Augustus Short

Augustus Short (11 June 1802 – 5 October 1883) was the first Anglican bishop of Adelaide, South Australia.

Wikipedia:
In 1845 the archbishop of Canterbury offered Short the choice of two newly established sees, Newcastle, New South Wales, and Adelaide, South Australia. Short decided to accept Adelaide and on 29 June (St Peter's Day), 1847, was consecrated at Westminster Abbey. Short sailed in the Derwent for Adelaide on 1 September and arrived on 28 December 1847, the eleventh anniversary of the proclamation of the colony. There were then only five churches in the diocese, three at Adelaide, one at Blakiston and another at Gawler. Short travelled through the settled parts of South Australia, and before the end of 1848 went to Western Australia, then a part of his diocese, where he consecrated that state's first church, St John's Anglican Church, Albany. He returned to Adelaide early in 1849, and on 24 May 1849 laid the first stone of St Peter's College, Adelaide, founded in 1847 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and William Allen, a wealthy philanthropist. He was the first president of its council of governors. He consecrated Christ Church, North Adelaide in December 1849. ... In 1856 the diocese of Perth, Western Australia was founded and Short was relieved of the oversight of the whole of Western Australia, a difficult task especially in view of the limited means of communication.

Dirk Van Dissel article in ADB: In 1845 Short was given the choice of either the Adelaide or Newcastle diocese. He chose Adelaide and on 29 June 1847 was consecrated bishop in Westminster Abbey. He arrived in the Derwent on 28 December. His vast diocese, which included Western Australia, had only eight clergy, four church buildings, with five under construction, one parsonage and one school but, helped by state aid he began to build. In October 1848 with Archdeacon Hale he visited Perth where he consecrated St George's Church.

Hitchcock records that 'Bishop Short arrived from Adelaide on his first pastoral visit to Western Australia in November, 1848, when he consecrated [the first] St. John's Church.' (33)

It seems to be the case that Bishop Short consecrated three churches in the western colony in 1848, one in Perth, one in Fremantle, and one in Albany. Two are both churches of St John the Evangelist.
Three sources mention three different events in October-November 1848. Wikipedia records that Short came here to consecrate the Anglican Church in Albany, Hitchcock that he came to consecrate the Fremantle church, and ADB that he came to consecrate St George's Church in Perth. I suppose it's possible that he did all three, but it's odd that the different sources only mention one each.

References and Links

Dirk Van Dissel, 'Short, Augustus (1802–1883)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University

Wikipedia page.

Hitchcock.

Freotopia

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 3 May, 2020 and hosted at freotopia.org/people/shortaugustus.html (it was last updated on 15 March, 2024), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.