page_title: Whitemore, Tasmania
section_title: Religion
hierarchical_section_title: Whitemore, Tasmania / Religion
caption_attribution_description: 1865 Methodist (since 1977 a Uniting) Church and the memorical hall at Whitemore, Tasmania, Australia
context_page_description: Whitemore is a small rural town in Northern Tasmania, in the Meander Valley Council area. The town's land and surrounding rural area was first granted to Richard Dry in the 1830s then sold for farming to William Hingston in 1854. Hingston constructed a Wesleyan Chapel, near which a few later buildings were added. Over time the town has had a blacksmith, post office, library, shops and petrol station; none of these remain in the 21st Century.
  Shaw Contracting, a large Civil engineering firm formed by James Alan Hope Shaw, has been the most significant business in the town's history. Whitemore's most prominent features are the 1864 brick church, adjacent original church building dating from 1857—now a community hall—and the large workshop and offices of Shaw contracting.
  From 1870 to sometime before 1978 the town had a nearby rail service but in the 21st century transport is by car or school bus. The town has a small largely Australian born, and aging, population. Whitemore has a few houses, a church that is part of the Uniting Church in Australia, the offices and workshops of Shaw Contracting, and a recreation ground and tennis courts used by the towns' tennis and cricket teams.
context_section_description: A Methodist circuit had been established in Westbury in 1848 with meetings held in homes of the Oaks Estate. After Hingston purchased his land in 1854, Methodist meetings were held at his home. Hingston's home proved too cramped for religious meetings so in 1857 he donated land for a chapel, which was built in the same year by Joshua Higgs. It was an all timber 18 by 30 feet (5.5 m × 9.1 m) building made from pit-sawn beams clad with split timber. It opened for services on 13 December 1857, after completion at a total cost of 250 pounds. The wooden church was also used as a Sunday school and state school from 1865 to 1928. A chapel house was built in 1859 next to the church by the Wesleyan trustees. This house was used initially by David Tinning, the town's first school teacher.
  In the 1860s a new church was planned. The original wooden building was relocated in 1864, and the new church subsequently built on its site. Its foundation stone was laid on 30 November 1864; the year of the Australian Wesleyan Church's jubilee observance. The church is a brick-structure in a Gothic architectural style, and was designed to hold 200 people.  The new Wesleyan chapel at Whitemoor, as it was then known, was opened Sunday 4 June 1865. It had cost 450 pounds, 150 from the Wesleyan building fund and the remainder from subscriptions, fund-raising and donations. The money from Wesleyan building fund was a 10-year loan. By 1929 it was used as a Methodist chapel in 1929 and in the 21st century is part of the Uniting Church in Australia.
  The original wooden church building was moved again in 1909 and extended in 1928 for use as a community hall. It had a kitchen extension added in 1955 and a kindergarten room in 1958. The split paling cladding was replaced with weatherboards in the 1900s. The roof was replaced with iron, probably in 1914 when the brick church was also re-roofed in iron. The interior paling lining of the old wooden church was covered with pine sheeting in the late 1930s. This building has been used as a church for seven years, more than sixty years as a meeting room and community centre and more than seventy years as a day and Sunday school. After the school moved to a new building in 1929 the old building remained in use as a Sunday school.
caption: The 1865 brick church, and 1857 wooden church—now a community hall
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