# Baha'i Faith in Australia 1947-1963

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Graham Hassall, Baha'i Faith in Australia 1947-1963, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Bahá'í Faith in Australia 1947-1963
> 
> Graham Hassall
> published in 75 Years of the Bahá'í Faith in Australasia
> 
> Rosebery: Association for Bahá'í Studies Australia, 1996
> 
> This paper outlines some of the salient episodes in the evolution of
> the Australian Bahá'í community during the years 1947-1963.[1] I commence with an observation
> about method and perspective. This is not the only history that might be written, merely a
> history from my perspective, reliant on the evidence I have been able to find. Religious
> history entails, no doubt, recounting the lives of significant individuals, and the growth
> of the institutions and ideals of religion in a particular social and historical context.
> One must make sure, however, to find the "history of religion" in the historical
> evidence, rather than impose a "religious" view of history on it. We seek to
> write a sympathetic history, in other words, which is true to the facts, the feelings, the
> emotions and motives, as they occurred at the time. In this way we can document a
> community and individuals undergoing gradual transformation, from stages of lesser to
> greater progress and spiritual perfection. In this way too, the Bahá'í community is
> encountered as a "model for study", and yields historically verifiable proof
> that peoples and communities can transform, under the spell of Bahá'u'lláh's Divine
> principles, and overcome their former limitations.
> 
> In God Passes By Shoghi Effendi documents the virtual eclipse of
> the Babi Faith in the tragic period following the martyrdom of the Bab. Why? Because this
> was the historical truth, and because his purpose was to give the historical lesson to the
> effect that this cause can triumph over seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The world has
> always required heroes, and the Bahá'ís must acknowledge theirs. At one level Bahá'í
> history may be read as the working out of divine Providence, but for the historian,
> providential acts are conveyed by people, with both their innate weaknesses and strengths.
> A balanced account, therefore, must present all, and narrate a story to the extent that it
> is comprehendable. The historian cannot uncover all the actors, all the motives, all the
> causes, and can only offer a humble and partial account of what he or she sees.
> 
> The Study of Religion in Australia
> 
> In the 1960s, study of the history of religions in Australia focussed
> predominantly on relations between Catholics, Protestants, and the state. As is well
> known, much of the religious life of Anglo-Australia occurred within the contexts of
> Christian sectarianism, and the post-Enlightenment expansion of secular thought. The
> national census of 1966 indicated there were a mere 8,804 adherents of non-Christian
> religions other than Islam and Judaism in the Australian population.[2] Hence early studies such as Mol's Religion
> in Australia make passing reference to Judaism, but do not mention other great
> traditions such as Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism.[3]
> 
> Within two decades, however, partly as a result of Australia's
> restructured migration policies, under which many thousands of peoples of other races,
> nations and creeds came to settle here, Michael Hogan notes in The Sectarian Strand
> there is now "little question" that Australia has become a "much more
> pluralist society":
> 
> Christian churches now compete for influence in society with many
> more sources of influences than previously. New styles of religious enthusiasm compete
> with the established churches. Oriental sects like the Hari Krishnas and ancient religions
> like Islam and Buddhism demand attention.[4]
> 
> Breward has similarly observed:
> 
> Since the 1960s, there has been a marked increase in the variety of
> Australian religiosity, ranging from small migrant groups from historic churches like the
> Assyrians and the Copts to exotic sects from Asia and North America, of whom the Moonies
> and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness are the most widely known. There
> are a variety of groups related in different ways to the schools of Hinduism and Buddhism,
> as well as the divisions of Islam and Judaism.[5]
> 
> Breward's footnote to this passage refers to Many Faiths; One Nation,
> a work edited by Ian Gillman to mark Australia's bi-centennial year in 1988, in which the
> stories of religious communities both small and large are told. Many Faiths
> includes a first account, however brief, of the historical origins of the Bahá'í Faith
> in Australia.[6] There
> are a number of manuscript histories, including Graeme Potter Rouhani's Dawn in the
> West; and Ron Price's The Tinderbox is Lit. There is, too, Margaret Cockett's
> 1961 thesis presented at the University of Sydney, A Sociological Study of the Bahá'í
> Faith in New South Wales. Although several additional papers have appeared since,[7] this community remains one of the
> lesser known religious traditions in Australia and the South Pacific.[8]
> 
> Even within the discourse of Bahá'í studies, the histories of
> Bahá'í communities in Western societies - such as Australia, but also including Great
> Britain, European countries, and even North America - are less well known, and less
> documented, than their third world and middle-eastern counterparts. Perhaps their
> histories are regarded as somehow less colourful than the histories of the Bahá'í
> community in Iran which has faced so much persecution; or its sister communities in other
> Islamic countries which have been similarly persecuted.[9]
> 
> The Australian Bahá'í Community to 1947
> 
> Clara and Hyde Dunn, both of whom had met Abdu'l-Bahá in California in
> 1912, arrived in Australia in April 1920. At an advanced age Hyde Dunn worked his way
> around the Australian continent as a travelling salesman, and gradually attracted a small
> Bahá'í following, including Oswald Whitaker, of Sydney, and Effie Baker, of Melbourne.
> With the passing of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in November 1921, leadership of the Bahá'í community
> transferred to his grandson, Shoghi Effendi, whose station as "Guardian" of the
> Bahá'í Faith, conferred on him in 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Will and Testament, was
> intended as the first stage in the evolution of the Bahá'í pattern of administration. In
> his work Advent of Divine Justice Shoghi Effendi referred to the "solid
> achievements, spiritual as well as administrative" of the Australian Bahá'ís.[10] A National Spiritual Assembly of
> the Bahá'ís of Australia and New Zealand had been established 1934, the first summer
> school at what was to become the Yerrinbool Bahá'í School took place in 1938. A national
> Haziratu'l-Quds (administrative headquarters) was established in Sydney in 1944. In 1947 the
> number of delegates to National Convention increased from 9 to 19.
> 
> The Six Year Plan, 1947-53
> 
> During the six years from 1947-1953 Bahá'í communities were expanding
> on every continent. By 1953 there were twelve National Spiritual Assemblies in the world,
> and this number was to rise by 1963 to a total of 56. When the Australian and New Zealand
> Bahá'ís commenced a six year plan of expansion and consolidation in 1947 they numbered
> five Local Assemblies, and five groups.[11] The task in the six year plan was to achieve an additional 31 groups and 7 more LSAs. To the Assemblies already existing in Sydney,
> Adelaide, Auckland, Caringbah and Yerrinbool were to be added others in Brisbane,
> Melbourne, Hobart, Perth, Woodville, Port Adelaide, and Wollongong. The five existing
> groups - Albert Park, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart and Perth - were each to become
> Assemblies, and a further 31 groups were to be formed: 8 in NSW; 5 in Victoria; 8 in South
> Australia; 5 in Tasmania; and 4 in New Zealand. The actual rates of growth in the numbers
> of Bahá'ís in the states of Australia and in New Zealand were quite low, as evident in
> this table calculated from reports in Bahá'í Quarterly.
> 
> State1947-481948-491949-501950-511951-521952-53
> 
> NSW8131941014
> 
> QLD--11643
> 
> SA99163158
> 
> TAS1331113
> 
> VIC31-33-
> 
> WA-61--1
> 
> NT------
> 
> NZ54121256
> 
> Totals263662293845
> 
> Table: New Bahá'ís in Australia and New Zealand by state
> 
> The redefinition of community boundaries
> 
> One of the major issues affecting the Bahá'ís at this time was a
> purely administrative matter. Prior to the establishment of any form of Bahá'í
> administration, the question as to where the boundaries of one community ended and those
> of its neighbour commenced was moot: the Bahá'ís in the major cities regarded themselves
> as members of one large, informal group. With the addition of additional members, however,
> some of whom resided further from the city centre than others, the matter of forming
> smaller Bahá'í groups in outer suburbs began to surface. As simple as this appears in
> hindsight, the process of multiplying the number of communities proved quite traumatic,
> and must be regarded as one of the most tense moments in the Australian Bahá'í
> community's brief history.
> 
> In June 1947 the National Spiritual Assembly decided to allow
> Adelaide's Communities to organise themselves according to the city's postal boundaries.
> Then, in November 1948, the National Spiritual Assembly decided that the area of
> jurisdiction of the major cities would be the "the city proper", and wrote to
> all assemblies seeking the names of all Bahá'ís and the civil areas in which they lived.
> The Melbourne Bahá'ís requested the National Spiritual Assembly to shed "a little
> more light" on its understanding of the term "areas of jurisdiction". Great
> efforts were being made at this time to boost the number of Local Assemblies around
> Australia: Yerrinbool Local Spiritual Assembly was established in December 1947, and the
> Local Spiritual Assemblies of Hobart, Perth, and Brisbane were formed at Ridvan (April 21)
> 1949.
> 
> These developments occurred at the same time that the National
> Assembly's legal committee was seeking a strategy for the incorporation of the various
> Local Spiritual Assemblies. On 7 June 1949 committee member and lawyer Jeff Dive outlined
> to the National Teaching Committee on behalf of the Legal Committee his plan for Local
> Assemblies to benefit from a "uniform type of incorporation - by virtue of a special
> act of parliament framed on the lines of the Churches of Christ act 1947". The
> success of the "Incorporation Plan, Dive suggested, would largely depend on the
> success of the teaching plan, as he felt there had to be more LSAs in the State of NSW to
> justify an approach to the State Parliament. The Legal Committee had thus asked the
> National Teaching Committee to recommend that the Sydney Assembly be asked to "take
> steps to arrange for groups to be formed from certain of its community members with the
> objective of encouraging such groups to attain Assembly status in the shortest possible
> time."
> 
> The Legal Committee had identified two areas in Sydney, and three in
> Adelaide, which he believed had sufficient numbers of Bahá'ís to establish Local
> Spiritual Assemblies separate to the original Sydney Assembly. Bahá'ís resident in North
> Sydney were Mr G. Bartell, Clara Dunn, Gladys Moody, W. Hancock, James and Antoinette
> Lovelady, and Jimmy Maxwell; those in Ku-ring-gai were Meg Degotardi, N. Nowland, and Noel
> and Bessie Walker. In South Australia the Committee had identified Burnside, Payneham and
> Unley groups (The Bahá'ís in Burnside were Mrs Almond, Mrs Frick, Mrs Patrick, Mrs
> Roper, Mrs Johnson, and Hilda and Ewart Thomas; in Payneham: W & G Allen, Miss J
> Clark, Bertha and Joe Dobbins, and Florence and Harold Fitzner; and those in Unley:
> Margaret and Jim Chittleborough, E Hawthorne, Bill Motteram, Grace Muffin, Ilma Scotland,
> and H. Tymons.[12] The
> National Spiritual Assembly decided at a special meeting in August 1949 to instruct the
> NTC to "put into operation a plan whereby groups will be formed from the Adelaide
> Bahá'í Community.
> 
> Members of that Community, however, reacted in different ways. Two
> couples, the Dobbins and the Allens, resigned from Adelaide community in November 1949 to
> join the new Payneham community, and Bertha Dobbins and Will Allen resigned from the
> Assembly. The remainder of the community, who had also received resignation forms from the
> National Assembly, met at their centre at Eagle Chambers in Pirie Street on 8 December,
> and accepted Adelaide Local Spiritual Assembly's advice to not proceed individually in the
> matter, since they were "under the jurisdiction of their local assembly, which
> assembly is at present in consultation with the National Assembly and the Guardian on this
> question".[13]
> 
> Adelaide Assembly's view was that although the national body had
> written to it on 8 August indicating what they intended doing, this was not sufficient
> consultation on such an important matter.[14] This view was also expressed in the responses of individual Adelaide Bahá'ís.
> Eric Bowes, for instance, wrote that the National Teaching Committee's letter had caused
> him "much mental pain and embarrassment" and that he had acceded to its request
> to convene the Burnside group only under protest, and suggested that the National Assembly
> had not made clear whether it was acting under specific instructions of the Guardian.
> 
> "If the NSA were endeavouring to put into effect a move that they
> believed would be in the best interest of the Faith throughout Australia, then I feel they
> should have first written to the Adelaide LSA setting out the plans they envisaged, and
> requesting the LSA to call the Friends together for consultation on the proposals. If,
> after acting as set out above, no agreement could be reached, then the matter could have
> been referred to the Guardian."[15]
> 
> Bowes' letter was passed to the National Spiritual Assembly by the
> National Teaching Committee, which commented:
> 
> "The attitude of the Adelaide Spiritual Asssembly (as conveyed in its
> circular to community members) completely negatives this Committee's efforts to carry out
> the NSAs wishes the instructions to form new Groups there.
> 
> The NTC will await your further instructions as there is nothing more
> it can do meantime in this matter".[16]
> 
> On 21 December Adelaide Assembly informed the National Spiritual
> Assembly that it had appealed the matter to Shoghi Effendi. The National Assembly, in
> turn, did not accept a list of members provided by Adelaide Assembly, and sent its own
> appeal to the Guardian. Whereas Adelaide insisted it had 50 members, the National
> Assembly, adhering to the new local community boundaries, recognised only 18, having
> placed the remainder in new localities. Thirty-six members of the community were affected
> by the changes, including 8 members of the LSA (only Dorothy Dugdale continued on the
> Assembly after 1950). On 28 December 1949 Shoghi Effendi replied that Adelaide should
> comply with the National Spiritual Assembly's wishes, and Mrs Johnson, Hilda Thomas,
> Harold and Florence Fitzner, Silver Jackman, Leila Clark, and Bill Motteram subsequently
> resigned from the Adelaide Assembly. The National Spiritual Assembly appointed Collis
> Featherstone, Bertha Dobbins and Ethel Dawe to organise a by-election on 17 March 1950 to
> replace eight members of the Adelaide Assembly. Hilda Thomas and Leila Clark were among
> those elected. Four new groups were established, and Adelaide Assembly was allotted just
> two delegates to the 1950 convention.
> 
> Despite tensions such as occurred in Adelaide as a result of a change
> in policy at the national level, the Bahá'í community as a whole expanded at a steady
> rate. At the end of the six-year teaching plan the community comprised 14 Local Assemblies
> and 45 other localities, although membership still numbered less than 200.[17] However, apart from isolated
> instances of press and radio coverage and innumerable publicly advertised meetings and
> other events held in conjunction with a range of social and religious organisations, the
> vast majority of Australians still had no knowledge of the Bahá'í Teachings.
> 
> The Ten Year World Crusade, 1953-63
> 
> The decade 1953-1963 held great promise and produced remarkable results
> for the Australasian Bahá'ís. In June 1952 the Guardian had addressed them as: "the
> members of the youthful yet vigorously functioning community, championing the Cause of
> Bahá'u'lláh in the Antipodes who, by reason of their close proximity, are expected to
> contribute a substantial share to the establishment of the institutions of the Faith in
> the numerous and widely scattered islands and archipelagoes of the South Pacific
> Ocean".[18] The
> significance of that year - 1963 - consisted in its being the centenary of the public
> "proclamation" of the mission of Bahá'u'lláh, and Shoghi Effendi had designed
> a masterful ten-year "Global Crusade" to be completed in the decade leading to
> it. This plan of action required the Bahá'ís of Australia and New Zealand to carry out
> one of 12 multi-faceted, trans-continental, decade-long programs designed to widen its
> base, strengthen its institutions, and assist in laying the foundations for the
> establishment of the Universal House of Justice.
> 
> The plan called for doubling the number of Local Assemblies in
> Australia and New Zealand; and obtaining legal incorporation for 19 of them; translation
> and publication of literature into 40 new languages in cooperation with the Indian
> Bahá'ís; purchase of land for a future Temple (Mashriqu'l-Adhkar); the formation and
> legal incorporation of a separate National Assembly in New Zealand; the purchase of land,
> and a national Headquarters (Haziratu'l-Quds) in Auckland; and the establishment of a
> legal branch of the Australian National Assembly in Israel.
> 
> The years of the Crusade were full of both crises and victories for
> Bahá'ís in different parts of the world. Persecution of Bahá'ís in Iran, in Morocco,
> unheralded expansion of Bahá'í communities in Asia and Africa, the untimely passing of
> Shoghi Effendi in 1957, the stewardship of the Hands of the Cause of God - the conducting
> of these soul-stirring events all in virtual obscurity, in a world engrossed in its own
> concerns. The decade 1953-63 coincided with considerable social and political turmoil in
> world affairs. Global combat had ceased following the allied victory in world war two, but
> militarism continued during the 'Cold War' (1947-1990) which pitted the so-called
> 'superpowers' and their allies in geo-political struggle and ideological difference: the
> Berlin blockade (1948-49); the Korean War (1950-53); construction of the Berlin wall
> (1961); the Indo-China war (1945-75); and the Cuban missile crisis (1962) - were only the
> more notable episodes in this tense period of history, which was also marked by the
> aftermath of the Communist victory in China (1949); discovery of the excesses of Stalinist
> rule in the USSR following that leader's death in 1953; atmospheric testing and
> proliferation of thermo-nuclear weapons; the elaboration of apartheid in South Africa; and
> the rise of anti-colonialist and nationalist movements throughout Africa and Asia. It was
> in the context of such global convulsions that Bahá'í pioneers sought to transcend
> cultural, religious and political boundaries, to plant the seeds of Bahá'u'lláh's World
> Order. Although Australians probably considered themselves isolated from many of these
> difficulties, Shoghi Effendi said Australia was "impotent to extricate herself"
> from world conditions.[19]
> 
> Propagation
> 
> For Bahá'ís, the process of propagation is couched in a series of
> rules, which individual members observed to greater and lesser degrees, in accord with
> their own measure of zeal, wisdom, and enthusiasm. They may offer their message, but
> cannot press it, and they cannot engage in argumentation, since Bahá'u'lláh has
> established that the purpose of religion is to establish peace, and that if two people
> argue, both are wrong. Furthermore, Bahá'í discourse favours rational proofs and
> persuasive arguments, but forbids the "sowing of seeds of doubt in faithful
> hearts". Such guidelines had practical implications for the Australian Bahá'ís.
> They had to be open but not pushy, and allow responses to come from those who genuinely
> wished to know more. The Bahá'í agenda brought a measure of success but also a number of
> difficulties. Few could disagree with the majority of the principles, since they embody
> the highest aspirations for many in society. But for exactly the same reason, few could
> view the Bahá'ís as anything but idealists, who advocated unobtainable objectives.
> Furthermore, Bahá'í concerns were differed markedly to those which exercised the public
> mind in Australia in the 1950s. A report of a meeting in Hobart in early 1961 exemplifies
> the Bahá'í "public meeting", of which hundreds were held during the decade of
> the World Crusade:
> 
> Hobart: Public Meeting was attended by an audience of 50,
> including about 36 non-Bahá'ís. Chairman of the meeting was Professor Townsley of the
> University of Tasmania.
> 
> "World Unity" was the theme of the meeting. Mr. Harrison of
> the United Nations Association spoke on "Should Race be a Barrier to World
> Unity"; Mr. Trott of the University spoke on "World Government" and
> visiting Bahá'í Mr. Frank Khan spoke on "World Unity through World Faith". At
> the conclusion of the meeting, Professor Townsley suggested that the audience investigate
> the Bahá'í teachings.
> 
> A number of posters were used to publicise the meeting, and some 200
> invitations were sent out. A report of the meeting appeared in the Hobart
> "Mercury".[20]
> 
> The prospect of informing a secularised and mostly disinterested
> Australian society about Bahá'í belief was no doubt one both daunting and challenging.
> Methods of propagation included the placing of advertisements in local papers and on
> radio, the holding of public meetings, placement of books in public libraries, the holding
> of small group discussions in family homes. Frequently, Bahá'ís shared platforms with
> branches of the United Nations Association, and at other times joined and other religious
> communities in observance of World Religion Day. The 1961 observance in Sydney, according
> to one report, attracted some 200 people.[21] Individual Bahá'ís continued their interest in Esperanto, although probably
> with less intensity than had existed in the 1920s and 30s.
> 
> Prominent speakers such as Hilda Brooks, first secretary of the
> Australian and New Zealand National Spiritual Assembly, travelled constantly to speak at
> public meetings and in private homes. Other constant travel teachers included Frank Khan,
> Eric Bowes, Collis Featherstone, Thelma Perks. Periodically, Bahá'ís from other
> countries arrived to conduct speaking tours: A.Q. Faizi and A.A. Furutan; Shirin Fozdar;
> Dr Rahmat Muhajir, and William Sears. Such international travellers attracted a certain
> measure of publicity. Shirin Fozdar, for example, Chairman of the National Assembly of
> Southeast Asia, and secretary of the Singapore Council of Women, toured Australia in 1952
> and again in January 1960. In Perth she spoke at a series of lectures arranged by Mrs B.M.
> Rischbieth, of the Women's Service Guild (who had assisted Martha Root in 1939) and was
> featured in the Daily News (6 January) and the West Australian (7 January).
> Similar meetings and press coverage were obtained in the other Australian states.[22]
> 
> Homefront pioneering
> 
> The task of multiplying the geographic spread of Bahá'í communities
> within Australia constituted the most arduous of the Crusade's objectives. The community
> knew full well the prevailing attitudes toward religion in Australian society, let alone
> attitudes toward beliefs outside the Christian tradition, couched in unfamiliar
> terminology. Moreover, many members had experienced, at the time they chose to become
> Bahá'ís, the prejudices of family and friends, who in many cases rejected them without
> engaging in reasoned discussion of what it was that they had so enthusiastically embraced.
> 
> The Bahá'ís were fully aware of their limited resources and fewness
> of numbers, and the challenge was not made easier by the departure to the Pacific of a
> number of the community's most active and able members, including six of the nine members
> of the National Assembly elected for that year. In these limited circumstances several
> towns and cities were selected in each state to be the recipients of concerted publicity
> and related activities. In New South Wales Bahá'ís were visiting Tamworth, Bathurst,
> Gosford, Griffith, Glen Innes, Liverpool, Maitland, Nowra, Parramatta, Grafton, Bowral,
> Wagga, Albury, Newcastle, Wollongong, Canberra. In Victoria, efforts were focused on
> Warrnambool, Geelong, Ballarat. In South Australia, regular visits were being made to the
> country towns of Clare, Kapunda, Port Pirie, Tarlee, Gawler, Tanunda, Nuriootpa and
> Lobethal. Additional towns were selected in Western Australia and Queensland.
> 
> As the years of the Crusade progressed, and the deadline for the
> settlement of towns approached, individuals and families made decisions to relocate,
> either for a short term, or permanently. For instance, physiotherapist Jim Chittleborough
> and his wife Margaret moved from the Adelaide suburb of Unley to Naracoorte; accountant
> Colin Duncan and his wife Allaine, a speech therapist, who moved from Sydney to Tamworth,
> N.S.W. By 1963 families in most states had relocated from the major centres to one or
> another country town.
> 
> International pioneering
> 
> Arguably the most eventful of the Crusade activities concerned
> expansion into the Pacific Islands. For several years, individual Bahá'ís including
> Mariette Bolton and Alvin Blum had visited New Caledonia and Fiji, where small communities
> had been established. From 1953, the Australian and New Zealand National Assembly, through
> its "Asian Teaching Committee", co-ordinated the settlement of
> "pioneers" in the Cocos Islands, New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), Portuguese Timor,
> Society Islands (French Polynesia); Bismarck Archipelago, New Guinea mainland and
> Admiralty Islands (Manus) in Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and New Caledonia. Having no
> missionary tradition, and very little knowledge of Pacific Islands cultures, the Bahá'ís
> held a "South Pacific School" in May 1953, to which they invited to address them
> noted experts of the day. It was conducted over two-days at 2 Lang Road. Audiences of
> 30-50 listened to lectures by such authorities as the anthropologist A.P. Elkin, the
> linguist Arthur Capell, and Pacific Islands Monthly editor R.W. Robson. A
> "Pacific Research Committee" produced a 60-page book of valuable information
> about the South Pacific, for those who were hoping to pioneer.
> 
> As noted above, six members of the 1953 National Assembly members were
> among the pioneers to these destinations. The Admiralty Islands (Manus) of Papua New
> Guinea were opened by Violet Hoehnke in July 1954; Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean by
> Frank Wyss in June 1955. The Loyalty Islands, which form part of New Caledonia, were
> settled briefly by Daniel Haumont in October 1955. The Mentawei Islands of the coast of
> Sumatra in Indonesia, although an Australian goal, were settled by Persian Bahá'ís
> Rahmatu'llah and Iran Muhajir in February 1954. Adelaide school-teacher Bertha Dobbins
> moved to Vila in the New Hebrides in October 1953 and remained until 1980. Adelaide
> Bahá'ís Harold and Florence Fitzner moved to Portuguese Timor in June 1954. Yet another
> Adelaide Bahá'í, Irene Jackson, moved to Fiji. Tasmanians Gretta Lamprill and Glad Parke
> travelled to the Society Islands (French Polynesia) in October 1954: as they were not
> French citizens they were not allowed to stay. Pacific Bahá'í communities grew more
> rapidly that those in Australia and New Zealand, and in 1992 account for the highest per
> capita Bahá'í populations in any part of the world.
> 
> Institutional development
> 
> During the years of the Crusade the administrative order of the
> Bahá'í community experienced considerable development both globally and nationally. As
> Guardian of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi guided the establishment of an order in which
> authority and responsibility are devolved from global to national and even local level;
> and which maximises global adherence to essentials while safeguarding regional diversity
> in all secondary matters. His directives to the Australian Assemblies, both National and
> Local, encouraged their strict observance of uniform procedure, and their freedom to
> exercise their own judgement. During the Crusade, the mechanism for electing the National
> Assembly underwent refinement. From 1954 the number of delegates to National Convention
> was rose from 19 to 38. In 1955 Shoghi Effendi called for the establishment of a separate
> National Spiritual Assembly for New Zealand. This was achieved in 1957. Bahá'í
> institutions gradually acquired legal recognition, which brought a protection in law
> already enjoyed by other religious communities in Australia, allowed Assemblies to hold
> title to property, and facilitated recognition of Bahá'í marriage ceremonies and burial
> procedures.
> 
> Approval was also gained from various state authorities for Bahá'ís
> to absent themselves from work on the occasion of Bahá'í holy days. Australia's federal
> legal structure and specific laws relating to recognition of religious bodies required
> meant that the various forms of recognition were received at different times in different
> states. By April 1950 the Department of Education in the State of Victoria recognized
> Bahá'í Holy Days. An Israel Branch of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís
> of Australia and New Zealand was formed by April 1954. Early in 1954 land was purchased on
> Mt Carmel "to the west of the Bab's resting place" registered in the name of the
> Israel branch of the NSA of Australia and New Zealand.[23] A plot of land valued at $5,000 was being registered in
> its name by Ridvan 1955.[24] Holy days recognised in Victoria and South Australia by 1957. The Australian
> National Spiritual Assembly was incorporated in 1961.
> 
> Accompanying gradual recognition under civil law was the steady
> adoption of Bahá'í law. Most laws concerning personal status had been effective since
> formation of the National Assembly in 1934. When Shoghi Effendi ruled in 1954-55 that
> Bahá'ís could not concurrently be members of secret societies, several Australian
> members were requested to withdraw from Freemasonry: those who did not had their voting
> rights removed.
> 
> The Administrative Order
> 
> Shoghi Effendi appointed people of mature experience, between 1951 and
> 1957, as "Hands of the Cause", to assist and advise him in each continent. In
> 1952 he appointed Clara Dunn, a "Hand", responsible for advising and protecting
> the growth of the administrative institutions in Australasia. Two years later, when he
> instructed the Hands on each continent to appoint members to an "Auxiliary
> Board", Clara Dunn appointed Collis Featherstone and Thelma Perks. Their subsequent
> activities consolidated the "appointed" arm, which was empowered to advise and
> consult the "elected" arm, the Local Assemblies, just as the Hands were
> empowered to advise National Assemblies. Thelma Perks later served as a Counsellor on the
> Australasian Board. Collis Featherstone was himself appointed a Hand of the Cause in 1957.
> He travelled extensively in Australia, often visiting parliamentarians, religious leaders,
> and other public officials. In 1958 he appointed as additional Auxiliary Board Members for
> the Pacific region, Hugh Blundell, in New Zealand, and Margaret Rowling, in Fiji.
> 
> The Mashriqu'l-Adhkár
> 
> A fresh outbreak of persecution of the Bahá'ís in Iran in 1955 had
> halted plans to construct a Mashriqu'l-Adhkár (House of Worship) in Tehran,
> the capital of Iran, leading Shoghi Effendi to decide to build two: in Kampala, Uganda,
> and Sydney, Australia. A seven-acre site was acquired in February 1956. Plans to build the
> Temple were officially announced at the 1957 convention. Funds were raised within
> Australia and from the Bahá'ís from around the world, and the nine-sided, domed Mashriqu'l-Adhkár
> of simple concrete and marble construction was dedicated in September 1961. The building
> of this Temple, more than any other activity of the Bahá'ís, aroused public curiosity.
> The Brisbane Telegraph, reported on 17 January 1958 "The Bahá'ís build a
> church":
> 
> The followers of a nineteenth century Persian nobleman will build a
> £150,000 nine-sided House of Worship 22 miles from Sydney within the next 13 months. The
> House of Worship will be the centre of a hospital, school for orphaned children, and a
> college for higher education, making the temple a spiritual centre for all forms of
> culture, education and welfare work.
> 
> The Sydney House of Worship will be the third built by the Faith, which
> has 8 million followers in 3,700 localities in the world.
> 
> Americans were largely responsible for the spread of the Faith, and two
> brought it to Australia in 1920. It first came to Brisbane in 1923. The followers were
> given assembly status in 1949 and it was recognised by the state government under the
> Religious Institutions Act in January this year.
> 
> A Brisbane follower said there were nearly 500 Bahá'ís in Australia -
> 22 of them in Brisbane.
> 
> The Lord Major of Sydney held a reception for international dignitaries
> present for the dedication, and the Daily Telegraph for 18 September reported 100
> visitors from 20 countries among a total of 1,800 at the opening. Press coverage at the
> time was considerable, and resulted in several articles appearing in church newspapers. In
> addition to domestic press, brief articles about the Bahá'í Faith appeared at during
> this period in such international news magazines as Time, and the Economist.[25] The persecution of Bahá'ís in
> Iran which resulted in the building of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár in Sydney also
> hastened the migration of Persian Bahá'ís to Australia and New Zealand - although not in
> the substantial numbers following the later, 1979 Islamic revolution.
> 
> Increasing public awareness
> 
> In May 1958 Sydney hosted one of four intercontinental conferences
> called by the Guardian to mark the mid-way point of the Crusade. Mason Remey was directed
> to attend the Sydney conference, and to bring a portion of earth from the Shrine of
> Bahá'u'lláh, a lock of His hair, and a reproduction of his portrait. The earth was to be
> placed in the foundations of the Sydney temple. The conference was one of the first
> opportunities for the Australian Bahá'ís to meet fellow believers from the countries of
> Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. The unremitting efforts of the Bahá'í gradually
> attracted a greater measure of media coverage, although this was more often in provincial
> and suburban papers than in the city dailies. The Northern Argus in Clare, South
> Australia, (circulation 12,000) frequently reprinted articles submitted by Hilda Brooks
> and Rose Hawthorne to the editor, who had become quite sympathetic. The Advocate,
> in Devonport, Tasmania, carried an exchange of letters to the editor about the Bahá'í
> Faith between March and June 1961 from which neither correspondent departed victor.
> Articles and news items appeared in such diverse publications as the Northern Territory
> News, Parade, People, and Sydney's Daily Mirror.
> 
> Scholarship
> 
> The imperative for Bahá'ís to "teach" their Faith was
> accompanied by another to "deepen" their knowledge of it. One could argue that
> the anti-intellectual strand in the Australian social fabric inevitably influenced those
> Australians who became Bahá'ís, and the apparent distance between Bahá'í writings
> which uphold and extol the validity of intellectual inquiry and freedom of speech on the
> one hand, and the measured anti-intellectualism of many in the Australian community on the
> other, constituted one of its major challenges. This is not to say that there were no
> intellectuals nor scholars in the community at this time. The desire to articulate
> Bahá'í viewpoints had prompted New Zealand Bahá'í Bertram Dewing to establish the
> magazine Herald of the South in 1925. Although intended as an instrument for
> outreach, the magazine was always in financial difficulty and never high in circulation.
> Its articles were popularly written, concise, and invariably focused on one or other of
> what were called the "12 principles".
> 
> The establishment of a Bahá'í Society at the University of Sydney in
> the 1950s, and the University of Queensland in 1961 suggests that a more educated
> generation of Bahá'ís was emerging. Notable among this group were Peter Khan, a
> University Medallist in Engineering who rose to become reader in engineering at the
> University of Queensland, and who is now a member of the Universal House of Justice. Other
> members included Pam Ringwood, now a senior legal academic in New Zealand, and David
> Podger, who studied anthropology and later computer science.
> 
> Additionally, an older generation of private scholars, such as Jim
> Heggie, a chiropractor who became absorbed in Quranic studies; Eric Bowes; and Frank Khan,
> a merchant of Urdu speaking Islamic background who became a Bahá'í in 1949, and who
> mastered Farsi (and some Arabic) in order to read Bahá'u'lláh's original Writings, were
> among those frequently engaged in study programs at the Yerrinbool School.
> 
> Response: the churches
> 
> Bahá'í activities gradually attracted responses from church leaders.
> Some wrote letters to the editors of regional newspapers, others editorialised in their
> church newspapers: The Anglican in Sydney, (4 April 1958); The Beacon, of
> Melbourne's Unitarian Church (March 1961); Fingerpost, an Anglican paper from
> Caringbah (October 1961 "The Truth about the Bahá'í Faith"); the Catholic
> Weekly (14 September 1961); Compass, an Anglican publication from Bathurst in
> New South Wales (April 1961); the South Australian Methodist (March and April 1961)
> and the Southern Cross, a Catholic publication from South Australia, in about April
> 1958.
> 
> Bahá'í beliefs were also noted in the works of clerics, such as
> Ernest H. Vines, and the Methodist Arnold Hunt. Vines, a past moderator of the
> Presbyterian Church in New South Wales, wrote in Gems of the East: A Brief Introduction
> to Non-Christian Religions:[26]
> 
> The Bahá'í Faith seems to be a religion of law; the religion of Jesus
> Christ is a religion of the Spirit. Bahá'u'lláh prays, "O God, destroy the
> Covenant-Breakers."[27] Jesus prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
> From the Christian point of view, the claims made by, and on behalf of, Bahá'u'lláh,
> seem extravagant and unacceptable; nevertheless much of the Bahá'í teaching is
> far-reaching and beautiful and fully in accord with the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
> 
> Before we can say adequately what Bahá'ís can teach Christians and
> what Christians can teach Bahá'ís, perhaps we need a deeper study of Jesus' teaching and
> the Bahá'í faith. Also Christians need greater knowledge of Bahá'ís. (p.88)
> 
> Given this even-handed assessment, Vines' book was evidently well
> received in the Bahá'í community. Arnold Hunt, Vice-Principal of the Methodist Wesley
> College in Wayville, South Australia, produced a booklet Who Are the Bahá'ís? in
> 1963 purporting to be "a Christian assessment" of the religion. Beginning with a
> reasonably accurate account of the Faith's history and teachings (apart from stating
> erroneously that Bahá'u'lláh died in 1912), Hunt offered several criticisms: it was
> "simply not true", wrote Vines, " that the great religions teach the same
> basic truths", citing different conceptions of God, and of "man's predicament
> and the way by which he may be saved from it." Furthermore, Hunt rejected the
> possibility of God's revelation other than through Christ:
> 
> We must grow "in" Christ but we do not grow
> "beyond" Christ in the sense of seeing in some later historical figure that
> which surpasses or completes the revelation given in Him".
> 
> As with Vines' work, Hunt's seems to have been appreciated by the
> Bahá'ís as being within the bounds of reasonable dialogue. Not all clerical attention
> was so kind. A Church of England newsletter from Semaphore in South Australia in June 1958
> commenced (with little need, I feel, for serious reply):
> 
> We sometimes see in the "Local Messenger" an advertisement
> concerning what is called the "Bahá'í World Faith". According to the
> advertisement the secretary lives within our parish, and interested persons are invited to
> make enquires concerning the "Faith" to him. I feel it might be of some interest
> to you to have me tell you something about the "Bahá'í World Faith", for I am
> sure many have read the advertisement, and are curious to know just what it is all about.
> So here goes!
> 
> The answer, briefly, is that Bahaism is just another heretical
> sect--and not even a Christian one--which started in Persia and has been taken up in that
> land of queer religions--America.
> 
> The Bahá'ís wrote and spoke of global issues; they spoke less often
> about local conditions and ideas. Quite possibly, this broader vision was not the most
> amenable to the public mind in Australia, and may have contributed to the difficulty the
> Bahá'ís had in obtaining the attention of the press. Bahá'í meetings remained,
> furthermore, strictly non-political, and this stance too may have affected the level of
> public interest. But Bahá'í discourse, it must be remembered, promoted values of
> religious and racial unity, at a time and amidst a culture characterised at the time by a
> pungent racism, religious bigotry, and cultural isolation and indifference.
> 
> Aboriginal Bahá'ís
> 
> Although most expansion during the Crusade occurred among
> Anglo-Australians, efforts were made to acquaint Aboriginals with the Bahá'í message.
> Efforts began in NSW (through Greta Lake), South Australia (Kath Harcus) and the Northern
> Territory (Frank Saunders) in the 1950s. In 1956 an "Aborigine Committee" was
> formed in Australia and a "Maori Committee" in New Zealand, to find means to
> take Bahá'í teachings to these communities. By 1963 some 25 Aboriginals had become
> Bahá'ís, and although there were several Aboriginal Bahá'ís by the 1990s, more
> investigation is required into the circumstances in which they joined the community, and
> into their experiences within it. By 1963 there were Bahá'ís among the Bunanditj and
> Narrogin peoples of South Australia, and the Jirkla, Minning and Minen of Western
> Australia. A number of Aboriginals had also become Bahá'ís in the Northern Territory.
> 
> At the completion of the World Crusade there were thirty Local
> Spiritual Assemblies (ninteen incorporated and eleven non-incorporated) in addition to 38
> groups having less than nine members and 43 single-person centres. The Australian
> Bahá'ís had thus increased the number of communities in ten years from 60 to some 110,[28] although the absolute number of
> adherents remained quite small. Despite the fewness of their members, the Bahá'ís of
> Australia had taken their Faith to a number of islands in the Pacific. In Sydney, they had
> built one of the few Temples (Mashriqu'l-Adhkár's) anywhere in the world. Further,
> they had established a pattern of community, and the basis of a religious culture, which
> shared similarities with Bahá'í communities in other countries, but which bore the
> influences of their own country and society.
> 
> The passing of Shoghi Effendi in November 1957, at the mid-point of the
> Crusade, brought a period of crisis to the global Bahá'í community. He had no heirs, and
> the Universal House of Justice had not yet been established. In this circumstance, and not
> wishing to subvert the constitutional processes already set in motion, the 27 remaining
> "Hands of the Cause" appointed by Shoghi Effendi exercised six years of
> "stewardship" until the election of the Universal House of Justice by members of
> 56 National Spiritual Assemblies in 1963. Thus, despite this set-back half way through
> this remarkable decade, its completion was crowned with a sense of accomplishment at
> global level, and no less so for the Australian Bahá'ís. The foundations had been
> secured for their subsequent challenges and evolution.
> 
> Notes
> 
> 1. This paper draws on materials held in the Australian National
> Bahá'í Archives. Box & bundloe numbers are indicated in footnotes.
> 
> 2. Official Yearbook of
> the Commonwealth of Australia, No 58, 1972, Commonwealth Bureau of Census and
> Statistics, Canberra, p1057.
> 
> 3. Hans Mol, Religion in
> Australia, Thomas Nelson, 1971.
> 
> 4. Michael Hogan, The
> Sectarian Strand: Religion in Australian History, Penguin, 1987, 256.
> 
> 5. Ian Breward, The Most
> Godless Place Under Heaven?, Beacon Hill Books, Melbourne, 1988, 79.
> 
> 6. Graham Hassall,
> "The Bahá'í Faith in Australia", in Ian Gillman (ed) Many Faiths, One
> Nation, William Collins, Melbourne, 1988.
> 
> 7. Graham Hassall,
> "Persian Bahá'ís in Australia", in Abe Ata (ed), Religion and Ethnic
> Identity: an Australian Study, vol.II, Victoria College & Spectrum, Melbourne,
> 1989; and "Outpost of a World Religion: the Bahá'í Faith in Australia
> 1920-1947", Journal of Religious History, 16:3, June 1991.
> 
> 8. Concerning Bahá'í
> communities in the Pacific Islands, see Graham Hassall, "Pacific Bahá'í Communities
> 1953-1964", Donald H. Rubinstein (ed), Pacific History: Papers from the 8th
> Pacific History Association Conference, University of Guam Press & Micronesian
> Area Research Center, Guam, pp.73-95.
> 
> 9. For an adequate
> introduction to the origins, history, and beliefs, of the Bahá'í Faith, not possible
> here, see Peter Smith, The Babi and Bahá'í Religions: From Messianic Shi'ism to a
> World Religion, Cambridge University Press, Great Britain, 1987.
> 
> 10. Shoghi Effendi, Advent
> of Divine Justice, 68.
> 
> 11. Legal Committee to
> National Teaching Committee, 0127/0034 NTC Corresp 1944-1952.
> 
> 12. Circular signed by H
> Fitzner, secretary of Adelaide Assembly.
> 
> 13. Eric Bowes, 12 December
> 1949, [0127/0034 NTC Corresp 1944-1952] .
> 
> 14. Eric Bowes, [0127/0034
> NTC Correspondence 1944-1952] .
> 
> 15. Jeff Dive, 16 December
> 1949.
> 
> 16. Shoghi Effendi refers
> to there being some 60 Bahá'í centres in Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania: Shoghi
> Effendi, Messages to the Bahá'í World, 148.
> 
> 17. Messages of the
> Guardian, 36.
> 
> 18. Shoghi Effendi, World
> Order of Bahá'u'lláh,31.
> 
> 19. Bahá'í Bulletin
> 80, March 1961, 8.
> 
> 20. Sydney Morning
> Herald, 16 January 1961: "World Religion Day, an annual event, brings together
> people of different religions to promote greater tolerance and understanding". The Daily
> Telegraph of the same date, noted the speakers who included Rev. R. Lubofsky
> (Judaism), Miss M.B. Byles (Buddhism), and Rev. E.H. Vines (Christianity). The meeting was
> chaired by P.J. Khan.
> 
> 21. Devonport Advocate,
> "Leading Asian Feminist in Devonport" [S. Fozdar] , 22 January 1960.
> 
> 22. Messages to the
> Bahá'í World, 70.
> 
> 23. Messages to the
> Bahá'í World, 79.
> 
> 24. Time 81:69, 26
> April 1963, "We love all religions".
> 
> 25. West Publishing
> Corporation, Sydney, 1958; third edition with introduction by A.P. Elkin 1970.
> 
> 26. These words do not
> appear in Bahá'u'lláh's writings, so must be a construction by Vines.
> 
> 27. Although one should not
> presume that all 30 Local Assemblies were functioning properly: Bahá'í Bulletin
> 129 May 65, p.11 suggests the Crusade ended with 32 LSAs, and that only 26 of these were
> functioning by April 1964.
> 
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> — *Baha'i Faith in Australia 1947-1963 (Used by permission of the curator)*