PREFACE. HE issue of this book marks the fulfilment of an often delayed purpose, and of a promise made long ago. When Bishop Short first announced his intention to resign the see of Adelaide, there appeared in the South Australian Advertiser some articles reviewing the bishop's episcopate. Just before he finally left for England I saw him, confessed to the authorship of the articles, and suggested that they might be expanded into something more permanent if he would help me by supplying records and information in his possession. I shall always remember the blunt modesty of his reply— “Oh, but I'm not big enough a bishop for a biography!" So I ventured to put it that the history of how the various institutions of the Church in South Australia had been built up ought to be worthy of preservation in some connected form. "Oh," he answered with a merry twinkle, "if you want to be the historiographer of the diocese I'll help you all I can." And so, from what at first was only a half seriously entertained proposal, it came about that books and papers, letters and memoranda, were handed over to me, and on some of his leisure days after the return to England the bishop made notes which were forwarded for use in compiling this book. I was then incumbent of a quiet little parish suburban to Adelaide, and anticipated much pleasure in carrying out my self-imposed task. But the change to the activities—and unavoidable irregularity-of missionary duty entirely prevented my 'historiographer' ambitions being indulged except in the odds and ends of time, and so it has fallen out that these memoirs have been in hand for years, and even now have only been completed in the midst of the pressure of mission work. The only apology which can be offered for the authorship of this book is that the writer hopes a born South Australian, educated in the colony, and ordained by the first bishop of Adelaide, may not be thought altogether unsuitable to tell the tale of the good old bishop's life. I have tried strictly to observe the lex non scripta of biographical writing by letting the bishop as far as possible tell his own tale-many reasons would restrain me from attempting much by way of comment-but I have ventured to set chronological sequence aside, and to group together, irrespective of the time of occurrence, all that had to do with the several subjects brought under notice. This commended itself as the more interesting and useful mode of treatment. My acknowledgments are due to the Rev. C. C. Elcum-formerly domestic chaplain to Bishop Short, and now vicar of St. Agnes, Toxteth Park, Liverpool for cheerfully contributing almost the whole of the two closing chapters; to the bishop's aged brother-in-law-now in his ninety-fourth year-the Rev. W. Norris, of Warblington rectory, Havant, for the assistance received from his early Annals of the Diocese of Adelaide' (S.P.C.K. 1852); and to Mr. H. J. Scott, the compiler of the Jubilee Handbook of South Australia, from which I have taken a great deal of the information about the colony which has been given for the benefit of extra-colonial readers. For the ready help which has been rendered by a daughter of the bishop it would be unseemly to offer any thanks of mine. F. T. W. London, Ascensiontide, 1888. TABLE OF CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. A brief sketch (for extra-colonial readers) of Australia: its physical ... xv.-xxi. THE BISHOP'S EARLY DAYS AND UNIVERSITY LIFE. The wedding tour-Home to the vicarage-Interesting coinci- dences-A decaying parish-Sectarian bitterness-"I allus takes the wall on 'em "-Building a village school-Ravens- thorpe revisited in 1878-The Bampton Lectureship in 1846- The Oxford Professorship of Poetry-Correspondence with Dr. 13-18 19-41 |