SNACKS-GRANOLAS

The first meeting of the Salvation Army in Adelaide, South Australia, was held by immigrant soldiers (lay members) on 5 September 1880. Captains Adelaide and Thomas Sutherland arrived in February 1881 and were met by sixty-eight committed soldiers carrying a huge banner proclaiming them to be the Salvation Army. This was soon replaced by the official Army flag which had been presented to the Sutherlands by Catherine Booth. The Sutherlands also brought with them twelve uniforms and a determination to grow the Army in Adelaide.1

The Sutherlands were typical of officers sent from Britain to the Australasian colonies. They were young, enthusiastic and had already experienced opposition, often violent, in their home country. An already-commenced hall was soon opened. It was able to hold 1200 people, and was often filled to overflowing, with additional meetings being held concurrently outside.2 _{Open-air meetings} continued in Light Square, the Central and East End Markets and Whitmore Square where Sutherland enthusiastically preached ‘a real Hell and real Heaven and a real power to save from sin.’3 _Weekly Sunday meetings were held in Botanic Park.4 _{Open-airs were}

1 _{Victory, 1897; Robert Sandall, The History of the Salvation Army: vol 2 1878-1886}

(New York: The Salvation Army, 1950), 245.

2 _{Chronicle, 30 July 1881.}

3 _{War Cry (London), 30 June 1881; War Cry (Adelaide), 6 April 1883.} 4 _{Tradition holds that there was an open-air in Botanic Park every week from 5}

September 1880 until 1947. This is supported by reports in the Adelaide War Cry from the first edition of 6 April 1883 onwards.

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supported by the band Thomas Sutherland founded to accompany the marchers.5

Captain Sutherland received requests to ‘open fire’ from Sydney, Melbourne and ‘many of the surrounding townships.’6 _{A second} corps at Bowden was formed by November 1881. A new hall was commenced in the centre of a brickyard, with donated bricks and labour by the soldiers themselves.7 _{Corps at Port Adelaide and} Norwood were operating by April 1882, all under the officership of Sutherland, assisted by part time lay leaders.8 _{He was also} investigating starting corps in rural areas, particularly Moonta, and expanding into other colonies, sending copies of the War Cry to be sold as far away as Ballarat, seven hundred miles away in Victoria.9

As the Australasian corps grew in number and strength, it was necessary to appoint an overall commander to maintain unity. In August 1882 Majors James and Alice Barker were sent to Adelaide to form a territorial headquarters for Australasia. James Barker had been an Anglican compositor from the Midlands when he was attracted to a Salvation Army meeting at Bethnel Green by a man calling ‘fire!’10 _{He was mentored in the faith by Alice Sutton who was} a supervisor in a boot factory.11 _{Barker worked in the Salvation} Army’s Whitechapel printing works before becoming an officer at Manchester I Corps, then became Assistant Divisional Commander to Colonel Josiah Taylor.12 _{He was married to Alice on 9 August} 1882, the day before the couple sailed for Australia.13 _{It took great} sacrifice to leave Britain as Alice Barker’s father was terminally ill and died the following week.14

We come now to the problem. Tradition states that the Barkers had intended to sail to Adelaide to establish the Australasian headquarters but a waterside dispute had prevented the ship, the

5 _{Percival Dale, Salvation Chariot (East Melbourne: The Salvation Army, 1952), 5.} 6 _{War Cry (London), 29 December 1881.}

7 _{War Cry (London), 22 December 1881; 2 February 1882.}

8 _{War Cry (London), 20 July 1882; War Cry (Adelaide), 28 September 1883; War}

Cry (Melbourne), 20 November 1897.

9 _{War Cry (London), 30 November 1882; Percival Dale, Salvation Cavalcade,}

unpublished manuscript, 59.

10 _{Minnie Carpenter, Three Great Hearts (London: The Salvation Army, 1921), 111-}

112.

11 _{Carpenter, 114.} 12 _{Carpenter, 120, 123.} 13 _{Carpenter, 125.}

Aldersgate Papers, vol. 10 (September 2012)

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Cotopaxi, from landing in the colony and sent it on to Melbourne.15 From this point the stories deviate. Some state that Melbourne newspapers had reported the Barkers’ wedding and the diversion of the ship, so that when the couple arrived at the Williamstown docks on 21 September 1882 they were met by two immigrant Salvationists. There is some doubt as to the identity of the two men, but they are commonly identified as a young Cardiff Salvationist, William Whitchurch, and Isaac Unsworth, to whom we shall return later. Others paint the more colourful picture of the Barkers arriving alone, friendless and penniless on the dock, but managing to start the Salvation Army in Melbourne despite all opposition. Whether or not they were met, there was no reason to doubt this widely reported story.

Salvation Army historian R. G. Moyles has written of the joy of browsing and the thrill of discovering anecdotes and corroborative

evidence.16_{Postgraduate students know this as creative}

procrastination (i.e. avoiding doing what you should be doing by doing something else that looks like work, but is really completely unnecessary). Australian history postgraduate students are also familiar with TROVE, the Australian National Library’s on-line search engine, gateway to digitized newspapers and effective tool for creative procrastination. One day, while engaged in ‘vital research,’ I decided to search for the Melbourne reports of the diversion of the Barkers’ ship. Failing on that score, I searched for details of the waterside dispute in Adelaide. However, there was no report of a dispute in the Adelaide newspapers and ships were arriving and leaving as scheduled.

Intrigued, I searched further, creative procrastination now having become a genuine mystery. Newspaper advertisements showed that the Cotopaxi’s normal route was via Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, not the other way around, as in the original story.17 However the run on which the Barkers arrived was not advertised. More TROVE searches revealed that it was an additional sailing, designed to give experience to the ship’s new captain. Although it carried passengers and cargo, the ship had never been intended to continue to Adelaide, and the Cotopaxi returned to London via Sydney, leaving the Barkers to find their own way to their

15 _{For example Dale, Salvation Chariot, 7; Barbara Bolton, Booth’s Drum: The}

Salvation Army in Australia 1880-1980 (Sydney: Hodder & Stoughton, 1980), 17.

16 _{R G Moyles, Exploring Salvation Army History: Essays of Discovery (Edmonton:}

AGM Publications, 2009), 81-88.

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destination. In fact, the report of the voyage gives no indication of diversion from a planned route and boasts of how quickly and successfully the trip was made.18 _{It seems unlikely that the Barkers} were sold a ticket to a destination the ship would not reach, so they presumably intended to continue to Adelaide via one of the many regular costal connections between Melbourne and Adelaide. Later officers sometimes arrived the same way.

A further difficulty arises in that no reports of the Barkers’ arrival appeared in the Victorian newspapers and it is hardly likely that London newspapers would have reported an obscure Salvation Army wedding, let alone reached Melbourne in time to inform the local population of the Barkers’ intended arrival.19 _{The two men who} reportedly met the Barkers pose a separate problem. While some historians have identified them as immigrant soldiers of The Salvation Army, it is more reasonable to conclude that they were members of the YMCA who commonly met the ships when they docked. They would have recognized the Barkers as Salvation Army officers, as they were familiar with the uniform from their association with Captain Isaac Unsworth. The two men took the Barkers to the YMCA General Secretary, Mr W. G. Marsh, who arranged accommodation for them.20 _{The warm welcome decided} Barker to open fire in Melbourne, although he could still report in the War Cry, ‘Newspapers against us, public against us, but God for us.’21

III. Isaac Unsworth’s Role in Salvation Army