page_title: Holy Trinity Church, Adelaide
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Holy Trinity Church, Adelaide / History
context_page_description: Trinity City, is an Australian evangelical Anglican church located at 88 North Terrace in the city of Adelaide, South Australia. Trinity City has four gatherings at the North Terrace location each Sunday, as well as various other meetings throughout the week.
context_section_description: Trinity City is historically significant in that it contains elements of the earliest surviving Anglican church building in South Australia. Of special note is the William IV window that was brought to Adelaide in 1836.
  The land on which the church stands was donated by Pascoe St Leger Grenfell along with 40 acres of country land for a cemetery and "glebe" lands. Pascoe St Leger Grenfell, the holder of a preliminary land order, Raikes Currie and the Reverend Sir Henry Robert Dukinfield of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) who held the collective funds and, thirdly, the men to whom they were transferring their powers, namely James Hurtle Fisher, Osmond Gilles and Charles Mann. Fisher was to be resident commissioner in South Australia of the Colonisation Commission, having responsibility independent of the governor for the administration of land in the new colony; Gilles was to be the treasurer and Mann the advocate general or principal legal officer of the colony. Grenfell transferred control over order no. 171 for a town acre and over 40 acres of country land to be selected in conjunction with the town acre, later known as Trinity Gardens. The conveyance did not have to specify that Currie and Dukinfield hand over money and the portable church, but it may be presumed they did so — alternatively they may have entrusted these resources to John Morphett, appointed as SPG's attorney in the colony. The objects of the trust were to use the town acre as a site for "the erection of a church where Divine Service could be celebrated according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England". The same acre was also to provide space for a schoolroom and a parsonage and garden for the minister of the church. The country land was to provide six to eight acres for a cemetery and the remainder to be "glebe land", in the familiar phrase of the Church of England, to provide income for the support of the minister.
  The church was built in three main stages. It was originally planned that the church would be a prefabricated building imported from England; however, when the prefabricated building arrived from England badly damaged, it was decided instead to build a stone church, Henry J. Moseley the builder.  Governor Hindmarsh laid the foundation stone on 28 January 1838 and the church opened in about August that year, within two years of the settlement of Adelaide (see History of Adelaide). The building quickly became a landmark with its "peaked cap" top tower and the Vulliamy clock. (Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy 1780–1854, was the clockmaker to King William IV and Queen Adelaide.)
  In 1844 the church was closed for repairs and the clock was removed for safekeeping. The body of the church was rebuilt and re-roofed and the tower lost its peaked cap. It reopened in August 1845. When Bishop Short arrived in 1847, Holy Trinity assumed many of the functions of a cathedral and was - until other congregations (especially Christ Church, North Adelaide) were established — the place of worship for the governors, many of the colony’s prominent families and the military.
  In 1878, there was a proposal to rebuild when some money was subscribed, but this did not take place until the congregation decided in the mid-1880s to completely rebuild the church to a design by the prominent architect Edward John Woods, using the mellow sandstone which eventually weathered to match the original limestone. It was around this time that the present name of "Holy Trinity" became current.
  The hall and the rectory are also significant features in the precinct. The hall was built in 1887 using a donation from a parishioner. The original rectory was a prefabricated "Manning" building which arrived in better condition than the church. It was replaced by the present building in 1851 and was the home of seven successive incumbents. It is now used as offices.
  The Revd Lance Shilton, later Dean of Sydney, was rector of Holy Trinity from 1957 to 1973.
caption: Adelaide in 1839 as viewed south-east from North Terrace, including Holy Trinity (the church tower lost its "peaked cap" in 1844)
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "400", "Image YResolution": "400", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "ACD Systems Digital Imaging", "Image DateTime": "2005:05:28 21:42:06", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "174", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF SubSecTime": "301", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1460", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1156", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "240"}