Rev. Barzillai Quaife ⁷

  General Notes:

The following is an extract from the Australian Dictionary of Biography (Online edition)
Quote:
QUAIFE, BARZILLAI (1798-1873), Congregational and Presbyterian minister, was born at Lenham, Kent, England, the son of Thomas Quaife, farmer, and his wife Amelia, née Austin. He entered Hoxton Academy, London, in 1824 and later served as teacher and minister at Collompton, Devon, at St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, and at other centres.

In 1835 he submitted to the South Australian Colonization Commissioners a 'Plan to provide the New Settlement of South Australia with the means of Religious instruction on the Congregational principle'. His own hopes of appointment under this plan were disappointed and a further offer of service in 1836 was declined by the Colonial Missionary Society. However, with help from George Fife Angas he reached Adelaide in September 1839**, established a Bible and tract depot, and for six months wrote for Archibald Macdougall's Southern Australian.

Macdougall's offer of a partnership sent Quaife to Kororareka (Russell), New Zealand, where on 15 June 1840 he began to publish the New Zealand Advertiser and Bay of Islands Gazette. After twenty-seven issues it was suppressed when he attacked what he believed to be governmental transgression of Maori land rights. In February 1842 he became editor of the Bay of Islands Observer but soon resigned. His main work at Kororareka was the formation of the first Congregational church in New Zealand where he ministered from May 1840 until April 1844.

Intending to return to England, Quaife left for Sydney in May 1844. Delayed there, he preached in Parramatta and remained to form a Congregational church and erect a chapel. His relations with Rev. Dr Robert Ross of Pitt Street Congregational Church, Sydney, were uneasy; their connexions were severed when Quaife accepted a temporary appointment to Scots Church while Rev. Dr John Dunmore Lang was overseas. Quaife continued as supervising pastor of the Parramatta church until it closed in 1850, and his service to Scots Church was protracted until February 1847 when a Presbyterian minister arrived. Some members of the church, eager to retain Quaife's services, seceded and formed a church under his ministry, meeting first in the Macquarie Street Wesleyan Chapel and later in the old City Theatre, Market Street, and he ministered to it until 1850. To this point he regarded himself as a Congregationalist.

In 1850 Lang reopened the Australian College and appointed Quaife professor of mental philosophy and divinity. He became a foundation member of Lang's Synod of New South Wales (1850) and of the reunited synods (1865). His professorship lapsed when the college's work was restricted in 1852. From 1853 to 1855 he lived at Parramatta.

In 1855 Quaife moved to Paddington where he taught a school and ministered to a congregation in his home. In 1863 reconciliation with Congregational leaders was effected when he was invited to train three students for the ministry. He closed his school, merged his congregation with the Ocean Street Congregational Church, Woollahra, and, from 13 July 1863 until 30 September 1864, devoted himself to the tuition of his students; in October they were transferred to the newly-founded Camden College, but Quaife was bitterly wounded when he did not receive an expected tutorship in the college. Thenceforth ill health withdrew him from professional activity until his death on 3 March 1873.

In addition to his journalism mentioned above Quaife became leader-writer for the Empire (1852-57) and contributed articles to the Atlas, the People's Advocate, the Press and the Illawarra Mercury. He edited the Christian Standard in 1849 and both forms of the Christian Pleader from 1858 to 1864. Among other works he published A condensed view of the proper design and uses of the Lord's Supper (Parramatta, 1845), The Rules of the Final Judgment (Parramatta, 1846), and Lectures on Prophecy and the Kingdom of Christ (Sydney, 1848). His last publication, The Intellectual Sciences, vols 1-2 (Sydney, 1872), comprised lectures at the Australian College and has been claimed as the first serious philosophical work published in Australia.

Quaife was always conscious of his own rectitude. His colleagues acknowledged his integrity and ability, yet found themselves at odds with him. His self-vindication tends to obscure the faithfulness of his pastoral service. His students appreciated his erudition but felt that 'if teaching was his forte, omniscience was his foible'. He wrote didactically on many topics, but could be scathing in controversy; yet his journalism was influential in public and church affairs.

In 1836 Quaife married Maria Smith at St Anne's, Westminster; two of their four sons died in infancy and Maria died at Paddington, New South Wales, on 12 January 1857. On 29 May 1857 he married Eliza Buttrey, by whom he had a son and a daughter. Frederick Harrison Quaife, youngest son of the first marriage, graduated in the Universities of Sydney and Glasgow and practised medicine in Sydney, where he was a foundation member of the New South Wales Branch of the British Medical Association, its president in 1884-85, and a member of the New South Wales Medical Board from 1894 to 1915. He was a member and a vice-president of the Royal Society of New South Wales. William Francis Quaife, the son of the second marriage, graduated in the same universities and practised medicine in Sydney.
Unquote

** Immigration record shows: 'QUAIFE Barzileirich/Barsillai, Mar(c)ia n SMITH, Alf Chas arrived 1839-09-20 on Anna Robertson from London 1839-05-27'.

Wikipedia also provides the following:
Quote
'Barzillai Quaife (29 December 1798 '96 3 March 1873) was an English-born editor, Congregational and Presbyterian minister, bookseller and teacher active in both Australia and New Zealand. A fierce advocate for the rights of the Ma-ori,[ he has been called "Australia's first philosopher.
Born at Lenham in Kent, Quaife was the son of a farmer, Thomas Quaife, and his wife, Amelia Austin. He entered the Hoxton Academy in London in 1824; later he served as a teacher and minister in Collompton, Devon, and St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, among other locations. In 1835 Quaife subitted a "Plan to provide the New Settlement of South Australia with the means of Religious instruction on the Congregational principle" to the South Australian Colonization Commissioners; he was not, however, appointed under this plan, nor was he allowed to serve when he applied again in 1836. He did finally reach Adelaide in September of 1839, with the assistance of George Fife Angas; here he established a Bible and tract depot and spent six months writing for Archibald Macdougall's Southern Australian before being persuaded to establish his own paper in New Zealand.

Quaife and his family arrived at Kororareka (today Russell) on the Agenoria in May 1840. On June 15 of that year the first issue of the New Zealand Advertiser and Bay of Islands Gazette was published. It was the second newspaper to be printed in the colony, and contained government-issued material; nevertheless, Quaife exercised an editorial policy directly contrary to, and critical of, government policy. He voiced strong support for the rights of the Ma-ori, and was displeased by poorly-performing public servants; most of his focus was on indigenous rights - especially regarding land - and criminal justice. He has been called "New Zealand's first public anti-racist"; among his harshest statements on the issue was one that "when…the Governor…lays it down as an axiom…that the natives have no independent right over their own property…we see no end - looking at the Cape as an example - of the catalogue of miseries which may be entailed on this inoffensive people".[3] He further argued that the land act of August 1840, supported by governor George Gipps and allowing the governor of New South Wales to appoint commissioners to investigate land-related issues in New Zealand, was unenforcable and would lead to trouble.

It has been suggested that Quaife's personality, combined with a liberal aducation and experience with both a free colony and an unencumbered, openly critical press, meant that he was destined for problems with authority. In the event he came into conflict with the chief police magistrate and acting colonial secretary, Willoughby Shortland. Shortland was fresh from New South Wales, where the press was controlled, and in December 1840, recalling an old ordinance from that colony, he ordered Quaife to post several hundred pounds' surety and pay a fine. Should he do neither, he would face penal transportation for publishing "tending to bring the Government into hatred or contempt". Consequently, the last edition of the Advertiser appeared on December 10. Undeterred, Quaife returned to publishing in 1842, launching the Bay of Islands Observer. His platform was much the same as before. Foolishly, however, he printed some gossip about George Cooper, a former colonial treasurer. He apologized publicly, but was still dismissed by the paper's owners. From that time forward he devoted himself to the Kororareka Congregational Church, which he had founded as New Zealand's first Congregational church in 1840. He also taught and ran a bookshop.

May 1844 found Quaife financially exhausted and intending to return to England. He left for Sydney, intending to spent a short time there, and began preaching in Parramatta, where he stayed to form a Congregational church and build a chapel. He knew the Rev. Dr. Robert Ross of the Pitt Street Congregational Church, but their relationship was never a very easy one, and all connections between them were severed when Quaife was offered a temporary appointment to replace John Dunmore Lang at the Scots Church while the latter was away. He then continued as pastor at the Parramatta church until its closure in 1850; meanwhile, he kept up his service at the Scots Church until February 1847, when it received a Presbyterian minister. Some of the congregation wished to retain Quaife's services, and chose to leave their church and found a new one under him. This organization first met in the Wesleyan Chapel on Macquarie Street before moving to the old City Theatre in Market Street.

Quaife ministered to this group until 1850, in which year Dr. Lang reopened the Australian College and appointed him to the faculty as a professor of mental philosophy and divinity. He became a foundation member of two synods, that of New South Wales in 1850 and of the reunited ones in 1865. The college's work was restricted in 1852, at which point his teaching position lapsed. He lived again in Parramatta between 1853 and 1855. In the latter year Quaife went to Paddington teaching school while ministering to a congregation at home. 1863 saw reconciliation with Congregational leaders, from whom he had become estranged, and he was invited to train three of their students for the ministry. He closed his school and brought his congregation into the Ocean Street Congregational Church in Woollahra. He tutored his three students until September 1864; in October they were transferred to the then-new Camden College. Quaife did not receive a teaching position at the school, which omission hurt him deeply. Ill health at this point forced him to withdraw from professional work until his death.

Quaife died in Woollahra in 1873.

On 4 November 1834, Quaife married Maria Smith in Westminster; they would have four sons, two of whom were to survive infancy. Maria Quaife died in January 1857, and on 29 May of that year Quaife married Eliza Buttrey, with whom he had two children, a son and a daughter. Two of his sons, Frederick Harrison Quaife and William Francis Quaife, went on to become noted physicians in the Sydney area'
UNQUOTE

Barzillai was a publisher author;

" A Memento for the Afflicted" : Published 1829 by Nisbet (201 pages)
" A condensed view of the proper design and uses of the Lords' supper" : Published 1845 by Benjamin Isaacs (36 pages)
" The Intellectual Sciences" : Published 1872 by Gibbs, Shallard & Co.
" Intellectual Sciences: Outline Lectures delivered chiefly at the Australian College: Published 1873 by Gibbs, Shallard & Co.

Appears in Sands Directory for Sydney & NSW for the years: 1861,1863,1865,1866,1868,1869,1870,1871 & 1873. Copies held.

Barzillai's Queen Street, Woollahra house is now a hotel/restaurant - Quaife's Cafe and Restaurant, Hughenden Hotel.

Obituary (Evening News, Sydney:4 March 1873);

THE REV. BARZILLAI QUAIFE.
Died yesterday morning at his residence, Denham
Cottage, Waverley-road, at the advanced age of seventy
three. Mr. Quaife was, under a former management,
a regular contributor to tha leading columns of tbe
Empire. He was of a philosophic turn of mind ; and
his articles bore the impress of deep thought. Though
his name was not much before the public ; his labours,
in the Press, in lectures, and in conducting the studies of
young-men who have been trained under bis direction
for important positiens, have been devoted to objects in
which the welfare of the community is concerned. He
was much esteemed as a Minister of the gospel. Mr.
Quaife had lived in this colony nearly thirty years ; and
before that spent <, short time in South Australia and
New Zealand.
His last literary undertaking was the revising for the
Press of two volumes on Logic and Metaphrsic3,tao f ruits
of many years' thought, which are likely to prove of great
service in intellectual training. He had just strength
enough to finish all that was required on the author's
part in correcting the proofs ; and a few days ago had
the satisfaction of seeing tbe first volumi complete. In
all respects he net the inevitable change, as one whose
work was accomplished, and who was prepared to pass
calmly and hopefully through the portals that open to
the unseen world.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Occupation: Clergyman.

• Emigration: SS Anna Robertson, 27 May 1839, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. ²⁶⁴⁵

• Emigration: SS Shamrock, 8 May 1844, Sylvania, NSW, Australia. ²⁶⁴⁶

• Registered Marriage, 1857, Paddington, NSW, Australia. ²⁴⁸¹

• Registered Death, 1873, Paddington, NSW, Australia. ²⁶⁴⁷

• Registered Burial, Mar 1873, Rookwood Cemetery, Rookwood, NSW, Australia. ⁷

• Newspaper Article: Queensland Times, 25 May 1937, Ipswich, Qld., Auatrslia. ²⁶⁴⁸

Barzillai married Eliza Buttrey, daughter of William Buttrey and Elizabeth Frances Clarke, on 29 May 1857 in Paddington, NSW, Australia. (Eliza Buttrey was born about 1826 in Surrey, England,⁷ died on 30 Oct 1886 in Paddington, NSW, Australia ⁷ and was buried in Nov 1886 in Rookwood Cemetery, Rookwood, NSW, Australia ⁷.)