Halfway along Macquarie Street, opposite Parliament House and Sydney Hospital, there's a sandstone Gothic church with a big tracery window across the front. Over its roof leans a curved glass office tower. That's St Stephen's Uniting Church at number 197. The building only dates from 1935, but the congregation goes back to 1842, and it spent nearly a century moving around the city before it ended up here.
St Stephen's Uniting Church, 197 Macquarie Street. Photo: Rangasyd, 2019, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Breaking away from Dr Lang
Presbyterianism in Sydney started with the Reverend John Dunmore Lang, who founded the Scots Church on Church Hill in 1824. The Dictionary of Sydney calls him "fiery and at times controversial". In 1842 he led his people out of the Synod of Australia to form his own Synod of New South Wales. St Stephen's own history says that the same year, 22 communicants left Scots Church during Lang's ministry and started their own fellowship.
They moved around a lot. The church's history says they met first in a hall in Macquarie Place. In 1846 they moved to the Wesleyan Chapel in Macquarie Street, opposite the Mint, and in 1848 to the Independent Chapel in Pitt Street, next to the Sydney School of Arts. In 1845 the church in Scotland split into the Established Church and the Free Church, and the colonial congregations were urged to take sides. The Dictionary of Sydney says the minister, Thomas Mowbray, stayed neutral, but some of his people left to form a Free Presbyterian congregation anyway.
The Iron Church and the name
During the Gold Rush the congregation imported a prefabricated iron church that seated 800. The church's history says it went up in 1855 on what is now the State Library site, next to Parliament House. That's where the name St Stephen's comes from. The Westminster Parliament met in St Stephen's Chapel from 1543 to 1834, and a church beside Sydney's Parliament seemed like a good match. The heritage listing gives the same reason for the name.
In 1865 the various Presbyterian groups joined to form the Presbyterian Church of New South Wales, and the Dictionary of Sydney says the Iron Church was formally named St Stephen's then. It soon got too small. The congregation joined with another one in Phillip Street, which was also called St Stephen's, and the Phillip Street church became home. The dates differ. The Dictionary of Sydney says the merger came in 1872, while the church's own history says 1875.
St Stephen's Church, photographed by Charles Percy Pickering in 1872. Charles Percy Pickering, State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).
St Stephen's, Phillip Street
The Phillip Street church became the leading Presbyterian church in the country. When the NSW General Assembly first met in 1901, it met there. The Reverend John Ferguson was inducted in August 1894, when it was the largest Presbyterian congregation in Australia, and he was moderator-general of the national church in 1909. He collapsed in the pulpit in October 1924 and died the next year. Peter Dodds McCormick, who wrote Advance Australia Fair, worked as a stonemason on the Phillip Street church as a young man and later led its choir.
Then the council needed the land. In the 1930s Sydney City Council resumed property to push Martin Place all the way through to Macquarie Street. The church's history says the Phillip Street church stood partly under where the north-west corner of the Reserve Bank is now. The Dictionary of Sydney says the new church went up quickly because of "pressure to demolish the previous St Stephen's church in Phillip Street, which was in the way of the extension of Martin Place".
Martin Place being pushed through from Pitt Street to Macquarie Street in the 1930s. Photo: Sam Hood, State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).
Building on the Burdekin House site
The new site at 197 Macquarie Street had been Burdekin House. The heritage listing says Thomas Burdekin built it in 1841–42, and it stayed in the family until it was sold in 1924. The Dictionary of Sydney says it was once called the finest private house in Sydney, and pulling it down became one of the first rallying points for heritage campaigners in the city.
The Dictionary of Sydney says the foundation stone was laid on 23 March 1934 and the church was dedicated a year later, on 23 March 1935. The church's history also puts the dedication in 1935. The heritage listing, as summarised on Wikipedia, says it was built from 1935 to 1937, so the finishing work probably carried on after the dedication. The builders were Kell and Rigby.
Building St Stephen's in Macquarie Street, 13 September 1934. Photo: Sam Hood, State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).
The architects and the design
The architects were John Reid and Finlay Munro junior. The church says they were probably inspired by St Stephen's Chapel at Westminster. Their design is in the Interwar Gothic style, and both the church and the Dictionary of Sydney say it's one of only three churches in that style in the city, along with the Scots Church and the Central Baptist Church. The front is sandstone, with carved tracery and leadlight windows arranged symmetrically around the big east window. Stairs on either side of the entrance lead up to the gallery and down to the Ferguson Hall.
Sydney Open says the church was made with Australian materials by local craftspeople. Inside there's panelling in polished Queensland maple and plaster ceilings based on English Perpendicular Gothic.
The sandstone front and tracery window of St Stephen's. Photo: Rangasyd, 2019, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
The windows
The windows were designed by Norman St Clair Carter, the artist who also did the clerestory windows at St Andrew's Cathedral. The church says they were dedicated over about thirty years from 1935. Each window has two medallions with Bible scenes, a coat of arms at the bottom linked to the donor or the person being remembered, and etched verses from the King James Bible. Some of the old Phillip Street windows came along too. The church says they are now in the Ferguson Hall downstairs.
The organ and the music
The organ was built in 1934 by the Melbourne branch of the English firm Hill, Norman and Beard. It has 61 stops and around 2,500 pipes. In the 1970s it was altered in the neo-Baroque style that was fashionable then. Restoration since 2009 has been reversing some of those changes, and a new console by Daniel Bittner of Australian Pipe Organs went in in 2021. Harry Chandler was organist for 50 years, from 1890 to 1940, which spans both the Phillip Street and Macquarie Street churches. The current music director is Mark Quarmby.
Dame Joan Sutherland grew up in this congregation. Her father was an elder and her mother sang in the choir, and she joined the choir herself at six. These days the church holds Friday lunchtime concerts and jazz nights as well as services.
Notable ministers
The ministers' list starts with Dr Robert Steel (1862–1893) and John Ferguson (1894–1925) at Phillip Street. James McLeod (1933–1939) took the congregation over to Macquarie Street. Gordon Powell (1952–1965) was the best known of them. He regularly preached to more than a thousand people on Sundays and at Wednesday lunchtimes, broadcast for thirty years, and is credited with bringing Alcoholics Anonymous to Australia. In 1956, according to the Dictionary of Sydney, St Stephen's broadcast the first televised church service in Australia. The Reverend Fred McKay, who took over from John Flynn at the Australian Inland Mission, was associate minister from 1974 to 1986. Two NSW governors, Sir John Northcott and Sir Eric Woodward, had their state funerals here.
Uniting Church, 1977
In 1977 the Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian churches joined to form the Uniting Church in Australia, and St Stephen's went in with the union. The Dictionary of Sydney and the church's own history both give 1977. The heritage listing says the congregation's story is "interwoven with the development of the Presbyterian and Uniting Churches in NSW and Australia".
St Stephen's was listed on the State Heritage Register on 3 September 2004 as item 01704. In 2015 Hassell won a design competition for a 33-storey tower at 60 Martin Place, which curves out over the church's roof. The church says the developers, Investa, struck a deal that involved joining the two land titles for a time. Sydney Open says Tonkin Zulaikha Greer restored the east and west facades.
Macquarie Street in 2023. Photo: -wuppertaler, 2023, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).
The church is open on weekdays from 12pm to 5pm. Next time you're on Macquarie Street, pop in and look up at the Carter windows. The congregation that started with 22 people walking out on Dr Lang has worshipped near Parliament for over 150 years.
Where this came from
- Dictionary of Sydney: St Stephen's Presbyterian Church, Macquarie Street.
- St Stephen's Uniting Church: Our History and Our Building (ssms.org.au).
- Sydney Open (Museums of History NSW): St Stephen's Uniting Church.
- NSW State Heritage Register: St Stephen's Uniting Church (SHR 01704), as reproduced in the Wikipedia article (ministers' and organists' lists, organ details, notable members).
- State Library of NSW photographs by Sam Hood and Charles Percy Pickering, via Wikimedia Commons.