PICTURES IN THE CHURCH

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1932, Page 9

PICTURES IN THE CHURCH

SLUM WORK AT MELBOURNE

CONGREGATION FELL TO SEVEN.

LIBRARY AND CLUB ‘FOR CHILDREN

An account of the remarkable Anglican Church settlement work with which she was associated at Melbourne was given to a reporter yesterday by Miss Mary Greenwell, the new general secretary of the Y.W.C.A. at New Plymouth. Miss Greenwell, who succeeds Miss F. Pym, arrived here on Saturday after travelling from Australia, via Wellington. Before taking up settlement work at the invitation of the Rev. R. G. Nichols, who created such a stir with his unorthodox methods as vicar of St. Mark’s Church, Fitzroy, Miss Greenway was for five and a-half years a secondary school teacher at Melbourne. First she was attached to the Melbourne Church of England Girls’ Grammar School and afterwards to the Firbank Church of England Girls’ School at Brighton. In Victoria, she explained, the Church played a much more extensive role in secondary education than it did in New Zealand. That was due, no doubt, to the fact that in the Dominion the facilities for free post-primary education were so much greater. Though there were Government high schools in Victoria, tuition at them had to be paid for, except by holders of scholarships, who were comparatively few in number.

It was in 1926 that Miss Greenwell accepted the invitation of Mr. Nicholls to assist him in his slum work. Fitzroy is the centre of an industrial district of Melbourne of which adjoining suburbs are Carlton, Collingwood and Richmond.

ONCE SELECT .SUBURB.

Once the select. suburb of a rising young city, Fitzroy was a place of fine streets, beautiful avenues and gardens, splendid villas, and fashionable crowds. Eighty-five years ago ‘Eit'iroy was the brightest • star in -Melbourne's diadem, and the residents, justly proud of their suburb, set about to build them a stately church of bluestone.' Set on a hill, its slender white spire made St. Mark’s a point of admiration for many miles around. ...

But the day came when Fitzroy suf-, fered the fate of most fashionable sub-' urbs of great cities. As. Melbourne grew and expanded it began to overhang the residential district. The elite moved out to more exclusive parts as industry pushed its way in, and soon the pristine glory of -Fitzroy was submerged in an encroaching slum. All that remained of' a half-forgotten greatness was the solitary monument of St. Mark’s, upon which cottages and backyards were crowding ever more closely and greedily. That was the sad condition of the parish when, ten years ago; Mr. Nichols was appointed vicar. Worse still, lie found The congregation had dwindled and dwindled to seven! But he was a resourceful man, not to be discouraged by overwhelming obstacles. He reopen-, ed a gallery in the church that had' been long bricked up because of disuse, and he startled orthodox Melbourne by conducting picture shows in his church, by instituting “courting rooms” for young men and ■women, and by doing all kinds of novel things designed to entice old and young from the streets. He launched a “golden fair” with the object of raising 1000 sovereigns; within a week he had received. 1500. He secured the support of men in the city. He built men’s clubrooms, warmed by huge fireplaces and-equipped with billiard tables, books, papers , and other things likely to make them attractive. And° the final result was that he increased his congregation from seven to between I'so aiid 200. Then he began to appeal to the moral and. religious natures of his people by straight talking, and they stayed on to hear. St. Mark’s once again occupied its proper position among the churches of the city, and from the summit of its slender white spire a large cross, electrically .lit, illuminated the parish by night.

ACHIEVEMENTS.

Mr. Nichols’ idea was to establish a slum settlement on the lines of those conducted by universities in the older cities of Great Britain and America. He purchased cottages and backyards adjoining the back of the church and he erected a two-storey brick building.with clubrooms and a large; well-equipped gymnasium, on the ground floor for boys and. other rooms for girls upstairs. There was a wonderful library stocked with £5OO worth of books—reference, technical, fiction, travel, history-all available for young people and. children. Shelf upon shelf was required to accommodate hundreds of periodicals, frivolous and serious.' He secured the services of the senior girls of the parish as voluntary librarians, arranged for the lending department to be open from 7 to 9 p.m. daily and at certain times on Sunday, and fixed the subscription rates at a penny a week. He had Miss Ida Rentoul, the famous artist, to paint pretty scenes from fairy tales on the windows and to place appropriate verses Underneath, and ultimately he intends to fix electric lights on the outside. so that at night the young readers inside will have the pictures lit up for them. Two long reading tables are. occupied every night by grubby urchins who would otherwise 'be on the. streets —but first they have to wash their hands.

DEPRESSION STOPS DEVELOPMENT.

It was to take charge of the girls’ section of this club that Miss Greenwell went from her school in 1926. She remained five years. That, however, was to be only the first stage of the three into which Mr. Nichols’ plan was divided. Unfortunately the. depression put a temporary stop to ite further development. The second stage was to be the establishment of a womens hostel, with a swimming pool in the basemen and two residential floors above. This was to have been managed by Miss Greenwell, and it was hoped, to have attracted to it university women who in part return for the privilege of stayinl” there would give their services m the settlement, as in England and America. The third stage was to have been the establishment of a mens hostel on similar lines. Both these projects will now have to wait for more prosperous times. Miss Greenwell said tne work m tne club attached to the church was intense-, ly interesting and had achieved wonderful results. 'The church and its institutions were now the centres for a community interest, and the old and young of the parish found themselves far better and more profitably occupied than they would have been without these focal pointe. Referring to the cross on the spire, she said that the electric illumination, which cost 6s 4d an hour, had been recently temporarily suspended, but it was intended to restore the lighting very soon. Lit up for several hours each night, the cross was a feature of the skyline. It-s light illuminated the district around for a considerable distance, and it wa*b even on re-

cord that one woman used the light to do her washing by. Mr. Nichols, she said, was very popular for ius work over the radio, and for that reason alone his name was a household word in most parts of Australia. , . . Last year Miss - Greenwell joined the Melbourne Y.W.C.A. as assistant secretary of the senior, division. From there she was sent to Mooroopna in the Goulburn Valley as matron of the Ardmona cannery hoStel. For two, three and, in good seasons, four months of the year the fruit canning companies of the Goulbum Valley employed, girls .from Melbourne in their factories . and- they arrange with the Y.W.C.A. organisation for the staffing of the hostels. It was at the invitation of Miss Jean Stevenson, national general secretary for .the Y.W.C.A. in New Zealand, and formerly general secretary at Melbourne,, that Miss Greenwell resigned her position at Mooroonna on April 27 with the object of coming to New Zealand to work for the Y.W.C.A. . Miss Greenwell explained that Miss Stevenson intends shortly to launch a movement in New Zealand by which it is hoped specially to interest women ana girls over 18. Business and professional women will be formed into round table” organisations with the object or giving active attention to the problems peculiar to the world to-day, and thus serving the community through . the Y.W.C.A., which, it is felt, is specially fitted for such a task because it is a’ all-embracing Christian organisation.