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Republicanism in New South Wales

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Scottish Presbyterianism and Settler Colonial Politics

Part of the book series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series ((CIPCSS))

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Abstract

This chapter suggests that the specific traditions of Scottish Presbyterianism shaped John Dunmore Lang’s politics in the era of the Scottish Disruption. Inspired by populist fervour in Disruption-era Scotland and news from Canada and the Cape, he demanded spiritual autonomy for his church at the same time as he began to demand self-government and democracy for New South Wales. Only a fully responsible and popular government, he believed, would enable Australia to abolish state aid, free the colony from the grip of Anglican—and Catholic—hierarchy and become a nation of virtuous Protestants. Eventually Lang decided only complete independence and the establishment of an Australian republic would honour God’s wishes.

‘[H]ow can we pretend to object to the claim of the Pope to govern the whole Christian Church, in all its numerous, diversified, and widely scattered settlements—on which the Sun never sets; when we ourselves actually set up a sort of political Pope in Downing-street, and empower him to govern the whole Colonial Empire of Britain, in all its numerous and endlessly diversified and widely scattered settlements—on which also the sun never sets? Reasoning upon Protestant principles, and without reference to points of doctrine, the pretended right to govern is in both cases sheer usurpation—a mere trampling under foot of the sacred and inherent rights of men.’

(Lang 1857a, pp. 98–99)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, The Colonist, 30 April 1835.

  2. 2.

    Lang 1835, pp. v–vii.

  3. 3.

    National Library of Australia [NLA], Lang papers, A2226 [CY 893], Robert Bowie to Lang, 9 February 1833.

  4. 4.

    Jones 2014, p. 151.

  5. 5.

    Linder 1992. See also Elford 1968; Baker 1994, pp. 39–45.

  6. 6.

    NLA, Lang papers, MS 3267, Box 5, Pringle to Lang, 4 June 1834.

  7. 7.

    Lang 1837, II, p. 272.

  8. 8.

    On the Church Act see Turner 1972; Hogan 1987.

  9. 9.

    Border 1962, p. 92.

  10. 10.

    Lang 1837, II, p. 274.

  11. 11.

    Lang 1837, II, p. 283.

  12. 12.

    On the importance placed by Broughton on Anglican colonisation of land, see Lake 2011.

  13. 13.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, The Colonist, 8 August 1840.

  14. 14.

    Weekes 1977.

  15. 15.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, The Colonist, 7 August 1839; ‘Colonial Politics’, The Colonist, 14 August 1839.

  16. 16.

    ‘Our new contemporary’, The Colonist, 9 January 1839.

  17. 17.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, The Colonist, 15 June 1839. For an earlier debate in colonial America on this ‘phraseology’ see Landsman 2011.

  18. 18.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, The Colonist, 8 August 1840.

  19. 19.

    ‘To the Presbyterian Inhabitants of New South Wales’, The Colonist, 16 February 1839.

  20. 20.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, The Colonist, 12 June 1839.

  21. 21.

    NLA, Lang papers, A2226 [CY 893], James Adamson to Lang, 12[?] October 1832.

  22. 22.

    Presbyterian Church in Canada’, The Colonist, 13 April 1839.

  23. 23.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, The Colonist, 9 June 1838.

  24. 24.

    ‘Synod of New South Wales’, The Colonist, 16 June 1838

  25. 25.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, The Colonist, 9 June 1838.

  26. 26.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, The Colonist, 8 August 1838.

  27. 27.

    ‘Synod of New South Wales’, The Colonist, 16 June 1838.

  28. 28.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, The Colonist, 8 August 1838.

  29. 29.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, The Colonist, 12 September 1838.

  30. 30.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, The Colonist, 15 August 1838.

  31. 31.

    ‘Domestic Intelligence’, The Colonist, 29 December 1838.

  32. 32.

    ‘To the Presbyterian Inhabitants of New South Wales’, The Colonist, 9 March 1839.

  33. 33.

    Mitchell Library, Sydney [ML], Lang papers, A2232 CY 2187, To The Right Honourable Lord Glenelg his Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies The Memorial of the undersigned Presbyterian inhabitants of the Colony of New South Wales humbly sheweth.

  34. 34.

    ML, Lang papers, DOC 1767.

  35. 35.

    ML, Lang papers, A2232 CY 2187, Minute of the Colonial Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland regarding New South Wales, 29 June 1839.

  36. 36.

    Lang 1856, p. 40.

  37. 37.

    The Synod of New South Wales when it formed had felt no need to attach an addendum to the Westminister Confesssion, as other conscientious new light voluntaries did, quibbling about the extent of the magistrate’s powers in spiritual matters.

  38. 38.

    See NLA, Lang papers, MS 3267, Box 1, 158/40, Lang to? on 7 May 1849. According to Lang the Kirk had been waging a ‘war of extermination with the Voluntaries’; anyone advocating the voluntary principle was ‘to be hunted down and got rid of’: Lang 1857b, p. 9. The voluntary principle, a correspondent told Lang, ‘I am happy to say is rapidly advancing. All the efforts to retard it is hastening its glorious achievement. The church-party and the Tories are…full of great wrath because they see their time is short.’ See ML, Lang papers, A2230, CY 809, William Newton to Lang, 6 August 1835. This correspondent told Lang in 1835 that the Scottish Guardian newspaper had reported on Lang’s voluntary tendencies stating that these would cause him to be soon excluded from the Kirk.

  39. 39.

    ‘Address’, The Colonist, 1 January 1835.

  40. 40.

    Lang 1839, pp. 99–101.

  41. 41.

    Lang 1840, pp. iii–v.

  42. 42.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, The Colonist, 24 September 1835.

  43. 43.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, The Colonist, 15 August 1838.

  44. 44.

    ‘Meeting of the Scots Church’, Colonial Observer, 22 October 1842.

  45. 45.

    NLA, Lang papers, MS 3267, Box 5, John Brown to Lang, 28 October 1840.

  46. 46.

    NLA, Lang papers, MS 3267, Box 5, John Brown to Lang, 19 September 1840.

  47. 47.

    The Rev. David King wrote to Lang too and, though more critical of Lang’s work than Brown, he was generally supportive. He introduced to Lang two friends who had emigrated to Australia and hoped to enjoy his ministry. ML, Lang papers, MSS 268/1, CY3349, David King to Lang, 4 April 1842.

  48. 48.

    NLA, MS 3267, Box 5, John French to Lang, 17 September 1840.

  49. 49.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, Colonial Observer, 29 October 1842.

  50. 50.

    Although he was disappointed at the Church’s apathy: NLA, Lang papers, MS 3267, Box 1, Andrew Somerville to Lang, 21 May 1847; Lang 1847.

  51. 51.

    ML, Lang papers, A2232 CY 2187, letter dated 9 March 1826.

  52. 52.

    ‘Dr. Lang’s Resignation’, Colonial Observer, 9 February 1842.

  53. 53.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, Colonial Observer, 6 July 1842.

  54. 54.

    Lang 1972, p. 165.

  55. 55.

    ‘Dr Lang’, Colonial Observer, 30 September 1843.

  56. 56.

    Lang 1840, p. 238. In 1849 his son William , in Britain with his father, visited Chalmers’ grave in Edinburgh: NLA, Lang papers, MS 3267, Box 5, William Lang to his mother, 25 June 1849.

  57. 57.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, Colonial Observer, 16 August 1843.

  58. 58.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, Colonial Observer, 8 March 1843.

  59. 59.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, Colonial Observer, 13 July 1842.

  60. 60.

    ‘Australian Mission’, United Presbyterian Magazine, August 1847.

  61. 61.

    Turner 1972, p. 50.

  62. 62.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, Colonial Observer, 28 October 1841. Hume, as he told Lang in a letter, supported Lang’s proposal and was keen to assist his campaign: NLA, MS 6998, Joseph Hume to Lang, 4 May 1847.

  63. 63.

    ‘Prospectus’, Colonial Observer, 7 October 1841. For a somewhat celebratory account of Lang’s anti-Catholic mission, see Bridges 2000.

  64. 64.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, Colonial Observer, 9 December 1841.

  65. 65.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, Colonial Observer, 2 March 1842.

  66. 66.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, Colonial Observer, 8 February 1842.

  67. 67.

    Lang 1849, pp. 9–10.

  68. 68.

    Lang 1843, pp. 4, 10, 13, 15.

  69. 69.

    Lang 1848, quotations at pp. 16, 30, 40.

  70. 70.

    Lang 1857a, p. 124.

  71. 71.

    Lang 1854, p. 8.

  72. 72.

    Lang 1859, p. 8.

  73. 73.

    Lang 1854, p. 10.

  74. 74.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, The Colonist, 21 July 1838.

  75. 75.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, Colonial Observer, 16 August 1843.

  76. 76.

    ‘The Church of Scotland-The Elections-Sir Robert Peel’, Colonial Observer, 4 November 1841.

  77. 77.

    A. Curthoys 2012a, b; Woollacott 2015; Mitchell 2009.

  78. 78.

    Lang 1840, p. 218.

  79. 79.

    ‘Colonial Politics’, Colonial Observer, 9 March 1842.

  80. 80.

    Lang 1840, pp. 298–9.

  81. 81.

    Lang 1840, p. 257.

  82. 82.

    Lang 1854, p. 13.

  83. 83.

    Lang 1848, p. 13.

  84. 84.

    Lang 1857a, pp. 72, 94–9.

  85. 85.

    Lang 1857a, pp. 49, 399.

  86. 86.

    The New Zealander, 30 August 1845.

  87. 87.

    Lang 1857a, pp. 10–11.

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  1. School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

    Valerie Wallace

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Wallace, V. (2018). Republicanism in New South Wales. In: Scottish Presbyterianism and Settler Colonial Politics. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70467-8_10

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