[[index.html|
]]
Maylands Baptist Church
102 Seventh Avenue, cnr Coode Street, Maylands
John McLennan, of the Maylands Historical Society, has discovered a newspaper article about there being a Baptist Church in Eighth Avenue Maylands in 1904, an article such as this one. He suggests that it is possible that it was on the site presently occupied by sthe Church of Christ (tho the current building is as recent as 1956).
Western Mail Saturday 4 June 1904: 42:
BAPTIST.
On Wednesday evening, May 25, a well-attended meeting of Maylands resident was held at the residence of Mr. Rodd to arrange for the opening services of the new church situated on Eighth Avenue. In the absence of the president, Rev. Jas. H. Cole, Mr. W. H. Davis, vice-president of Hie Baptist Association presided. The date was fixed for the opening services, and a choir formed to sing appropriate music, with Mr. W. A. Williams, of Bayswater Baptist Church, as conductor. A tea, to be followed by a public meeting, will be held during the week following the opening day. The new church is a wooden structure, designed by Messrs. Hine and Selby, and will seat about one hundred and thirty.
But then McLennan also found an announcement of the new Maylands Baptist Church (as if it were the first) being in 1912 temporarily in a (brick) building (which still stands) on the corner of Central Avenue and Railway Parade. This is such an announcement.
West Australian, Friday 12 July 1912: 6:
A New Church for Maylands.- The Baptists residing in Maylands for come time past have been considering the question of forming a Baptist Church in that suburb. At a meeting held on Tuesday last the matter was finally settled, and it was unanimously
decided to commence services forthwith.
They have secured the temporary use of a vacant building at the corner of Central-avenue and Railway-parade. Here it is proposed to hold morning and evening services
and a Sunday school until a church building can be erected.
This building happens to be just a few doors along Railway Parade from the current Uniting Church building.
The third church was opened in 1913. (John McLennan says '1908' by mistake in his talk.)
MH&PA:
Opening of a jarrah church in late 1913 represented the culmination of 16 months of work by the congregation, which had been meeting in temporary premises. The building and grounds cost £680 in total.
In 1916, the Maylands Baptist Church hosted the annual meeting of the ratepayers of the Perth Roads Board.
Special services were held in 1934 to commemorate the 22nd anniversary of the Maylands Baptist Church.
Mr. A. Duncan (one of the three remaining foundation members of the church) opened additions to the church in 1936.
The church was crowded on the Sunday night in 1938, when Mr Alfred Reid (formerly a well-known jockey in Victoria) began his preaching campaign in Western Australia.
In 1942, the Maylands Baptist Church asked that the Perth Road Board construct air raid shelters in Coode Street between Seventh Avenue and Eighth Avenues opposite the church hall.
The church website has across the top a 'time-lapse' montage of the original wooden church and the current brick one. From that, this is the photograph of the opening day in 1913:
References and Links
Maylands Baptist Church website.
My mother and father were married in the brick church 8 March 1938. They were presented by the (I presume) celebrant, Robert A. Haley, with a book which I still have called The Perfect Home, by Rev. J. R. Miller DD, National Sunday School Union, London, n.d. It is dedicated to them and signed by Haley and his wife Hylda Haley.
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 19 December, 2021 and hosted at freotopia.org/churches/maylandsbaptist.html (it was last updated on 7 December, 2023), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.