John Arthur Barry - The City of Sydney (John Arthur Barry) - fully illustrated - (Literary Thoughts Edition)

Succeeding celebrations all partook of the same non-political and partially representative character until 1825, of which more anon.

Major-General Sir Thomas Brisbane, K.C.B., was now Governor of New South Wales—the second of our military Governors. For the city, in the way of adding to or beautifying it, Brisbane did little or nothing. Indeed, during the whole of his four years stay, he was more or less in hot water. In the first place, he, with a stroke of his pen, altered the financial policy of the colony. and with such disastrous results that wheat rose to £1 per bushel. Wheat, when he arrived, was practically the currency of the country, and was exchangeable at the Government store for vouchers representing an average rate of 10s per bushel. These receipts were as good as cash in Sydney. Brisbane suddenly changed this circulating medium from sterling to colonial currency, with the result of raising the pound sterling 25 per cent above the pound currency; the effect on the small farmers, already many of them deeply in debt to Sydney merchants, may be imagined. Before this, however, he had fallen out with the Scotch Presbyterians. And this was the more curious, inasmuch as Brisbane was himself a Scot, and a Presbyterian to boot.

Dr. Lang arrived in 1823, and at once set about getting a church built, collecting, in a few days, upwards of £700 for that purpose. A memorial was now addressed to the Governor, praying for Government monetary aid for the undertaking. To this a sharp and insulting reply was sent, refusing the wished-for help. The committee, indignant, applied for redress to the Home Government, who severely reprimanded Brisbane, and ordered him to advance not one-third of the cost of the erection, but also to pay the officiating minister a salary of £300 per annum, “regretting,” at the same time “that his Excellency put to their probation members of the Church of Scotland in the colony—the Established Church of one of the most enlightened and virtuous portions of the Empire.”

Thus Brisbane got his snub, and the Scots their church. Later on the Governor, however, showed himself anything but a small minded man; for, perceiving that he had been quite in the wrong, he replaced his name on the list of subscribers, off which, in anger, he had caused to be taken. Nay, more, he laid the foundation-stone of the Church in July, 1924. Such is the story of St. Andrew’s, or, as we, at this day, more generally know it, the “Scots Church.” Standing at the south end of Church Hill, it is practically unchanged; looking as stiff, sturdy, uncompromising, and rugged as the man through whose enterprise it was built.

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