page_title: Mathew Hale (bishop)
section_title: Western Australia
hierarchical_section_title: Mathew Hale (bishop) / Western Australia
caption_attribution_description: Bishop Hale, Archdeacon Brown, Rev. W. Mitchell. Early senior Anglican clergy in the en:Swan River Colony
context_page_description: Mathew Blagden Hale, very frequently spelled "Matthew", was the first Bishop of Perth and then the Bishop of Brisbane.
  Hale is recognised for seeking to empower the South Australian Aboriginals through his work in the Poonindie mission, establishing the Anglican Diocese of Perth and Hale School. Hale also served as Bishop of Perth and Brisbane.
context_section_description: In 1856 Hale resigned to accept an invitation to serve as Bishop of Perth. In July 1856 he arrived in Western Australia on the Guyon, which had diverted to Port Lincoln to pick him up, along with his two eldest daughters and sister-in-law Georgiana Molloy, and in November the rest of his family arrived there from South Australia. In March 1857, Hale returned to England with his family, where on 25 July 1857 he was consecrated as the first Bishop of Perth at the Lambeth Palace Chapel. The sermon was preached by Hale's longtime friend from their university days, Professor Harold Browne. According to its usual custom Cambridge University awarded the new bishop an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree. While Hale accepted this academic honour, he was reluctant to adopt the style and title of "My Lord", maintaining that as a colonial bishop he would be better without it. However, the legal authorities ruled that he must accept it and he did so.
  Leaving his family in England Hale returned to Western Australia on the convict ship Nile early in 1858, to take up office as Bishop of Perth. It had been an eventful and dangerous voyage. The problems arising from transportation were evident when Hale had made his initial tour of his diocese-to-be and he had prepared a report on The Transportation Question, advocating measures to make Western Australia a reformatory colony rather than a penal settlement. This was published while he was in England. Hale's report demanded change in the colony's penal system. When copies reached Perth before he returned from England, there was a storm of criticism in the local news media, claiming that Hale's report was "full of misrepresentations and errors". However, when Hale's own account of his voyage on the Nile and the behavior of the convicts on it was published, he was vindicated and newspaper editors were commending Hale, even as the Colonial Governor was disapproving because of "embarrassment to Her Majesty’s Government".
  In June 1858, after he returned from England, Hale opened a boys' school for both boarders and day pupils. The Bishop's School was modelled after England's public schools. Many of the pupils who attended it came from leading families in the colony; many of them went on to become prominent in Western Australian business and politics. Hale had continuing problems in finding suitable schoolmasters and funds to support his school. Eventually this proved too much for him and the Bishop's School closed on 1 March 1872. However it continued on under different management and eventually became today's Hale School. Bishop Hale is generally recognised as the pioneer of secondary education in Western Australia.
  Communications with the eastern colonies and England were made by sailing ship when Hale arrived in the colony in 1856 and by steamship when he left in 1875. Albany was the first port of call on the Australian continent. Hence Hale was the first Australian bishop to receive his invitation to the first Lambeth Conference held in 1867 and was the only one to attend it.
  In 1870 a crisis arose when the lady running an orphanage for indigenous children in Albany was unable to continue this work. Hale decided to resign as bishop, apply for the vacant chaplaincy at Albany, and carry on this orphanage work himself. As soon as his intention to resign became known in Perth, a large deputation from the Protestant community called on Hale and persuaded him to withdraw it. In explaining his intentions to his friends Hale reminded them that "I have no hesitation in saying that a European population disregarding the welfare of the natives, whom it has displaced from their country, will not ensure God’s blessing and therefore I do hope that the public generally will support the Mission at Albany".
  In July 1871 Hale met with his clergy and laity to draw up the constitution for a Diocesan synod and the first synod was held in Perth in August 1872. He opened this synod with a significant sermon Being all things to all men on the responsibilities of both individual Christians and the Church in their rel
caption: Bishop Hale, Archdeacon Brown, Rev. W. Mitchell at the Swan River Colony
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