archdeaconry boundaries so that we can see more clearly variation across thediocese. The average quintile values in the last columns are a means of showing how areascompare to the diocesan median of 3 – as we might have expected in 2011 the bestperforming archdeaconry was Kew, but relatively speaking it has hardly changed over the50 year period. The most improved archdeaconry has been Geelong, although on average itis still a little below the diocesan median.


Figure 5 Diaconal ordinations in Victorian dioceses and Australia from 1837

Diaconal ordinations in recent years have been at record levels – a response in part to largenumbers of clergy reaching retirement age and to a shorter ministry lifespan of clergy beingordained at a later average age than fifty years ago (Figure 5).

Sometimes it is the absence of information that is telling. In a report on clergy supplyprepared for this year’s Provincial Council meeting I was able to show that a significantnumber of clergy seemed to be moving to the ranks of PTO before retirement ordisappearing altogether from ministry. [See the highlighted rows in Table 13 from that


report.18] Now some of these can be explained by departures for overseas or because ofpower and trust issues, but from an organisational perspective it seems there is a loss ofvocation or failure of the church to find appropriate deployment for clergy that is significantand we should attempt to understand why this is and take steps to reduce it.

Table 1 Active clergy in Victoria: changing numbers, 1961 to 20141961 to1971

1971 to1981

1981 to1991

1991 to2001

2001 to2011

2011 to2014

1961 to2014

Number at start of period 440 522 539 599 499 511 440INSOrdained during period:

Victoria 148 135 193 127 169 86 858Other Australia 17 11 19 16 11 1 75Overseas 7 4 7 2 9 2 31

Total ordained during period 172 150 219 145 189 89 964Ordained pre beginning of period:

Victoria 33 29 38 24 29 30 183Other Australia 53 66 38 47 56 29 289Overseas 15 24 19 14 16 10 98

Total prior ordained 101 119 95 85 101 69 570Unknown ordination details 3 3TOTAL INS 273 269 314 230 290 161 1,537OUTS

Death 51 45 32 22 15 6 171Retirement 54 103 122 164 154 45 642Active ministry other Australia 44 48 45 56 37 19 249PTO and other in directory 13 26 17 37 31 36 160Ex directory 29 30 38 51 41 41 230

TOTAL OUTS 191 252 254 330 278 147 1,452Number at end of period 522 539 599 499 511 525 525Number active at start and end 249 270 285 269 221 364Propn starters still active 57% 52% 53% 45% 44% 71%Propn finishers not at start 52% 50% 52% 46% 57% 31%Propn starters ex directory 7% 6% 7% 9% 8% 8%

Propn starters neither active norretired or died 10% 11% 10% 15% 14% 15%

Propn INS ordained during period inVictoria 54% 50% 61% 55% 58% 53%Death rate 12% 9% 6% 4% 3% 1%Retirement rate 12% 20% 23% 27% 31% 9%INS - OUTS (net change) 82 17 60 -100 12 14 85

Net change as propn of startnumber 19% 3% 11% -17% 2% 3% 19%

Victorian ordinations less deaths andretirements 43 -13 39 -59 0 35 45

18 Reilly, Colin 2014 Clergy supply, deployment, and attrition in the Province of Victoria.


These are merely examples of the kinds of analysis that can be attempted if Year-Book data isentered into a relational database. Such analysis should, of course, always be undertakenwith care. Past performance never perfectly predicts future performance, but it is also rarefor trends to be dramatically reversed. Past data can help us to frame the questions weshould be asking when deciding on future strategies.

Shortcomings

There are two areas of shortcoming that I would like to comment on. The first is thatalthough, as we have seen, there is much available information about parishes and clergy inthe Year-Book, there is relatively little data other than clerical deployment and directoryinformation for other aspects of ecclesial life in our diocese. The parish sector is, of course,very important and three quarters of our clergy are deployed in it – but what of the otherareas of diocesan life?

Figure 6 Diocese of Melbourne: Governance and major organisational elements

The second area of concern is comparative data. Within the Australian Church our diocesehas the richest set of published data. The only national figures we have for Anglicans arefrom the Population Census, not from Anglican organisational sources. Compared to the


Church of England19 and The Episcopal Church20 we have inadequate data to enable us toascertain how well we are travelling. This is particularly important at times of stress, whenthe Church is under challenge and must deploy its resources as wisely as possible. TheAnglican Church of Canada, which is perhaps the most similar national church to ours, hadvery good national statistics until the turn of this century. At that time the diocesan figureswere apparently indicating decline so the dioceses stopped providing data that could becollated nationally.21 In Australia, when asked to provide attendance data for the Viabilitiesand Structures Task Force that reported to this year’s General Synod, eighteen of the 23dioceses responded, but only thirteen were able to provide attendance figures.22

It is a little alarming that I have discovered no firm organisational basis for our Year-Book – itis not required by synodical legislation, but it has become an ingrained habit in our annualdiocesan cycle. The present Registrar assures me there are no plans to abandon the Year-Bookin its present physical form. The last time the Council of the Diocese considered the Year-Book was on 15 June 1995 when, among other things, the Council resolved that ‘The nextYear Book continue to be one comprehensive publication with an improved content’.23

Long may it continue so.

Conclusion

In the database world the term ‘data mining’ is used to describe the extraction of meaningfulinformation from massive collections of data. I hope I have been able to show that the Year-Book of the Diocese of Melbourne has many rich veins waiting for diligent extraction byhistorians and researchers. But let me finish with a warning. Discussing the managementmantra with which I began: ‘what cannot be measured cannot be managed’, Paul Zak of theDrucker Institute concludes ‘So, measurement, yes. Only measurement, no’. The datacontained in the Year-Book can inform us, but we still have to think and pray hard aboutwhat that information is telling us and how it can guide our policy and decision making.

Colin Reilly BIS(Hons)(Melb) is a lay member of the General Synod of the Anglican Church ofAustralia, a member of the Melbourne Diocesan Council, and Senior Lay Canon of St Paul’s CathedralMelbourne. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Keywords: Anglican Church of Australia; Benchmarking; Church Governance; Church History;Church Statistics; Data Management; Diocese of Melbourne; Knowledge Management; Year Books

19 The Church of England Year Book 2014 London, Church House Publishing.20 The Episcopal Church Annual 2014 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Morehouse Church Supplies.21 Information provided during visit by the author to the Anglican national archives in Toronto, May 2014.22 Anglican Church of Australia. 2014. Report of the Viabilities & Structures Task Force, p29.23 Diocese of Melbourne. Archbishop in Council Minutes 15 June 1995 item 8.

YEAR-BOOK OF THE DIOCESE OF MELBOURNE: CONTENTS MATRIXEdition

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Pages YB (Melbourne portion excl. Synod Acts, charge &proceedings) 15 28 47 51 81 118 178 220 190 131 177 219 173 195 236 273 303 239 273 236 258 342Pages Synod Acts & Proceedings 40 58 63 52 34 45 42 30 41 15 25 15 12 17 43 24 59PROVINCIAL INFORMATION > Map of Victoria showing diocesan boundaries EMERGENCY CONTACT DETAILS CONTENTS INDEX PREFACE CALENDAR TABLE OF AUSTRALASIAN DIOCESAN DESCENT CENSUS FIGURES> Population > Population & Anglicans ORGANISATION CHARTS LIST OF CLERGY Total number of clergy 181 218 144 190 231 289 301 306 421 455 496 545 640 721Bishops/Archbishops of Melbourne Bishops coadjutor/assistant bishops Bishops retired Clergy > active list > on war service/with HM's armed forces > with permission to officiate > with HM's armed forces with PTO > on leave of absence > on missionary service > deaconesses > licensed/trained women workers > licensed lay evangelists > clergy retired with PTO > clerical obituary > hospital chaplains > Anglican criminal justice ministry > Anglican school & university chaplains > ITIM Australia > Education for Ministry Australia (EfM) > Language specialist clergy & laity

Year-Book of the Diocese of Melbourne Page 1 of 6 © Colin Reilly 2014

> Language specialist clergy & laity > List of priest authorised to hear confessions from perpetratorsof child abuse

Seniority list of clergy

ORDINATIONAccepted theological students in training Examining chaplains Persons ordained Ordination requirements Board for Ministry Accredited Theological Field Education Supervisors Theological colleges and staff READERS/PASTORAL WORKERS/LAY MINISTERS> stipendiary > diocesan > honorary/lay helpers/parochial > lay ministry chaplains

CONFIRMATION ARRANGEMENTS

LAY OFFICERS CLERICAL AND LAY OFFICERS/DIOCESAN STAFF COUNCIL OF THE DIOCESE CATHEDRAL CHAPTER BOARDS, COMMITTEES, ETC. > elected & appointed under Acts of Synod > General Synod > Inter-diocesan Committee > Provincial Synod/Council > Appointed by Archbishop-in-Council > Appointed by the Chapter > Miscellaneous/Agencies

LIST OF DIOCESAN APPOINTMENTS

COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN STATE SCHOOLS KINDERGARTENS/EARLY CHILDHOOD SERVICES SUNDAY-SCHOOL ASSOCIATION > Teachers holding diploma of Sunday-school Association

> Teachers obtaining diploma of Sunday-school Association > Teachers obtaining diploma of Sunday-school Association


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> Teachers obtaining special certificate of Sunday-schoolAssociation DIOCESAN BOARD OF EDUCATION

CLASSIFICATION OF PARISHES & DISTRICTS LIST OF SUB-DISTRICTS REGIONS OF EPISCOPAL CARE with archdeaconries, deaneries &parishes ARCHDEACONRIES with deaneries & parishes DEANERIES

ANGLICAN OPPORTUNITY SHOPS

DIOCESAN ACCOUNTSGeneral/Consolidated Fund > appropriations in aid of stipends Surrogates fees account

Grants from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Grants of the Colonial and Continental Church Society Bishopric Endowment Fund > subscriptions & donations Additional Bishopric Fund/Ballarat Bishopric Fund Church Endowment Fund Church Centenary Endowment Fund Church Expenses (Management) Fund Appropriation of certain moneys placed at disposal of theBishop Bishop of Melbourne's Fund (Home Missions) > annual report > parish contributions > subscriptions, collections etc. > Ladies' Auxiliary > grants for stipends > grants for vicarages & churches > Diocesan Festival Home Missions Parochial Assessment Account Parochial quotas/assessments


Parochial quotas/assessments Stipend Fund > Appropriations for stipends Special/Diocesan Trusts Grants to parishes from diocesan and other funds Property fundsChurch Building Fund Archidiaconal District Church Funds Loan Fund/Building Fund No. 2 Church Extension & Development Fund > grants to new area parishes Church of England Building & Extension Fund Melbourne Diocesan Centre/Anglican Inner-City Ministry Richmond Church Lands Trust St James' School Lands St James' Church Lands St Luke's (South Melbourne) Trust St Luke's (South Melbourne) Darlington Trust St Matthew's Church Lands Carlton Church Property nei Diocesan Rolling Fund/Anglican Development Fund Education

School property in Bourke Street/Educational Endowment Fund Fund for education of candidates for the ministry/ClergyTraining Fund > Clergy Training Fund subscriptions Archbishop's Appeal & Manpower Fund > contributions from parishes Church of England Free Kindergarten Schools Church of England Visual Education Committee Council of Youth and Religious Education Sunday School Committee Diocesan Board of Education Youth Organisations Committee Superannuation, provident, widows & orphansCapitalised Superannuation Fund Superannuation Fund/Clergy Provident Fund > contributions from clerks > parochial collections > subscriptions & donations Clergy Pensions Augmentation Fund Clergy Retirement Additional Benefits Fund Clergy Widow and Orphans Fund Clergy Widow and Orphans Fund > subscriptions & collections



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Australian Clergy Provident Fund > Subscriptions from clergy Alice Hindson Memorial Fund (for poor or sick clergy temp. orperm. retired) Deaconesses Retirements Benefits Fund Chaplaincy & welfareAndrew Kerr Memorial Home (Mornington, for children) Home for Neglected Children [Hospital] Chaplaincy Fund/Chaplaincy Account > Donations list by parish Mission of St James & St John, Melbourne > Metropolitan Mission - Building Fund OTHER ACCOUNTSBequests & legacies received Church Funds Church Parochial Mission Delaney Trust (Holy Trinity Coburg) Diocesan Deaconesses' Home

Grants for buildings & stipends out of the public revenue Janet Clarke Hall Lathamstowe Trust League of Soldiers' Friends Leslie Trust ( grants in aid of church buildings etc) Marriage licence fees Mollison Library Moorhouse Lectureship Moore College Fund St John's College Clergy Training School East St Kilda

St Luke's (South Melbourne) Trentham Trust - for incumbent St Paul's Cathedral> Cathedral [Building] Fund >> subscriptions > Chapter House and Church Offices > St Paul's Cathedral [Maintenance Account] Trinity College > accounts > Council and staff


> Council and staff > report > Perry Scholarship Fund > Trinity College University Exhibition > Trinity College subscriptions & donations SocietiesChurch Army Church of England Boys' Society> Information & office bearers Church of England Men's Society> Information, office bearers & parish secretaries Church of England Sunday-school Association Church of England Temperance Society Christian Social Union Diocesan Book Society Girls' Friendly Society > Information & office bearers Mothers' Union > Information & office bearers Sunday School Institute and Book Depot MissionsResolutions & reports Australian Board of Missions Church Missionary Society of Victoria Chinese Mission (Church Missionary Society of Victoria) Melanesian Mission New Guinea Mission

Church Mission to the Aborigines/Bellenden-Ker/Yarrabah Victoria Missions to Seamen General Mission Fund India Mission Account Jeruslaem and The East Mission Foreign Missions (Missions to Heathen etc.) Table of contributions to missions by diocese

LIST OF LANDS BELONGING TO THE CHURCH TABLE OF FEES CHARGEABLE

NEW PARISHES & CHURCHES GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS FORPARISHES > Recommendations for Church Treasurers & Auditors > Elections procedures > Elections procedures > The Vestry Remembrancer



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PARISHES Name of incumbent Other clergy Churchwardens Parochial nominators/Incumbency Committee Synod representatives Parochial readers Secretary Treasurer Sunday School Superintendant Address/e-mail/telephone/website Type of place of worship PAROCHIAL STATISTICSChurch accommodationNo. of places of worship Churches School buildings, incl State schools Public buildings incl. churches of other denominations Private buildings No. for whom there is accommodation > in Anglican buildings > in other buildings > church > hall Parsonage/vicarage or residence provided Approx no. of services No. of public Sunday services No. of publicised services in residential facilities No. usually attending principal service No. in the habit of attending service No. distinct individuals attending services on an ordinarySunday Estimated no. of frequent attenders - pre school Estimated no. of frequent attenders - primary school Estimated no. of frequent attenders - secondary school Estimated no. of frequent attenders - post-secondary Average no. of youth attending youth groups No. of leaders for 15-19 years old Average no. of young adults attending


Average no. of young adults attending No. of leaders for young adults Estimated no. of communicants Average no. of Sunday communicants Average no. of attenders each week Number on Church Electoral Roll presented at Annual ParishMeeting Volunteers in parish care groups Total yearly attendance at all public services Total yearly attendance at all Sunday services No. of acts of communion Total Sunday acts of communion Total other acts of communion Total attendance at Christmas Day/Eve services Total acts of communion at Christmas Day/Eve services Total attendance at Easter Day/Eve services Total acts of communion at Easter Day/Eve services Baptisms No. of children admitted to Holy Communion No. of persons received into Anglican Communion No. of persons confirmed Marriages No. of marriages in churches of the parish No. of marriages conducted elsewhere Burials/funerals No. of funerals in churches of the parish No. of funerals conducted elsewhere No. of continuing home/small groups

Total no. of persons in continuing home/small groups per week Sunday SchoolsNo. of schools How often held during year No. of scholars on roll Avg no. attending - Males Females Total No. of teachers - Males Females Total Estimate for missing returns Church schools Church and other institutions On active service On active service Diocesan totals



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PAROCHIAL FINANCESReceiptsPew rents Offertory & other collections Offertories general Offertories envelopes Private contributions / Donations Building funds etc. Donations - specific Local contributions of every kind> Buildings - church > Buildings - parsonage > Buildings - school > Stipend of clergy etc. > Current expenses > Interest on debt > Charitable institutions > General Fund of the Diocese Special efforts (fetes, entertainments etc.) Parish paper, 'See' & other subs & book sales Endowments Endowments (capital only) Endowments & rents Endowments, rent & interest Endowments (income only) Income from bank interest/investments Dividends received Property income (gross) Rents & hall hire/Property income (net) Interest on endowments, rents & hall hire Grants from Diocesan & public funds Aid from BMF Aid from other public funds Aid from the public funds of the church Grants from BMF & other funds for stipends etc. Diocesan grants - ministry Diocesan grants - land & buildings Legacies & bequests received Loans received


Loans received Loans & interest Net surplus on sale of shares and other assets Income from sale of land & buildings Capital grants from BMF etc. for new buildings etc. Buildings & debt reduction Extra-parochial> Church collections > Donations > Specific giving for missions etc. > For diocesan causes > For ABM & CMS > Sundry Other moneys parochially raised Insurance recoveries/Long Service Leave payments Withdrawals from trusts Other sources Total receipts Summary of rates of income in parishes providing returns ExpenditureClergy remuneration Incumbent, excl. of marriage offerings Travelling & other expenses of vicar Horse allowance Stipend, incl. fees Stipend incl. grant from BMF & diocesan funds, excl. marriage Stipend paid by parish Stipend paid by Home Mission Fund grants Vicar's stipend & allowances Curate's stipend & allowances Assisting clergy stipends Readers stipends etc. Curates & readers Curates & clerical assistance incl. diocesan grants Assistant clergy travel allowance etc. Stipend of incumbent, assistant clergy & lay assistants Removal expenses Pastoral/parish workers stipends & salaries Pastoral/parish workers allowances Lay ministry staff costs Secretarial & other salaries Organist and choir/music group Expenses of divine service, incl. loan interest Expenses of divine service Other church expenses Other church expenses Stewardship costs



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Church building & repairs > church > parsonage > school Repairs/Property maintenance

New buildings & furniture/Capital expenditure on 'new' assets Property, new buildings & furniture Expenses relating to property income Insurance Fete & other special effort expenses Parish paper, 'See' & other subs, book stall purchases Loans repaid Interest on loans or overdraft Loans repaid incl. interest Extra-parochial > Bp of Melbourne's Fund/Home Missions Fund/Parishasssessment > Home Missions Fund & Clergy Provident Fund> Foreign missions > Missionary objects > Other charitable objects > For diocesan causes > For ABM & CMS > Sundry > Special offertories & donations disbursed/Mission & otherextra-parochial Sundries not included elsewhere/Other expenditure Total expenditure Surplus/deficit Debts/Balance sheet itemsStipend arrears at end previous year Stipend arrears at end current year Property account > Liabilities > Cash on account of liabilities Ordinary account > Liabilities> Assets


> AssetsMaintenance account Sunday-schoolReceipts Payments Estimate for missing returns Diocesan totals Table of parish missionary giving to ABM & CMS SUMMARY OF PAROCHIAL STATISTICS COLONY & STATE OF VICTORIA, 1874 & 1901

ASSEMBLY/SYNOD> Address of the President (Charge) > Abstract of proceeedings with notes of debates > List of resolutions passed without notes of debate > Questions & answers > Acts passed > List of members > Election results with voting numbers > Election results without voting numbers > Devotional meeting

TELEPHONE DIRECTORY FORM OF BEQUEST YEARBOOK CHANGE FORM INTER-DIOCESANActive clergy list in order of inter-diocesan seniority Interdiocesan appointments

PROVINCIAL YEAR BOOKS INCLUDEDBendigo Gipppsland St ArnaudWangaratta


Unlocking the treasures of the Melbourne Anglican diocesan year-book

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