"St James' Church, commonly known as St James', King Street, is an Anglican parish church in inner city Sydney, Australia, consecrated in February 1824 and named in honour of St James the Great. It became a parish church in 1835. Designed in the style of a Georgian town church by the transported convict architect Francis Greenway during the governorship of Lachlan Macquarie, St James' is part of the historical precinct of Macquarie Street which includes other early colonial era buildings such as the Hyde Park Barracks. The church remains historically, socially and architecturally significant. The building is the oldest one extant in Sydney's inner city region. It is listed on the Register of the National Estate, and has been described as one of the world's 80 greatest man-made treasures.
The church has maintained its special role in the city's religious, civic and musical life as well as its close associations with the city's legal and medical professions through its proximity to the law courts and Sydney Hospital. Its original ministry was to the convict population of Sydney and it has continued to serve the city's poor and needy in succeeding centuries.
Worship at St James' is in a style commonly found in the High Church and moderate Anglo-Catholic traditions of Anglicanism. It maintains the traditions of Anglican church music, with a robed choir singing psalms, anthems and responses in contrast to the great majority of churches in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney where services are generally celebrated in styles associated with Low Church and Evangelical Christian practices. The teaching at St James' has a more liberal perspective than most churches in the diocese on issues of gender and the ordination of women.
Foundation and consecration
The building of St James' Church was commissioned by Governor Lachlan Macquarie in 1819, designed by the convict architect Francis Greenway and constructed between 1820 and 1824 using convict labour. Governor Macquarie and Commissioner John Bigge laid the foundation stone on Thursday, 7 October 1819. The building was originally intended to serve as a courthouse as Macquarie had plans for a large cathedral to be built on the present location of St Andrew's Cathedral but they were put on hold by the intervention of Bigge who had been appointed to conduct a Royal Commission into the colonial government. Bigge initially approved of the courthouse project but by February 1820, less than four months after his arrival, he strongly recommended its conversion into a church.
"The reason for Bigge's change of mind may be found in the appointment, three years later, of his brother-in-law [and secretary], Mr TH Scott, a wine merchant, as Archdeacon". The design of the courthouse was modified before construction with the addition of a steeple at the western end, to serve as a church, while the adjacent school buildings were put into use as a courthouse. The first service was held in the unfinished church on the Day of Epiphany, 6 January 1822, the text being from Isaiah, Chapter 60: "Arise! Shine, for thy light has come. The glory of the Lord has risen upon thee". It was anticipated in the Sydney Gazette's report of the event that the church, when fitted out with stalls and galleries, would hold 2,000 people. The church was consecrated by the senior chaplain, the Reverend Samuel Marsden, on 11 February 1824.
Architecture
One of Greenway's finest works, St James' is listed on the Register of the National estate. It has been called an "architectural gem" and was featured by Dan Cruickshank in the BBC television series Around the World in 80 Treasures. From 1966 to 1993 the spire of St James' appeared on the Australian Australian ten-dollar note among other Greenway buildings. In 1973, the church appeared on a 50 cent postage stamp, one of four in a series illustrating Australian architecture issued to commemorate the opening of the Sydney Opera House. The Old Supreme Court Building next to the church is of the same date. Across the square is Greenway's "masterpiece" Hyde Park Barracks, designed to align with the church. Beside the barracks stands Sydney's oldest public building, part of the General Hospital built in 1811 and now known as the Mint Building. Separated from the Mint by the present-day Sydney Hospital is Parliament House, Sydney, of which the central section is a further part of the early hospital, and is now home to the New South Wales State Parliament.
The church was constructed between 1820 and 1824 with later additions made in 1834 by John Verge who designed the vestries at the eastern end. Apart from these vestries, which retain the established style and proportions, the church externally remains "fine Georgian" much as Greenway conceived it. Relying on the "virtues of simplicity and proportion to achieve his end", Greenway maintained the classical tradition, unaffected by the Revivalist styles that were being promoted in London at the time he arrived in the colony. He planned the church to align with his earlier Hyde Park Barracks, constructed in 1817–19. The two buildings have similar proportions, pilasters and gables and together constitute an important example of town-planning. Before the advent of high-rise buildings, the 150 foot spire used to "serve as a guide for mariners coming up Port Jackson".
St James' originally took the form of a simple rectangular block, without transepts or chancel, with a tower at the western end and a classical portico of the Doric order on either side. To this has been added Verge's vestry framed by two small porticos, and a similar portico as an entrance to the tower. The church is built of local brick, its walls divided by brick pilasters into a series of bays. The walls are pierced by large windows with round arched heads in a colour that separates and defines them against the walls. The roof carries over the end walls with the gable forming triangular pediments of classical proportions carrying a cornice across the eaves line. Thus the architectural treatment on the side walls is continued around the end walls."
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