From Woolloomooloo to 'Eternity': A History of Australian Baptists

Book excerpt: This pioneering study describes the quest of Baptists in the different colonies (later states) to develop their identity as Australians and Baptists. The first comprehensive history of Baptists in Australia with a national focus, the Baptist story is traced from their beginnings in 1831 with the first baptisms in Woolloomooloo Bay (Sydney) in 1832 down to modern times. Changes and continuities, achievements and failures are carefully analyzed and related to the wider social, political and cultural context.The first volume covers the period from 1831 until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 and shows how a strong sense of becoming an Australian Church shaped much of their development from the various types of British Baptists who began the movement in the new nation. What it meant to be an Australian Baptist is described using denominational newspapers, church records and personal memoirs.