On Stage 2 of my walk along the Derwent River, I hunted for and located on the South Arm peninsula the burial vault of William Gellibrand, one of Van Diemens Land’s first settlers in the early 1800s.  Readers of my blog may recall photos such as:

After William Gellibrand’s residency, the land at that northern end of the peninsula was named Gellibrand Point. The photo below looks down onto Gellibrand Point.

This evening I went to a music concert in a church with a powerful and large pipe organ.  While sitting floating in and out of absorption in the romantic organ music, I cast my eyes around the old church. My eyes passed languidly over a plaque attached high on a wall, then swivelled back in surprise. This was William Gellibrand’s white marble memorial plaque.  After the concert I took a closer look.

When I read that the plaque came from the Chapel, I wondered which Chapel. The internet has given me the answer.

The short story is that the Chapel was built on the Brisbane and Elizabeth St corner site of Hobart in the 1832, Gellibrand died in 1840 and a memorial plaque was installed in the Chapel. When the new church was built in 1872, the plaque was relocated. Seven years later the organ was installed and since then it has been rebuilt a couple of times. Tonight, the audience of pipe organ devotees were presented with a concert of examples of the work of Moeran, Darke, Lemmens, Delius, Manet and Andriessen.

From the website: https://fergusonandurie.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/26-07-1872-memorial-uniting-congregational-church-elizabeth-and-brisbane-streets-hobart-tasmania-2,  I learned that the current “church was to be known as the ‘Memorial Congregational Church’ in memory of the first Independent or Congregational minister, the Reverend Frederick Miller who arrived in Van Diemens Land in 1830. The very first chapel on the site was funded solely by him at a cost of £500 and opened on the 20^th April 1832.”

The website also explained that “The foundation stone of the Memorial Independent Church was laid on the corner of Elizabeth and Brisbane streets in Hobart on the 16^th August 1870 and was formally opened on Thursday 7^th November 1872. In late July 1872 the stained glass windows for the church arrived from the Ferguson, Urie, and Lyon stained glass company of Melbourne and were promptly erected.”  You can see, on this website, photographs of the colourful glass windows.

A document located at http://www.ohta.org.au/gaz/GAZETTEER-OF-TASMANIAN-PIPE-ORGANSOctober2007.pdf provided the following information about the pipe organ: “MEMORIAL UNITING (CONGREGATIONAL) CHURCH, Brisbane Street. B. 1879 George Fincham; reb. 1936 & enl. 1939 Geo. Fincham & Sons (addition of choir organ). Reb. 1992 Gibbs & Thomson.“

It seems there have been many variations in the church’s name.  Currently this church is known as The Korean Full Gospel Church. The hospitality shown by the Korean pastor, his wife and other Koreans was exceptionally friendly and generous and so I had a rich experience with unexpected findings.