Henry Hussey (pastor)

Hussey found work selling bread door-to-door, as an office boy, on coastal shipping and other endeavours. In 1840 he moved with his father to Port Adelaide, and in August 1841 found employment as a compositor with the printer George Dehane, working on his short-lived newspaper The Adelaide Independent and Cabinet of Amusement. He tried country life for a while, but returned to Dehane's printery,[4] where he was involved in production of the first number of John Stephens' The Adelaide Observer (1 July 1843).[1]

His father ran a "bazaar" selling small luxuries, coupled with a land agency, on Hindley Street, at that time Adelaide's premier shopping strip, sharing the premises with his wife Catherine, who started a millinery business. He had plans to move his place of business to the newly developing Port Adelaide,[5] but died in September of the following year. Mrs Hussey's business flourished, and she built new premises on King William Street, between Rundle and Grenfell, in August 1844.[1]

By 1844 Hussey was an ardent church-goer, attending the (Anglican) Trinity Church, adjacent to Dehane's printery. He left Dehane and joined the staff of the General Post Office, delivering letters to the east side of the city, but after a few months returned again to the print shop. In 1850 he was able to branch out on his own, and in January 1851 printed the first issue of The Church Intelligencer and Christian Gleaner,[6] a subscription monthly edited by Archdeacon Hale and the Revs. W. J. Woodcock and W. H. Coombs. This publication ceased in April 1852,[7] at a time of recession brought about by the rush to the goldfields of Victoria.[1] Hussey took over printing and publication of The Register, up to that time handled by William Kyffin Thomas, commencing with the issue of 11 February 1852.[8] Kyffin Thomas returned to the newspaper early in the new year (he had been at the goldfields). Hussey returned to job printing in July 1853 from premises on King William Street, opposite the Southern Cross Hotel. In 1854 he took on J. T. Shawyer as partner[9] David Gall was admitted to the partnership in July 1855,[10] trading as Hussey, Shawyer and Gall on King William Street, "near Green's Exchange",[11] which may have been the same premises at 47 King William Street later described as "adjacent Green's Auction Mart", "at the end of a long passage".[12] Shawyer left in 1856 to open his own printery on Gawler Place,[13] and Hussey and Gall continued to March 1857.

In December 1853 his mother sold her premises on King William Street to F. H. Faulding for £1,000 and reopened on O'Connell Street, North Adelaide.[14] She apportioned her windfall gains to her children; Henry used his share to purchase further blocks of land: one on Victoria Square, one on Wellington Square, one at Goolwa, and one at Port Elliot.

From January[15] to December 1854 Hussey (or Hussey & Shawyer) published The South Australian Sunday School Magazine

In July 1858 he published the first number of the monthly quarto The Christian Advocate and Southern Observer. At some stage Gall took over publication and the quarter beginning July 1859 may have been its last.[16]

Rather than retire from business altogether, Hussey accepted a position in the Government Printing Office. In 1866 George Fife Angas, a wealthy pastoralist and member of Hussey's church, offered him a position as his private secretary, succeeding William Ramage Lawson, who had embarked on a career in journalism. Among his duties was the selection and collection of personal papers for a biography of the great man. He also assisted him in founding the Bushman's Home,[17] opened on the south-east corner of Whitmore Square, a building previously the city residence of Judge Cooper, in May 1870/[18]

Although already a regular churchgoer, Hussey's interest in religion quickened around the time he started at Dehane's printery on Morphett Street and became involved with the nearby Trinity Church. From 1844, at age 18, to 1851 he conducted Bible classes for children of the church.[19] He was at Holy Trinity during the incumbency of Colonial Chaplain C. B. Howard and James Farrell, a pre-millenarian, who may have ignited his preoccupation with the Second Coming and Scriptural prophesies. He moved to North Adelaide, and started a Sunday School at Christ Church on 23 December 1849. In March 1853 he was licensed as a lay reader by Bishop Short.

He was invited to a preliminary meeting held 8 February 1853 to start a local chapter of the Young Men's Christian Association (now YMCA) by Charles Henry Goode. (Goode was one of its first members in London, and a close acquaintance of founder George Williams.) The formation meeting, held four months later, was addressed by W. Roby Fletcher.[1]

In April 1854 Hussey left the printing business in the hands of his partner, John Thomas Shawyer (1825–1895), and left on a trip to the United States, visiting Tahiti and Panama on the way. He had previously had misgivings about the baptism of children, and while in the United States he came under the influence of the "Disciples of Christ", whose tenets included adult baptism by total immersion. He was baptised by its founder Alexander Campbell (1788–1866) at Bethany, Virginia on 6 August 1854. He continued to England, where he prepared his book The Australian Colonies for publication.

On his return to South Australia after more than a year's absence, he lectured at the Bible Christian Church, whose views on baptism were similar to his own, at their chapel in Franklin Street[20] (later known as Maughan Church). He attracted some followers in the districts south of Adelaide such as McLaren Vale, and baptised them in local rivers.[2]

He frequently preached at the "Christian Church" (closely allied with the "Disciples of Christ" or "Christian Disciples Church"), which had a chapel in Bentham Street, founded October 1848,[21] whose pastor was Thomas Playford. They built another church in Grote Street around 1857,[22] greatly enlarged in 1873.[23] A dispute arose in the church, and Hussey and others broke away, and for a time met in J. L. Young's schoolroom[1] on Gawler Place. The nature of the controversy is not known, but a common source of disagreement was the use of certain musical instruments in church: some arguing that only activities mentioned in Scripture were allowed, others that what is not forbidden may be permissible.[24]

He was one of many Protestant leaders who decried the failure of the Marriage Bill before the House in December 1866, its failure being applauded by the Catholic hierarchy.[25] He was secretary to the committee formed for drafting the second Marriage Bill,[26] which passed both houses in December 1867.

Hussey was involved in the elections of 1871, when he helped return John Pickering to the seat of West Torrens.[27] He once declared himself a candidate for public office (Encounter Bay in 1875) but dropped out after faring poorly at a public debate.[28] It has been asserted that he withdrew following criticism from some fellow-religionists.[2]

Hussey was a regular contributor to The Protestant Advocate, an anti-Catholic weekly which ran from 1870 to 1879, edited by John Griffiths and published by the proprietor James Heath Lewis (c. 1816 – 6 December 1890)[29] In 1871 Griffiths resigned his position on principle,[30] but later returned to the paper. In 1872 the Protestant Advocate published a series of libels on the Sisters of St Joseph, for which Lewis was jailed for six months.[31] Hussey acted as editor for six months,[1] and it could have been during either of those disruptions. Then in March 1877 the paper published a report that the wife of Rev. Samuel Green had turned Catholic, a falsehood that again landed the publisher in court. Lewis blamed Griffiths.[32] Green (died 1904) was an Anglican minister with high church leanings.[33] His wife, the former Ellen Elizabeth Bayfield, was a daughter of (Anglican) Rev. Edward Bayfield (c. 1815–1857). Both men having had charge of St Paul's Church, Port Adelaide.

In January 1867, with the health of pastor Thomas Playford failing, Hussey accepted the position of his assistant at the Bentham Street Church. In 1873, following the death of Playford, Hussey took over the pulpit, which he managed without financial reward until 27 January 1891, when he retired, although he did make a brief comeback in 1893[1] following some dissension in the congregation.[2]

He started a monthly Gospel of the Kingdom in July 1878, which became the Australian Quarterly Journal of Prophecy in July 1879[34] last issue January 1895. This publication had no connection to Horatius Bonar's Journal of Prophecy.

In 1884 he founded the "Adelaide Bible Hall", a commercial outlet for Bibles, hymn books, etc., at the corner of Flinders and Freeman streets,[35] still operating in 1891.