The Ark

The Friends Meeting House in Surry Hills, Sydney recently celebrated its 100th anniversary as a centre of Quaker worship. Built in 1903 by the 8th generation Quaker architect, Alfred Allen Jr, the Meeting House has seen many changes in worship style but little improvement in the socially-depressed area it originally hoped to change through outreach programs.

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

THEME

Rachael Kohn: Wedged between garment factories, pubs, and publishing houses, the arched loggia of the Friends Meeting House in Surry Hills, Sydney, stands as a silent reminder of a more elegant past.

Hello, this is The Ark, with me, Rachael Kohn.

The Friends Meeting House, which recently celebrated its centenary, is not a forgotten relic of Quaker history. It is an active place of worship, but no longer for birth-right Quakers alone, who make up a small minority.

There is a simplicity, which characterises Quakerism that goes back to its 17th century origins in the Puritan Revolution. The belief that there is the light of God in everyone, is also evident in the spare and light-filled worship space where Friends gather on Sunday mornings. Jean Hart is the librarian and Jenny Madeline is an archivist.

Jenny Madeline: Quakers traditionally have built very plain meetings houses. It has plain walls, the ceilings are stained timber, very high ceilings, I guess generally the idea of a meeting for worship is that Friends meet in silence and seek the spirit within, and prefer not to have distractions in the place of worship.

Rachael Kohn: People actually sit in the round, as I can see the chairs are arranged in that way.

Jenny Madeline: Yes. Although when I was a child and came to meetings for worship here, the elders used to sit on a bench at the front, facing the members of the meeting, but for some years now we've felt it was much more appropriate to sit in the round, because there's no hierarchy within the Society of Friends, and everyone is considered to be on an equal footing.

Rachael Kohn: In fact Jenny, you're from a long line of Quakers, and I believe it was your Great Uncle who was the architect of this place?

Jenny Madeline: Yes. His name was Alfred Allen. He was an 8th generation Quaker. His family came from the north of Ireland and the family came out to Australia in the 1840s, so he designed this building in 1902-1903, and then actually later went to England during the First World War in 1915 and worked with the Friends War Victims Relief Committee in Holland, and went on to do other work in the war along those lines.

Rachael Kohn: Jean Hart, this building actually is I think the fourth Sydney Quakers Meeting House, and it certainly had unusual beginnings.

Jean Hart: Yes we began in Macquarie Street in the 1830s, moved to the burial grounds in the Devonshire Street Cemetery, an unusual place, had two buildings there. One was actually built as a Meeting House, and then when the railways took over that land, and we were compensated, and the building we're in now was opened in 1903.

Rachael Kohn: And it was built not very far actually from the original buildings; you're still here in Surry Hills fairly close to Central Railway. But it was an interesting area, certainly not a very becoming one.

Jean Hart: Yes, it was a semi-industrial area in that time, and you might say quite depressed. It's not long after the huge 1890s Depression, and Friends made a conscious decision to stay in this area and to involve themselves in the life of the community. They even actually considered buying a coffee shop, but ran out of funds, unfortunately. But the Meeting from the beginning, was a community building as well as a place of worship, because Friends feel that that's a natural outcome of worship.

Rachael Kohn: It certainly seems consistent with many of the ideals of values that the Quakers held about equity and education. How many of the activities here were directed specifically at Mission Outreach in the community?

Jean Hart: Adult education was a very big feature of this Meeting in its earliest days. Indeed, classrooms are a feature of the early plans.

There were Boys Clubs, there were Girls Clubs, they all had an educational function. There was also Outreach to people working in this area so that the lower hall was made available for women particularly at lunch time. Later on, the craft movement began here, you see, so that it just simply followed for Friends that there would be this encouragement for community activities, an emphasis on education and that education was not confined just to Bible Study and to teaching reading and writing, remember adult illiteracy was a feature of 1903 society.

There was an emphasis too on education about financial matters. It was Jenny's grandfather who was an accountant, he was very conscious that many people didn't understand how to manage their affairs, and he interested himself very much in community education about economics and he was active in trying to improve equity in financial affairs.

Rachael Kohn: It doesn't surprise me. I think the Quakers opened the first bank in Australia, in Tasmania. They were associated with one of the earliest banks in this country.

Jean Hart: Well they'd had experience in banking, because Lloyd's was a Quaker bank and so Friends are a world family, and traditions flow where Friends go, so it's not surprising that they started a bank in Tasmania. I don't think they started one in Sydney.

Rachael Kohn: In fact didn't Workers Education first begin here, or at least have some association with this Meeting House?

Jean Hart: Yes. It wasn't a Quaker activity but the Meeting House was made available to the Workers Education Association when it began its activities in Sydney. As far as I know, some friends were involved in the foundation of it.

Rachael Kohn: Jenny, how would you say the kind of people who come here to Quaker meetings have changed over the years.

Jenny Madeline: I guess one change has been when I was a child, probably most of the members of the Meeting, or many of them, would have been what are called birthright Friends, or who have come from a sort of a Quaker family background, whereas now I think in Sydney, as elsewhere, perhaps only 10% of the members may have a Quaker family background. So that most people find their way to Friends and feel its, they often use the expression, 'it feels like coming home', and also Friends have been very supportive of issues like gay and lesbian rights, so there are a number of gay and lesbian people who have become members of the Meeting and feel that it's their home.

Rachael Kohn: Is that because of the Quaker belief that one can find the spirit in all people? There is the spirit of God within everyone?

Jenny Madeline: I think yes, that's certainly the case, and members of this meeting have taken part in the gay and lesbian Mardi Gras for a number of years, and carry a banner which celebrates God's light in everyone.

Rachael Kohn: One of the features of this neighbourhood is the indigenous people who live here and have for many years. To what extent are the Quakers involved, or the meeting house involved in relations or Mission Outreach to Aboriginal Australians?

Jean Hart: Well again, traditionally Friends have had an interest in indigenous affairs since the visit of Backhouse and Walker in 1836. This Meeting House was a very active place in the 1970s when the first national land rights meeting was held in this hall, and the Minister of the Day, was it Fred Cheney, attended that meeting.

The first black theatre performance was here. Friends were active in the formation of the Redfern Medical Centre. There was a great deal of support for again, for indigenous people to be involved in their own decision making. So Friends went to court often, to sit in the courts and observe what was happening to indigenous people. So that has continued.

Today we've supported Reconciliation in our own ways; we've tried to educate ourselves more about indigenous affairs, we've had classes here for ourselves, so that we update ourselves about indigenous affairs, and then Friends in their own individual ways, would be active. But we also have Werona, a camp near Nowra, not a camp it's a land-holding, and through Werona there's been an outreach to Aborigines in that area too, to encourage them to come to Werona , but also to try to solve perhaps feelings about land ownership in the area.

Rachael Kohn: Jean I wonder whether the statistic that Jenny just mentioned about only 10% birth-right members worries you, worries you about the future of the Friends?

Jean Hart: I don't think that statistic does. I actually feel Quakerism is a very good religion for this age. It doesn't carry a baggage of dogma with it. It is present thinking and open to future as it evolves, and so I would expect it to appeal to many people who are looking for a spiritual element in their lives but who find some traditional practices of churches difficult. What worries me is that Outreach is very insignificant.

Rachael Kohn: Why is that?

Jean Hart: Again, it's been a habit of Friends not to proselytise, so that I think we feel if people really are interested in Quakerism they'll find their way here, somehow. Perhaps they do, but perhaps not in the numbers that I think could be interested.

Rachael Kohn: Jean, back in the 1860s the Quakers experienced a degree of conflict with one another. There were some who were more evangelical and Christian centred and others who were more quietist, they wanted to go back to perhaps the origins of Quakerism, which was a bit more open. Is there any of that conflict apparent today within the Quakers of Sydney, or perhaps between the Quakers here and communities around Australia?

Jean Hart: I'm not aware of it. If there is, there are certainly people who are more Christian centred in their beliefs than others in the Meeting. But it doesn't seem to come out as a conflict, because in this age, there is a respect for where you've arrived at in your journey in life, and really, people would be more interested in hearing how you arrived at your point and listening to one another's stories. I would think this is a sober age of recognising that there are many things we don't know, and Friends are open to new light from one another, as well as the community at large. So no, I'm not conscious of conflict.

Rachael Kohn: Well Jean, was that conflict, which I alluded to in the 1860s resolved by the time this building was built 100 years ago?

Jean Hart: I would say so. The conflict was in large measure between the authority of the Bible and the authority of the inner light. And eventually the authority of the inner light prevailed, and that continues, sometimes I would think, to the detriment of Friends' interest in the Bible today.

Rachael Kohn: Jean Hart and Jenny Madeline of the Friends Meeting House in Surrey Hills, Sydney, which you can see on our website.

The Ark can be heard every Sunday evening at 7.10 and on Wednesday afternoons at 2.15.

Next week, the story of the radical monk, Giordano Bruno, who just might have influenced William Shakespeare, but ended up burnt at the stake. That's The Ark, with me, Rachael Kohn.

Further Information

The Australian Quaker Homepage
http://www.quakers.org.au/

The Religious Society of Friends
http://www.quaker.org/

Friends House Photo Gallery
Four views of Friends House in Surry Hills, Sydney
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/stories/s1059991.htm

Quakers - Seeking the Light Within
The history and experiences of The Society of Friends - Quakers -in Australia and their disproportionate contribution to education and peace activism. Broadcast on ABC TV's Compass, September 28 2003.
http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s955596.htm

Publications

Title: A Question of Survival: Quakers in Australia in the Nineteenth Century
Author : William Nicolle Oats
Publisher: University of Queensland Press, 1985