(History of the Salvation Army) Consolidation and Development Up Till 1921 — H. Scotney

From Impromptu Organization to Consolidation

Now we move on to the thought of consolidation and development. The early years that we were speaking about last week were years that were marked by a great deal of almost impromptu, ad hoc kind of organisation.

The workers, you would realise by what we were saying last week, went forward at almost breakneck speed. They had little time for the setting up of proper procedures and systematic reporting. It was a war of rapid skirmishing and improvisation.

Organisation was indeed very loose and it was a rowdy and a rollicking Salvation Army in those early days. The history of those days is rather scanty. As I said the other day, they were so busy making history that they had very little time to write it and the record is rather scanty and I think it would be true to say that there was a fairly considerable turnover, both of personnel and also corps.

Many corps that were sprung up like mushrooms in those early days faded out almost as quickly. It was that kind of warfare in those early years. Well in July 1884 the founder wanted to have first-hand information as to what was going on in Australia and he dispatched his second son, Colonel Ballington Booth, who was then twenty-seven years of age, and Major Thomas Henry Howard as his ADC to come out here and to inspect and report on what was happening in this area.

As a result of their inspection and report, Colonel Booth was in April 1885 appointed to take command of the work in Australasia, which you remember included New Zealand, and was given the rather imposing title of Marshal of the Colonies.

Major Howard was designated his Chief of Staff, although oddly enough he was not the first Chief of Staff we had in Australia. You may not have realised that we had a Chief of Staff here ourselves, but when Barker first began in Melbourne single-handed and he had to get some sort of staff around him, a clergyman by the name of the Reverend J .F. Horsley attached himself to Major Barker, offered his services, and you'll find in the early books that the Reverend Horsley is referred to as the Chief of the Staff, assisting Major Barker.

So we had a Chief of the Staff in those early disorganised kind of days. But however, Major Howard was designated Chief of the Staff, and Major Barker was by this time so heavily involved in the rapidly expanding programme of social work that he was set aside to concentrate his attention upon the social services.

There was a little bit of feeling about this at the time. Barker had made himself very popular, not only with the poor, the unemployed, the people he'd been trying to help, but also in government circles, and there was a little bit of feeling, as sometimes happens in Australia, when a couple of folk come out from England and take over, and the other man is, or as they thought, pushed a little bit to one side.

But actually it worked out quite well. Up to this time the work in each colony, as the states were known then, was almost a separate entity. There was, as I've said before, very little cohesive organisation.

Howard's Administrative Consolidation of Australasia

In January 1886 these were combined to form one territory, and when this was established, Bellington Booth returned to London, and Howard was promoted to the rank of Commissioner and appointed as the first Territorial Commander for Australia and New Zealand.

An Intercolonial War Council was held in 1886, and those of you that have Colonel Percival Dale's book, Salvation Chariot, which is the history of the Army up until the early 1950s, will have seen in this book a photo of a group of officers who attended that early first Colonial Council in 1886.

I have a photo here of a smaller group. These were the staff officers who attended that particular War Council. Commissioner Howard, here is Barker. Barker's position as a person of some importance was recognised, and he's here along, in fact in this other photo, the two of them are sitting side by side, and other men.

And here is Pollard, the young man who commenced the work in New Zealand, and assisted by Edward Wright, the man who later pioneered the work in Queensland, and later still in Japan, and others. I'm rather interested to see that some of these fellows have their legs crossed and their caps balanced on their toe, and it seemed to be the thing to do then, where to put your cap while the photo was being taken, and they're balancing it down here on their toe.

Lindsay was one of the first, when Sutherlands left Sydney, Lindsay was the man who came and took over here in New South Wales. He himself had been a rowdy young fellow in London in his younger days, but was a dashing kind of leader.

Well, they had this inter-colonial War Council. The territory was reorganised into twelve divisions. You can see Howard's hand in all this organisation. Divisional officers were told, and I have here some regulations which were the outcome of this first War Council, and it says here, and this is very interesting in view of what happened afterwards, this is in 1886, so much labour has been spent in bringing the various colonies into a Salvation Unity that brigadiers and majors are urged to spare no effort to strengthen the territorial sentiment rather than the independent colony idea.

This is years before Federation, and you can see that even at that early date the Salvation Army leaders had the idea of a federal, an all-Australia Salvation Army. I thought of something listening to what Catherine Bramwell Booth said earlier on the film.

It says here, talking about the open air work, it should be pointed out that neglect of open air work is the surest way of reaching a time when the barracks will not be full. And that's worth thinking about in these days.

Well the Salvation Army anticipated Federation, I've mentioned that. Our first PC, we owe a great deal to Commissioner Howard. He was a wise administrator and a good man at the same time. He consolidated organisational structures and procedures, and at the same time, and this is equally important, even perhaps more important, he established standards for life as well as for practice, for he was an outstanding example and teacher of holy living.

And I would advise those of you who wish to know more about him, and I know the cadets will because of an assignment they have, I would suggest that you refer to his biography written by the late Mrs. General Carpenter.

Howard was a good man, a solid man, a more mature man than some of the earlier leaders, and you can see this mark of maturity in his organisation and planning at that time. Standards had to be established, and this is where we owe a great deal to Howard.

The work in each colony was directed by a brigadier, with majors in charge of the various divisions, core organisational procedures were established, and at a special meeting in Melbourne the first 500 local officers were commissioned, and here in Sydney a little later on 50 young people's local officers were commissioned.

When Howard arrived in August 1884 there were 87 corps and 230 officers in Australia and New Zealand. At his farewell in 1889 there were 310 corps and 924 officers, and also 13 social institutions. So you can see that very solid progress was made during the years of his leadership.

Pioneering Salvation Army Work in Western Australia

In 1891 there was a rush of people to Western Australia, which at this time had not been open. Gold had been discovered in some of the interior parts of Western Australia, and as had happened in the eastern states there was an immediate rush of hardy, tough people all hunting the gold, and it was time for the army to move into Western Australia.

Following the rush of people, a party of 12 officers, Colonel Dale says, but I see in her book just published, Barbara Bolton says, 13 officers, and she lists their names so possibly she's correct. 13 officers dispatched to commence work in that colony.

6 corps were very quickly opened in Perth and places around Perth like Bunbury and York and Northam, and in a little while the work spread inland to the gold fields, and the pioneer officers gave heroic service under extremely rugged and primitive conditions, especially on the gold fields around Coolgardie.

To get to their appointment they had to walk 92 miles from the railhead to Southern Cross, have a rest there and then walk another 200 miles, no, another 100 miles from Southern Cross to Coolgardie, and live in quarters made of hessian on sapling frames, and conditions were very rough indeed.

Water had to be carried from Southern Cross, and it was very expensive, so much for a kerosene tin, and it's not surprising that fever broke out on these gold fields, and very soon our officers were involved in nursing, caring for those who were stricken with fever, and two of our officers lost their lives while ministering to others in these epidemics.

One, a young lassie named Lieutenant Zilla Smith, I have a photo of her grave with on her tombstone she died at her post. The other was a young man lieutenant, a Lieutenant Arthur King. There was also work at a place called Q, C-U-E, a little further north in the inland, and one, an aunt of mine was one of the very early officers stationed at Q, and I have here the letters which she wrote home in those days, a most interesting volume, but I thought you might be interested in a little bit of this.

She received her appointment to Q with a lieutenant, and they travelled by train, an overnight trip by train to the railhead, which didn't even go as far as Geraldton in those days. And then, having reached the railhead, she said, we booked our passage by the coach, and had to pay ten pounds each.

The coach was well filled, but we had to make the best of it for the next two or three days in a coach. We journeyed on till 7pm, when a halt was made at a funny little eating house which was not over clean.

Here we had tea, and then another start was made, and on we went till 4am, and by this time we felt quite stiff, and were quite ready to go to bed for two hours in the hotel we had stopped at. Our sleep was cut short by the call for breakfast, and we had to get up, have our breakfast, and once more resume our journey.

But in spite of feeling tired, we had to endure another day crowded in the coach. We halted for dinner at a boarding house kept by some blacks, after which with fresh horses another start was made. We reached our stopping place for the night by 9pm.

We were soon shown the ladies' room and their beds for the night. They were only bag stretchers with no pillows and no bedclothes. The night was very cold, so wrapping our rugs well around us we settled for the night.

The old lady took pity on us and brought several bags to help us keep warm. Lieutenant Head laid so still, but I moved so much that I lost the bags, and woke up very stiff and cold. We took breakfast before daylight, and once more took our seats for yet another day's journey.

We reached Mount Magnet at noon, went to a hotel and had the best dinner for the trip. When we reached day dawn so many men had come to see who was on the coach, and we felt a bit strange as they gazed so hard at us.

And it goes on, they finally got to their appointment at about nine o 'clock that night. So, first year cadets, it's a little bit different to that when you go out to your appointments in a day or two.

But you can see that it was very rugged in those early days. Continuing with the organisation, training for junior soldiers was introduced in October, 88, and the Young Soldier first published in April, 1890.

Bands, Youth Work, and Rapid Growth

Corcodette Brigades were inaugurated in August, 1898. Right from the commencement brass instruments were part of the Salvationist equipment. Captain Sutherland brought a cornet with him, and very quickly had a band of eleven men in action at Adelaide, and did the same when he came here to Sydney.

Photos of early bands reveal a strange assortment of instruments, and uniforms too, and it is said that many players made up in lung power what they lacked in musical finesse. The result, according to newspaper reports of the period, was calculated to make devils fear and fly.

Bands have come a long way since those days. I have read of instances where an officer procured instruments, and after two or three hours' practice with people completely unused to instruments, they were out on the streets practising on the public.

Singing companies and groups, such as singing groups, operated at many corps from the earliest days, but we have no record of Songster Brigades before round about 1909. It would be about that period when the term Songster Brigades came into use.

The Home League was commenced in 1911, and the League of Mercy was officially launched in 1897, when Herbert and Mrs Booth came here from Canada, where the League of Mercy had first been introduced. Although a similar type of activity, known as Samaritan Brigades, had been operating from 1890, or maybe even earlier.

In 1891, a Commonwealth census recorded that there were in Australia at that time 33 ,431 Salvationists, and at that time the population of the whole of Australia was just a little over three million, which means to say that the percentage of Salvationists of the population was 0 .87%.

That means to say if you lined up a thousand Australians cross-sectioned, 87 of them would be Salvationists. I want to tell you that we couldn't do as well as that today, but it does go on to show that in those early days there was very rapid advance.

Army statistics for March 1892 recorded 340 Corps, 475 outposts, over a thousand officers and cadets, over 18 ,000 senior soldiers. By 1897, moving on a little, there were 400 Corps, over 500 outposts, 1 ,200 officers, and 24 social institutions.

And I haven't included New Zealand in these statistics, because we're thinking particularly of Australia. So you can see the very real advance that had been made up to the turn of the century. The founder came to Australia on four occasions, 1891, 1895, 1899, and in 1905.

The Founder’s Public Reception and Influence

And on each occasion these visits aroused tremendous interest on the part of government and community leaders and the public, and the most enthusiastic expressions of affection and loyalty on the part of Salvationists.

When he arrived in Melbourne in 1891, the leading newspaper said that, quote, the boundless enthusiasm and frantic, almost hysterical warmth of the welcome showed him to be the most popular man that had ever visited Australia.

That's something from a newspaper. I like to read the story of his arrival in Brisbane. I have the War Cry reports in detail at home. He arrived in Brisbane in October 1991. At 10 .45pm, Roma Street, those of you who know Brisbane, Roma Street was blocked by a crowd estimated to be half the city's population.

At 10 .45pm, dignitaries including the Mayor, Parliamentary and Church leaders were all waiting on the Roma Street station platform to greet the General when the train pulled in. A procession of Salvationists, marshaled by officers on horseback with flaming torches, large banners and flags and three bands, one of them one of the Australian Guards bands that you'll hear of later on.

They were all lined up ready to march off. On arrival, the General stood in a horse-drawn carriage, surrounded by a bodyguard of Salvationists, then 20 police, then a party of artillerymen, then a squad of firemen, and outside of all that, a team of horsemen.

So he was certainly well protected. Security was tight, I would say. As the procession passed along Roma Street, the huge crowd responded with, quote, a Niagara-like roar of applause, and they cheered themselves hoarse.

Well, that kind of reception is reserved nowadays for rock artists, and that kind of thing. Something about the Army Social Service. A feature of the Army Social Service in Australia was the remarkable confidence shown by government authorities right from the start.

Government Support for Salvation Army Social Services

And here we owe a great deal to James Barker, who was a man of great compassion for the down-and-out and the outcasts, and at the same time had a facility for gaining the confidence of the government and other authorities.

Australia was the first country in the world to give government recognition and financial support to our work. This happened mainly in the state of Victoria, where Barker was mainly operating, and I think I'm correct in saying that the Premier of Victoria at that time, who was largely responsible for this interest in the work of the Salvation Army, was a gentleman by the name of Peacock, the father of the Mr Peacock that is our present Foreign Minister.

In October 1892, at the request of the Victorian government, a home for delinquent boys was opened at Heidelberg, which is now a very closely populated suburb, but apparently was more sparsely settled in those days, for there was a small farm of just a few acres.

And this was the first home for childcare on a permanent basis anywhere in the Army world. Two years later, the accommodation proved to be inadequate, and the home was moved to a larger property at a place called Peckinham, about 35 miles out of Melbourne.

There was vigorous expansion of the social services during the five years that Commandant Herbert Booth was in charge. He came in 1896 and was here until 1901, and these were years of very significant development in the Army.

The year 1897 is a year when many things happened. Property was secured at Bayswater. The initial property just at the foot of the Dandenong Range of 220 acres, more was added later, and up at Riverview, a spot known to some of you here where the Brisbane and the Bremner Rivers have their junction, at Riverview 250 acres were secured.

A training farm for delinquent lads was established at Bayswater, and the Riverview property was first used as a preventive home for girls, although later on it was used for boys too. Again at the request of the Victorian Government, a hospital for unmarried mothers was established at The Haven in North Fitzroy, this also in 1897.

As far back as 1892, maternity homes were operating in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, mainly dealing with the problem caused in those days, perhaps more so than today, by unmarried mothers.

Other extensions in 1897 were a Samaritan home in Melbourne, a Samaritan home for women which was called Hope Hall, and a hostel for working men which they called a Metropole, both of those in Melbourne.

A similar hostel for working men was opened in Harbour Street here in Sydney, a property which I think later on got involved in street widening schemes. Later, a hotel, this is interesting to Sydney people, a hotel with a large indoor swimming pool in Pitt Street, which was known as the Natatorium, was procured, purchased by the Army and fitted up as a men's shelter, or a men's Metropole, and it was called the People's Palace.

And where the swimming pool had been in the basement, it was converted into a dormitory with rows and rows of double-decker beds, you may not be able to see this too well, but you can see rows and rows of double-decker beds, they've all got a quilt with an Army star on them, on the top of them, but this was the swimming pool in the basement of the present People's Palace, and in its early days it accommodated 600 men every night in these double-decker bunks and other accommodation for those who could pay a little bit more.

I think it was frippance for the double-decker bunk and a shilling, if you had the money, for your own room. Other hostels for men were opened in Brisbane, in Adelaide, Ballarat, Newcastle, Wellington and New Zealand.

Rescue homes for women were opened in cities all over Australia. Another innovation was a home for aged men at Pakenham in 1901, and this again, an Army first, the first home for aged people anywhere in the Army world.

In 1902 a similar home was opened in the area which is now known as D .Y. Those of you who read early Salvation Army publications will perhaps see references now and again to Manly, or sometimes it says Manly Farm.

What they mean is what we now call D .Y. It wasn't known as D .Y. then, and I have photos, I think there's one in this book, and I have others at home, where you stand on the hill above D .Y. and where the shopping centre now, and all the residences, it's all under cultivation, just all open cultivation right down to the beach, the farm that was operated by the Salvation Army.

When Commandant Herbert Booth farewelled in 1901, there were 44 social institutions accommodating over 2 ,000 people, and at the end of his career Herbert Booth issued a book, or he arranged for it to be issued, a little book called Five Conquering Years, and here is the story of all this tremendous social development that took place during those five years.

There's a little bit of, at that time there was a certain amount of cult worship almost, personality worship, the Booths, rather, I wouldn't say they encouraged it, but they were the kind of people who attracted this kind of personal loyalty and affection, and I think it would be true to say too that they enjoyed it, and there's a certain, a little bit of uptone about this book, there's five years of great achievement, and indeed there were some people in Australia at the time who were not very happy about the fact that they felt Herbert Booth had concentrated all his attention on social service, and there is a certain amount of evidence to suggest that our corps and our field work, if it didn't make progress, it even declined a little bit during that particular period.

But they were certainly years of tremendous social development, and we benefit by it here today. Commissioner Hoey followed, or first of all Commissioner Mackay followed Herbert Booth, but this social development continued during the record-breaking term of Commissioner James Hoey, who was here from 1900, that's a mistake, that should be 1909.

Have you got 1901 in your notes? Yes, it should be 1909. 1909 to 1921, Commissioner Thomas Mackay came in between, so you might like to alter that. Commissioner James Hoey came here in 1909 and was here until 1921, and when he left there were 68 social institutions accommodating 7 ,700 persons and providing a full range of social care from cradle to the grave.

Training Locally Raised Officers

Well naturally this great development of both field and social work required officers. Right from the commencement the production and training of locally raised officers was an urgent need. In the first year or two some likely and some unlikely soldiers were given officer rank and sent to appointments with little or no training at all, and for some years afterwards training was very brief and intensely practical rather than academic.

Training commenced in Melbourne early in 1983. The first three cadets were housed in the Paran Quarters and during the day they assisted in building the first core hall and they studied in between times.

Similar rudimentary training was given in Sydney by a young man called Mrs Captain Sutherland and also in Adelaide. Then later on in that year accommodation for twenty men cadets was provided in the house adjoining the headquarters in South Melbourne and a training staff appointed.

A great development was the establishment of an intercolonial training home for men in Punt Road, Richmond, which was opened on March 14, 1888. And I was interested to read in Barbara Bolton's book just issued what commissioned...

The Punt Road home was opened on March 14, 1888 and it was finally destroyed by fire in October 1900. A women's garrison was opened also in Richmond, a building which very quickly became inadequate and they moved in almost a matter of months into one in Arran Street almost opposite where the Bethesda Hospital now stands.

And this was opened in 1889. My father was trained in the Punt Road training home and my mother in that women's garrison in Richmond and so was Mrs Gottenay's parents some years earlier than my own parents.

They too were trained in those days. The training as I've said was more practical and academic and I looked up some records the other day to answer a question which was asked by a comrade and I won't need to answer this one tomorrow night now because I'm really dealing with it now.

My father spent five months in the training home at Punt Road. They discovered very soon that he'd come from the bush in New Zealand where he'd been working in the bush and he knew all about fencing. So he was sent out to Pakenham where they were developing an orchard and he spent most of his cadet days with a gang of men fencing out at Pakenham.

My mother only spent one month in the training home and they very soon discovered that she was a very good needlewoman. So she spent most of her training days sewing and after one month I got her letters at home too.

She was told one Saturday morning to pack her box because she was catching a ship at five o 'clock that afternoon. As quickly as that after one month and she said in bewilderment, where am I going? And they said you're going to Queensland.

And so at five o 'clock that afternoon with her box packed she was on a ship on her way to Queensland to do some more sewing at a social institution up there in Brisbane. Mrs Scottney's father spent three months in the training home and her mother two and a half months.

So that the training, there was quite a turnover. I see at the Punt Road training home they turned over 80 men cadets in the first year. So it was a very rapid turnover and the training was left a lot to be desired.

The Federal Training College

However all this was superseded when the Federal Training College was opened in Melbourne on July 1901. And this was the marvellous building which still stands in Victoria Parade in Melbourne. It accommodated 128 cadets, although I see Barbara Bolton says 160, but I think 128 may be more correct, with very much improved facilities and at that time was reckoned to be the best in the army world.

All cadets from Australia and New Zealand were trained there until 1913 and all Australian cadets up to 1921 and again during the Depression years when our own college here in Sydney was closed and our cadets were trained in Melbourne during the years 1932 to 1935.

The Training College for the Eastern Territory and Livingston Road was officially opened on the 8th of June 1921, although the pioneer session of 104 cadets was actually in residence prior to that date.

And they tell stories of a lot of pioneering and practical work and that the college was really incomplete when they entered it and they did a good deal of practical work as well. And now here we are in 1980 in Bexley North and in Melbourne as you know they have a new training college too which converted Motel.

Australian Missionary Outreach

There's a fascinating story about missionary outreach. In the little booklet Salvation Army War in 1883 which I showed you the other night, General William Booth expressed the hope that Salvationists of the Australian colonies would act together in perfect unison so as to be stronger for the great efforts which we think will properly devolve upon them for the extension of operations in Central Africa and China.

Now it's remarkable that at that early date the founder visualised that happening from this base. He was certainly prescient in anticipating a missionary role for this country at that early date. It was in line with that kind of thinking that the letterheads used by the headquarters in Melbourne in the 1890s described it as the territorial headquarters for Australasia, Melanesia and the Eastern Archipelago.

In June 1887 the first missionary party, remember this is only four years after things really got going, the first missionary party of eight officers and six cadets sailed for service in India and Ceylon, now Sri Lanka.

Even before that in 1886 a party of Indian officers had come and toured here in Australia. Maybe this was to stimulate interest in our work in India but these Indian officers toured the country in 86 and following that our first missionary party went to serve in that country.

In 1896 to 7 another party of eight officers left to help pioneer work in Java and for some years other officers, 34 in all, reinforced the work in Java, what were then called the Dutch East Indies and it's interesting to know that from 1898 to 1905 the work in Java was actually attached to this territory as a division and operated from the Australian territory.

Fourteen Australian officers served in Japan during the 1890s. Australian missionaries played a major part in the commencement and development of work in China, a pioneer party of ten officers going in 1917 and larger parties of reinforcements in 1921.

Here is a story which I don't think is in print anywhere, in 1897 or maybe later arrangements were made for Major who became later Colonel Ernest Knight who was then described as the missionary secretary to visit Fiji and explore prospects.

Methodist authorities in Australia as soon as they got to hear of this quickly arranged for an influential Wesleyan deputation to wait on the founder in London to beg him not to disturb Methodist work in that area and the founder agreed and Major Knight's trip was cancelled.

It's on record that in 1904 Lieutenant Colonel, later Commissioner Unsworth, made a prospecting tour of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga but nothing seems to have come of this. However in 1907 an officer was actually appointed to pioneer work in one of the islands of the New Hebrides group that are in the news so much at the present time amongst natives who had made contact with the army whilst they were working on the cane fields in Queensland.

This work evidently continued for some years because I've read of Commissioner Hay making a visit to the island in 1914 so there evidently was some work on one of the New Hebrides islands for a period.

In the same year Commissioner Hay received a petition signed by 200 people requesting Salvation Army opening in Fiji but General Bramwell Booth did not favour the proposal. At that time there was a kind of a gentleman's agreement concerning missionary work in the Pacific Islands and most of the missionary bodies had their own areas which they undertook to work and others agreed not to trespass on their areas and this feeling was rather strong at that time.

When I first went to New Guinea in 1955 I found that feeling was quite strong there at that time too although PAPTA and New Guinea were very much over missionised in those days. In July 1938 Commissioner Dalziel made an extensive exploratory tour of PAPTA and New Guinea and he recommended immediate commencement of army work in that area but the outbreak of war in 1939 put a stop to those plans.

I've often thought since it was a great pity that we didn't move in immediately after the war when we had people there and we had equipment there. I feel now that we missed an opportunity but I think the fact of the matter was that when the war was over everybody was so heartily sick of it that they were glad to come home and to be home but it would have been I think helpful had we been able to take advantage of the opening that occurred immediately after the war.

However work in PAPTA and New Guinea was eventually commenced in 1956 and in P .G. as recently as January 1973 and if you read the New Zealand War Cry you will know that the work is making very steady progress in P .G. and you'll know from our own War Cry that the work is making steady advancement in Papua New Guinea.

Over the years Australian missionaries have served with distinction in other parts of Asia, in Africa and in Central and South America. Indeed there is hardly a missionary territory or command where Australian officers have not served.

The Australian missionary is highly regarded both by international headquarters and the people they serve. They have a reputation for endurance, for resourcefulness, for hard work and a genuine love for the people amongst whom they labour.

Some have given outstanding service and are worthy to take their place amongst the greatest Christian missionary heroes and saints. Read the story of Enid Leigh, read the story of Gladys Callas and others.

We've certainly produced some outstanding missionaries in this country who as I've said here are worthy to take their place alongside of Mary Slessor and so many others that we read about. This next paragraph has to do with World War One.

Salvation Army Service During World War One

There is a book in the library here entitled The Army That Went With The Boys that tells the story. Prior to World War One officers in each state were accredited as chaplains with the citizen forces. In August 1914 immediately after the declaration of war, Brigadier, later Commissioner William Mackenzie was appointed chaplain to the 4th Battalion AIF and he gave heroic and outstanding service in Gallipoli and France.

Just a few weeks ago I spent some time in the library here going through some old volumes of the war cry, the 1915 and 1916 volumes of the war cry and I read again, I guess I read them as a boy but they didn't stir me as they did when I read them recently.

I read the dispatches that Mackenzie sent from Egypt and from Gallipoli and from France, most moving and stirring stories of his courage and endurance and also the terrible conditions under which our men fought in those days.

Well Mackenzie they tell all kinds of stories, some could be true and some I think are apocryphal about what he did on Gallipoli but it's certainly true that he spent his days burying the dead and spent his nights writing letters to their loved ones telling them what had happened and the strain of those days made such a lasting effect upon him that even to the end of his days he was having nightmares of these war conditions.

I recall when he was our territorial commander here he was visiting a corps in the North Queensland Division where two lassie officers were stationed and they put him in their best bedroom overnight while the two lassies accommodated themselves in the second bedroom and in the middle of the night they heard a tremendous crash in the first bedroom.

They wondered whatever had happened. They were petrified and they were afraid to open the door and look in wondering whatever had happened to the commissioner. They dare not look but they just wondered and then early in the morning when one of them went in I think with a cup of tea they found that one end of the bed had collapsed but that hadn't wakened him up.

He was still lying there asleep with one end of the bed lying on the floor and he was still sound asleep. Well I suppose he got used to sleeping anywhere and anyhow in those war days. He was honoured by the King with a military cross and by the General with the Order of the Founder.

Six other officers served as chaplains to the AIF and quite a number of others were known in those days as National Service Secretaries which was the equivalent to our Red Shield representatives in World War II.

My own father was one of them and spent part of the war servicing huts with Australian forces on Saltery Plains and then in France. They operated welfare huts at camps in France and England. It was at the hut at Le Havre, France where the famous hop in sign with the kangaroo first appeared.

That was the hut that my father was in charge of and I can't be positive but I think, I wish I could check up with him now, but I think it was during his term of command that this hop in sign was first introduced on the hut at Le Havre.

Six officer nurses from Bethesda, Melbourne gave devoted service at casualty clearing stations and hospitals in Egypt and France and another Bethesda nurse died on active service in India. Welfare huts were established at most military camps in Australia, hostels for soldiers in the capital cities and money was raised to provide a number of motor ambulances which were used on active service.

The people of Australia, especially the returned soldiers have never forgotten the selfless service of the salvos. It established a tradition which was more than upheld during World War II and subsequently.

Territorial Reorganization Through 1921

From its commencement in 1883 the work in New Zealand was part of the Australasian Territory. In October 1887 Colonel Josiah Taylor was appointed to lead the work in New Zealand which in August 1889 became a separate territorial command but this arrangement was discontinued at the end of 1894 and in January 1995 it was once again attached to the Australian Territory and this continued right through until May 1912 when New Zealand again became a separate territory as it is today.