by Margaret Rodgers

(An article published in the Centenary Edition [1880-1980] of the Australian Church Record, December 15, 1980. Re-published with permission.)

One of the more interesting controversies in the Diocese of Sydney occurred over the Reredos which was placed in St Andrew’s Cathedral in 1886. The central panel had as its subject, Christ on the Cross. Many people called for its removal. Chief opponents of the Reredos were the members of the Church Association, led by their President, William John Foster, synod representative from St Barnabas Broadway, and soon to be Mr Justice Foster.

Two principles might be observed as integral to the whole controversy. The first was the implacable opposition of evangelical churchmen of Sydney to ritualism. They observed ritualistic practices creeping into some Sydney parishes, and were, of course, well informed over the English ritualist debates of previous decades. 1886 was the year in which the prosecution of the Bishop of Lincoln began in England.

The second issue was the opposition of those same churchmen to Bishop Alfred Barry [Bishop of Sydney and Primate of Australia]. A liberal churchman, Barry clashed with his evangelical clergy on matters of doctrine, liturgical practice and church government. He came to Sydney and from his English experience, did not understand that colonial invention, the diocesan Synod – nor the vocal part played by the laity of the Diocese. There was no real English precedent or equivalent of these.

During Barry’s episcopate in Sydney, party division was rife, and it is most easily observed in two incidents, the dismissal of the Principal of Moore College, and in the incident now in our view, the Reredos dispute.

Sydney churchmen held that ritualism was brought in by younger clergy who had come from England since Bishop Frederick Barker’s death.

The dispute is essentially a struggle between Bishop and Chapter, and synod and laity.

It is possible to reconstruct the whole controversy by a careful reading of the issues of The Australian Record between July 1886 and November 1888. This is an admittedly time consuming task, but one which provides an interesting insight into the development of the traditions of the diocese of Sydney.

On Saturday October 16, 1886, the Record reported on the meeting of the Church Association, held in the Temperance Hall the previous Tuesday afternoon. At this gathering JW Foster talked of serious action which they must soon undertake:

...the present state of the Church required manly Christian action ... At the present time, a Reredos, with a large crucifix, was being erected in the Cathedral, possessing features of a very objectionable character. No one, not even the bishop had any right to do that which was in opposition to the true principles of the Church.

The Church Association was a lay association, clergy could attend meetings only by invitation.

The motto of the Association was “From all false doctrine, heresy and schism, good Lord, deliver us.”

The meeting closed with plans made to meet again in one week’s time, to discuss several important matters. It should be noted that the Reredos controversy did not call the Church Association into being. It was, however, the first issue on which the Association took action. Reports of the discussions at this meeting resulted in an immediate spate of letters appearing in the daily press concerning the Reredos. The Sydney Morning Herald announced that the Primate had been “persuaded by the invectives of the Low Church party, to stop the erection of the Cathedral Reredos.”

Bishop Barry dashed off an immediate reply which denied the Herald report, and explained that he had delayed further work on the central panel until a special meeting of the Cathedral Chapter could be held. The Cathedral Chapter met and conferred with the bishop about the Reredos. It received a petition from the Church Association, presented by the President, J W Foster. The petition urged that the Reredos should not be put up in the Cathedral:

We look upon this Reredos as an encouragement to idolatry and indicative of that High Church Ritualism which is, in our opinion, Romanism without a Pope. We are sure that its erection would disturb the peace of the Church to an extent which will be even calculated to disintegrate it.

Bishop Barry’s Concept

In reply, the Bishop explained that the concept of the Reredos was his, and that it was intended as a memorial of the assembling of all the bishops of Australia at his enthronement. It was a much-needed architectural ornament at the east end of the Cathedral.

He had intended two of the panels to include the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments, but these had been left off in the final design. When the Cathedral Chapter had received the design from England, he had written out a description which had appeared in the daily press. No objections were forwarded to either himself or the Chapter at that time.

This was indeed true, and an argument which opponents used with great effect against the Church Association activity on the Reredos. Even friends were heard to murmur at the early silence and the late action on the issue, and the Church Association manifested a great sense of injury when the English Record, the firm opponent of all English ritualists, agreed that the colonials had begun their action too late.

At their special meeting, the Chapter agreed to a suggestion from the Bishop, and resolved to seek the opinion of the board of Australian bishops who would shortly be gathering in Sydney for the General Synod, and to abide by their decision. This resolution of the Chapter was not met with approval.

The Church Association, and many other Sydney churchmen did not regard the bishops as having any right to an opinion on an entirely internal Sydney matter. It is fair to say that their reaction is, in one sense, an excellent example of the developing diocesanism which must be held as one of the distinguishing marks of the Anglican Church in Australia, even in our own day. However the Sydney churchmen were correct in their opinion that the Australian bishops had no legal right to decide in this matter. There was an exchange of letters between the Church Association and the Bishop. The Bishop publicly expressed his sorrow that the Association took such a position about the Australian bishops, and did not accept this conciliatory move of the chapter for what it was.

In his efforts to solve the Reredos dispute, the Bishop preached a sermon on October 24, in the Cathedral, on the subject of “The Function of Christian Art, and the Danger of Idolatory,” which was published in summary in the Record. Any positive achievement of his sermon was negated by a long article on the same topic which appeared over the following two issues, which opposed the theses of his sermon with brilliant effect.

Bishop Barry was given little quarter by his evangelical clergy ... The most learned of them would publicly correct his ‘erroneous’ views at great length, at the slightest opportunity. The Record was by this time publishing many letters concerning the Reredos. Some were in favour, the majority were opposed. The Reredos was blamed for all the ills in the Church, along with all the other ‘ritualistic’ practices which were mentioned as well. They were the cause of increasing indifference to religion in the society, falling offertories and church attendances, decreasing Church Society income, and the movement of churchpeople into dissenting churches.

The letters mirror the bewilderment of many of the ordinary people in the pews. They talked of the red-ros and the redrose in the Cathedral, and were very sorry to hear that their bishop was now bowing down to images. The tone of the letters varies – some are learned and well argued, others are hysterical in tone and full of bitter invective. Their number indicates the depth and intensity of feeling in the diocese over the Reredos. This was no minor incident. It was the latest ecclesiastical ‘hot potato’, and discussed interminably whenever two or three churchmen were gathered together.

It was noted that some churchmen referred to the Homily on Idolatry, and this produced another cause of consternation. Those who wished to consult the Homilies, who did not own their own copies, found that no copy of the Book of Homilies was available in Sydney. It was not on sale at the Church of England Book Depot, nor accessible in any library of a public character in Sydney. No wonder that people were also beginning to write letters about the Romish doctrine being taught at Moore College at this time!

Australian Bishops endorse it

The bishops of Australia, when they met in Sydney endorsed the erection of the Reredos, and the central panel, so the Chapter proceeded to complete the work. It seems that some bishops either did not understand, or were not in sympathy with the anti-Reredos feeling in Sydney. The Bishop of Grafton and Armidale (Turner) in a sermon preached in St Thomas’, North Shore, referred to the folly of crying out against the use of an ‘innocent ornament’ in the Church.

It must not be forgotten that the Reredos controversy should be seen against the wider issue of the opposition to spreading ritualism in the Church of England. At this General Synod, the bishops received two petitions, one clerical, one lay, with signatures from all over Australia, which sought their action to impede the growth of ritualistic practices in the Church. These petitions were not organised by the Church Association.

Mervyn Archdall, Rector of St Mary’s, Balmain, later publicly acknowledged that he was instrumental in gathering the clerical petition. In their reply to the petitioners, the bishops promised proper legal action on their own part, but took the opportunity to warn of the danger of party faction within the Church:

In conclusion, the bishops think it well to take this opportunity of urging on all members of the Church the importance of preserving peace within her borders, and of concentrating the whole energy of believing men on the great battle against the common foe.

In his public utterances, Bishop Barry began to talk of the danger of party societies in the church. The Church Association correctly saw this as a reference to their own existence, and quickly pointed out the fact that the English Church Union was represented in Australia before they came into being. Bishop Turner of Grafton and Armidale was mentioned in a list published by Lord Halifax of episcopal members of the English Church Union, and he was therefore the English Church Union man on the bench of Bishops of Australia and Tasmania. The Reredos was to be seen in the Cathedral. On November 20, 1896, the Record published as a special supplement, a full-page illustration of the Reredos, so that those church people of Australia who had not seen it could judge for themselves.

Remove panels!

Although the Reredos had been erected, opposition still continued. In December 1896, at a meeting of the Cathedral Chapter, Robert Chadwick, member of both the Chapter and the Church Association moved the following resolution:

That this Chapter has learnt with deep regret, that the erection of the Reredos in the Cathedral has caused wide-spread dissatisfaction in the Diocese, and fears that it may weaken the Church and hinder its usefulness, by remaining for many years a burning question. That while the Chapter deprecates the idea that such Reredos will in any case lead to idolatry, yet in consideration of the fact that the Cathedral is a Parish, as well as the Mother Church of the Diocese, and for the sake of peace and unity of the Church, it hereby determines that the three central panels shall be removed, and shall be replaced by some other suitable object.

In his supporting speech, Chadwick promised that funds would be forthcoming from the Church Association and the Church at large to pay for such an action. This motion was lost, and the retention of the Reredos was affirmed by a large majority of the Chapter.

Dean Absent

Readers will have noticed that up until this time, one voice has remained noticeably silent. No words have been heard from William Macquarie Cowper, the elderly Dean of Sydney. The explanation is simple. He was overseas on an extended trip, for the sake of Mrs Cowper’s health. They had left Sydney in 1886, before the Reredos arrived and the dispute broke out. Cowper was happy to be absent from the diocese during the Cathedral Reredos dispute:

I was not sorry to have been absent from the Diocese when the peace of the Church was disturbed for a time by the erection in the Cathedral of a Reredos…

Cowper had his critics in the matter. There were those who said he had seen the original design and approved it. Among their number was AR Rivers, the Precentor. This Cowper denied in a letter which he wrote to the Rev FB Boyce [St Paul’s, Redfern]. Boyce had felt concern that the Dean was quoted in support of the Reredos in his absence, and wrote to him in England, seeking clarification. Cowper replied that at the time the design was first approved he was absent from Sydney on a visit to Melbourne, and that he had never seen it.

Boyce made their letters public, since he himself seems to have hoped that the Dean would take action about the Reredos upon his return to Sydney. In spite of Cowper’s denial, Rivers continued to insist that the Dean had seen the design and approved it.

Early in 1897, the Church Association began to circulate two petitions, one clerical, one lay, seeking the removal of the Reredos. There were those who were opposed to this action. Further action in the matter of the Reredos should be taken in another place, the Diocesan Synod, when it met later in the year. The Association pressed on with their petitions although they were urged to desist:

Public opinion is a mighty power that can be evoked - even in the affairs of the Church. The persistence of the Church Association in going on with these petitions ... has been greatly misunderstood; ... This is an occasion in our history in which the Church of England expects that every man will do his duty.

Yours eternally

W J Foster

The petitions continued to be circulated, and they were ready to be presented to the Bishop and the Synod when it met in August/September of 1887. An editorial in the Record wished them well:

That it has roused party feeling to a pitch never before known in the colony and sown seeds of strife which we fear will never cease bearing evil fruit – these are simple matters of fact…

Bertie Boyce on Bishop Barry

“He had come to Australia from King’s College, London, and his manner of talking to Synod suggested that he imagined he was still among his students.

He had an exaggerated opinion of his rights and privileges as bishop, and overlooked the equally definite rights of the Synod, the parliament of the Church.”

Naked Barbarism

On the first day of Synod, (August 30), W Crane, representative from Narellan and Cabramatta, presented the Church Association petitions signed by ‘6,000 members of the Church of England.’ A highly excited debate followed on the motion ‘that the petition be received.’

CF Garnsey [Christ Church, St Laurence] argued that after the Reredos was down, the painted windows would be the next to go, and the Cathedral restored to ‘its naked fig-leaf barren-ness of barbarism.’ He had to be reminded from the Chair that he was merely debating the reception of the petition.

Clarendon Stuart moved that before the petition be received the signatures be inspected, for strange rumours had been heard of schools being ransacked for signatures, and old ladies signing what they thought was a petition for a new door on the Cathedral. On the appeal of Archdeacon Gunther he withdrew the motion, and the petition was received.

The Presidential Address contained some reference to party spirit in the Church:

It has been my experience throughout my life to be unable to enrol myself in any party, not because I sympathise with none, but because I cannot help finding points of sympathy with all. I must not recommend the position to anyone who wants an easy life. Those who hold it may perhaps sometimes lose some means of practical power and will certainly be attacked in turn from all sides and strongly defended by none ... I must be the bishop, not of any party, but of the whole Church.

Increase the Chapter

FB Boyce introduced an Ordinance to increase the number of laymen on the Cathedral Chapter.

Second reading speeches on this Boyce Ordinance were as excitable as those on the Crane petition earlier. Many speakers spoke darkly of another motion soon to come before the Synod, and suggested that the Boyce move was part of an organised plan to flood the Chapter with laymen, who would vote in favour of the removal of the Reredos when opportunity was provided.

Boyce won his matter through the Synod only after the wording had been amended to allow the change not to come into effect until the next session of Synod, by which time it was hoped that the Reredos matter would be closed.

The time duly arrived for the motion of W Crane, which was seconded by Dr Kyngdon, another member of the Church Association:

That this Synod resolves that an address be presented to the Bishop and Chapter of St Andrew’s Cathedral, respectfully requesting them in the interests of the peace of the Church to take such steps as may be necessary for the removal of the sculptured Reredos in St Andrew’s Cathedral, in as much as it has been proved to give offence to a considerable number of Members of the Church while it is not absolutely necessary to the proper use of the Cathedral.

The Hon Edward Knox immediately moved the previous question, on the grounds that this was not a matter in which Synod was competent to act, and that no real case had been argued for Synod to try to act. When the Synod stated that the motion of Knox would ‘tend to prevent a free expression of opinion’, then he withdrew the motion.

Modify the design

The debate which followed was lengthy and excited. It seems on reading the report, that every man in Synod was ready to speak on the motion.

As is the case with Synod debates today, some of it was learned, some tedious, and much of it was hardly edifying.

All was heard by a gallery which was crowded with people who had come to hear what the Synod would decide. The President had to warn that if there were any interruptions from ‘outsiders’ then he would clear the gallery. But he allowed the Synodsmen the fullest opportunity to express their opinions.

When finally the debate was concluded, the Bishop addressed the Synod, pointing out that the Chapter had acted lawfully and that the Synod had no authority to act in the matter. A Synod motion could not compel the Bishop or the Chapter to act in the matter. Synod would at the very least have to pass an Ordinance. And to desire to effect a change to the Reredos on the grounds that it had ‘caused offence’ was to set a dangerous precedent for action by the Synod of the Diocese. He gave his assurance that he would call a special meeting of the Chapter before Synod ended, and that careful consideration would again be given to the Reredos question. On that assurance, Crane withdrew his motion, which announcement was received with applause. Synod concluded for that evening with the Benediction and the singing of the Doxology.

On the evening of Monday September 5, the Bishop reported to the Synod on the special meeting of the Chapter. The Chapter noted that the legality of the Reredos had been universally allowed in the Synod debate, and that the Synod had deliberately refrained from putting any pressure on the Cathedral Chapter.

They emphatically repudiated the idea that in the erection of the Reredos they had given encouragement to idolatry, or set up a ‘party badge’. Yet they desired to make the Cathedral a home of spiritual worship for all, as the mother church of the whole Diocese. Therefore they passed the following motion:

That, in the interest of peace and unity in the Church, the Chapter express their willingness, if a tablet representation of the Transfiguration, or some other scene from the manifestation of our Lord, which in design and execution is satisfactory to them, be presented to the Chapter, to accept it and substitute it for the central panel of the Reredos.

Chapter not to pay

In other words, the Chapter was now prepared to allow the change to the central panel, but not to pay for it. The following day, WJ Foster announced on behalf of certain members of Synod, that they were prepared to offer the Primate (Bishop Barry) an amount sufficient to cover the cost of substitution in the central panel of the Reredos. The Reredos controversy was almost at an end.

It must be noted that there was another important debate on Ritual in this 1887 Synod of the Diocese of Sydney. This came as a result of a motion from WJ Foster:

That no alterations or innovations ought to be made in the order and manner of celebrating Divine Service in Churches which hath been generally used throughout the Diocese, from the time of introduction into the colony of the uses, rites, and observations of the United Church of England and Ireland until the end of the eighth decade of this century.

After lengthy debate, this motion was defeated, and it was replaced by an amendment which was moved by Mervyn Archdall:

That this Synod is of the opinion that the ritual, conduct of service, and furniture of the churches should be strictly conformed to the decisions of the ecclesiastical courts of England, and respectfully requests his Lordship the Bishop to take such steps as, in his judgement, may be desirable to give effect to this opinion.

The acceptance of this Archdall amendment was a clear affirmation that the Diocese of Sydney would not recognise that a Bishop possesses the ius liturgicum, but believed that he was bound by the law. This was the issue at the heart of the Lincoln Case in England.

The Ritual Debate, and the Cathedral Reredos Debate mean that the 1887 session of Synod is one of the most significant for the tradition of the Diocese of Sydney. Ritualism was, in essence, defeated.

The central panel of the Reredos was not removed until November 1888. The new Transfiguration panel was commissioned from the same artist in England who had sculpted the original. The Sydney Morning Herald made public that the new panel had arrived, largely through the information of Canon Kemmis, who wrote complaining that the new panel was not of sufficient artistic merit to be placed in the Cathedral.

The Reredos matter gained some more attention in the daily press, but the Record refused to allow it to break out afresh in its pages. The dispute was regarded as settled, and unnecessary obstruction by such men as Canon Kemmis was deprecated. The Record urged that the work of replacement be speeded up, so that the new panel would be in place when Bishop Barry returned from England, where he had been in attendance at the 1888 Lambeth Conference.

It should be stated again that this reconstruction of the Reredos controversy has been made through the eyes of the Record. The whole story would appear in quite another light if the major source of information had been the Church of England Guardian, or even The Sydney Morning Herald.

Bishop resigns

Some questions remain. Did defeat over the Reredos decide Bishop Barry to resign the See and return to England?

There does not appear to be any evidence to confirm this view. The Reredos matter may have been one factor in helping to make up his mind to do so, but the official reason he gave to the Diocese for his resignation in 1889 was the fact that Mrs Barry’s health required her to be permanently resident in England. It is probably more true to the real facts to say that Mrs Barry’s inclinations required her to be permanently resident in England.

What happened to the central panel which was taken down, and which was the cause of all the offence? Rumour has it that it remained in the depths of Church House for decades, but of its situation now, who can tell?

It must be noted that the official history of the Cathedral, written by Archdeacon S M Johnstone, and published by Edgar Bragg and Son in 1937, makes no mention at all of the Reredos controversy at the Cathedral. Why is this? Archdeacon Johnstone was a known ecclesiastical historian of his time. It is not possible that he did not know of the Reredos controversy. Your writer has arrived at the tentative conclusion that it was omitted from the official history of the Cathedral at the specific request of Archbishop Mowll.

A Protestant Reredos

It became rather the fashion for churchmen to place a Reredos in their church, but they were usually of a different kind from that in the Cathedral in 1886. We may instance the Reredos in St Stephen’s, Newtown, which was placed there as a memorial to the first wife of Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, who died in December, 1897. There are no figures on the Newtown Reredos, but only words. That is an example of a good Protestant Reredos, in complete contrast to the original central panel of the Cathedral Reredos, as perhaps it was deliberately designed to be?

What conclusion may be drawn from a reading of the Cathedral controversy? As is so often the case in ecclesiastical controversies, one may view churchmen introvertedly turned in upon themselves, concentrating solely upon purely internal matters, manifesting little thought or understanding of the forces at work in the society around them. That must be said, no matter how much one recognises that the stand taken was for a principle. Recall the secularising forces present in Australian society at the time of the Reredos dispute. The Christian Evidences Society was hard at work and some Churchmen were attempting to fight the Rationalists and the Secularists. But not too many of them were willing or able to give lectures on Modern Atheism, as did Mervyn Archdall of Balmain.

Readers may care to ponder the implications of some words which Randall Davidson noted in his diary in 1889, when he was Dean of Windsor. They were spoken to him in conversation by Boyd Carpenter, Bishop of Ripon (an Evangelical), at the time that the English Church was torn by the Lincoln Trial and the awaited judgement:

Huxley is hammering at the gate with the cry of No God – and we are worrying about ritual details of the smallest sort.