Pièce 361-1 - Letter to a parishioner, Mrs Walker

Manuscript in ink, 3 pp, octavo, headed ’49 Upper Davey [?] Ct., Aug 2 1864’, addressed to ‘Dear Mrs. Walker’ and signed at the foot ‘C.H. Tasmania’, the signature endorsed below in pencil by the recipient ‘Dr. Bromby, Bishop’; original folds, some age toning and tiny loss at top corner of last side (resulting in a lacuna of a few letters); otherwise complete and legible; now lacking the original envelope.
Charles Henry Bromby (1814-1907) held the office of Bishop of Tasmania from 1864 to 1882. Born in Hull, he had served as perpetual curate at St. Paul’s, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, from 1846 to 1860, where he established a boys’ orphanage and several schools. From 1847, as the first principal of St. Paul's College, he became an agitator for educational reform. In April 1864 he was appointed Bishop of Tasmania, replacing Francis Russell Nixon; he was consecrated in Canterbury Cathedral on June 29
1864, and arrived in Hobart early in January 1865. During his term in office he was a strong advocate of church extension, the use of lay preachers, and of social ministry.
The present letter was written by Bromby soon after his consecration as Bishop, just prior to his initial departure for Tasmania. The addressee, Mrs. Walker, was evidently one of his parishioners in Cheltenham.
‘| fear that you must have thought me unmindful of the kind sympathy you have evinced with my labors in my future Diocese. Your kind letter was only forwarded to me today & | hasten to acknowledge your own liberal Donation & that of your daughter. The work before [me] in regard to Church extension & Missionary labor in the outlying islets is great, urgent & most interesting. May your kind help provoke the same Zeal in the hearts of others also who love the Passion & believe in the Church of our Fathers as the great instrument for preparing the world for his Coming. Wherever we may be then, may we be found watching. Will you be good e[nough] to convey to Miss Walker the same cordial thanks which I am attempting to express to yourself in this letter. Believe me, Mrs. Walker, from yr. very true C.H. Tasmania’.
The “outlying islets” which Bromby mentions undoubtedly refer to the islands in the Bass Strait known as the Furneaux Group, principally Flinders and Cape Barren Island. Although Wybalenna had been closed in 1847, and its residents forcably removed to Oyster Cove, there of course remained on the islands a significant population of mixed Palawa and European heritage.
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