For the centenary in 2001, this quilt was designed by Carol Stewart (Ballarat South) and embroidered by Heather Bramich (Terang), Margaret Dimelow (Surrey Hills), Christine Closter (Shepparton) and Fairlie Stewart (Geelong).
The very beginning of PWMU
The death of Rev J. H. Davies in April 1890 could have meant the end of the endeavours of the Young Men’s Fellowship of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria to establish a Victorian Presbyterian Church mission in Korea. He had been struck down with smallpox and pneumonia as he rode his pony south to Pusan (Fusan) in Korea, where he planned to begin this work. His sister Mary, who had accompanied him to Korea 5 years earlier, then returned to Australia.
Far from dampening the growing missionary spirit in the colonial Victorian Presbyterian Church, the death of Rev Davies challenged the home church to make greater efforts. By August 1890 the women of the Church, who were already involved in various ways of supporting missionaries, banded together to form the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union of Victoria (PWMU). In 1891 they had already raised enough financial support and developed the necessary organisational support to send three women missionaries to Korea. Miss Belle Menzies from Ballarat was one of these very first women.
The early work and life of PWMU in Korea
PWMU began as a missionary agency in the same way APWM is today. Aeneas MacDonald, in his book, One Hundred Years of Presbyterianism in Victoria, (1937), wrote: ‘In all that has been done during the existence of our Korean Mission the women of our church have borne their noble share; indeed, as we have seen they were in the field before the Assembly itself.’ He was referring to the women sent out to Korea by PWMU and the women of the PWMU who sent them.
PWMU’s work in recruiting and sending women missionaries into the field, and supporting them in every way, continued from 1891 until 1941 when World War II saw some missionaries in Korea imprisoned. By this time many things had changed. Victoria was no longer a colony of Britain but a state of Australia. There had been a depression making it harder to raise financial support. The Work of the Young Men’s Fellowship of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria (PCV) had been taken over by the Foreign Missions Committee of the PCV. A joint decision was made by PWMU with the Foreign Missions Committee in 1941 to recall all PWMU missionaries from the field. PWMU’s work as a sending mission agency was finished.
All during its years as a mission agency, PWMU looked to Rolland House Deaconess Training Institute, which was established in 1898, to train and prepare many of its prospective missionaries. So close was the relationship that the name of the college was changed to Rolland House, The Presbyterian Missionary and Deaconess Training Institute. Rolland House produced a booklet of memories dedicated to PWMU at the time of PWMU’s centenary. Funds were established to support deaconesses in their training and work. Today, these funds support overseas bursary students at the Presbyterian Theological College of Victoria.
The post WWII transformation of PWMU
After 1941 PWMU continued with the same missionary zeal and has never ceased supporting mission work both at home and abroad. Deaconess training and support continued to be a focus, and interest in the work of home mission stations increased. Missionaries sent out by the Foreign Missions Committee were provided with some financial support from PWMU particularly when they had unexpected needs. PWMU embraced these missionaries as their own, arranging for them to speak at meetings, providing goods for their children and endeavouring to care for them while they were on home assignment.
1977 brought about an even bigger change for PWMU than 1941. Church Union caused much heartache and the entire Foreign Missions Committee went into the Uniting Church. Only one full-time overseas missionary family and one part-time man remained with the Presbyterian Church of Australia. The Church was six months without any mission board. The remaining Presbyterian missionaries were reliant on the Uniting Church Board to bridge the gap. At this time PWMU turned its attention entirely to Presbyterian missionaries working for other mission agencies such as Wycliffe. With the establishment of BOEMAR, which later became APWM, PWMU began supporting both Presbyterian missionaries and missionaries with other agencies, and does so to this day.
Deaconess work was phased out after 1977 by the PCV, and PWMU’s interest in home mission station work was also phased out over many years.
PWMU Today And Towards The Future
In the Jubilee History of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, D. Macrae Stewart wrote in 1909: ‘One of the most important developments of missionary activity in the Victorian Church was the formation of the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union of Victoria, in the year 1890’. He goes on to state that PWMU, ‘Apart from the devoted service which it is carrying on among Chinese in Melbourne, the aborigines in Northern Queensland, and the natives of Korea, the P.W.M.U. is doing fine work in stirring the Church to deeper sympathy with missions…’
PWMU continues to support workers the field and still endeavours to stir the Church to a deeper sympathy with missions.
The PWMU Newsletter, the children’s Dayspring Magazine and Dayspring Day as well as the events where our workers share, are designed to inform and encourage PWMU members, as well as to inform the wider church of the work being carried out.
PWMU remains an important link in the sending of Christian folk into cross-cultural work both at home and overseas. It is one of the longest serving organisations in the Presbyterian Church of Australia.
References
CAMPBELL, Elizabeth M. After Fifty Years, A Record of the Work of P.W.M.U. of Victoria. Melbourne: Spectator Publishing Co. Pty. Ltd. 1940.
CAMPBELL, Elizabeth M. The Changing Years 1940 to 1950. Malvern. McKellar Press. 1950.
MACDONALD, Aeneas. One Hundred Years of Presbyterianism in Victoria. Melbourne: Robertson and Mullens LTD. 1937.
PATON, Maisie. Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union 1950 – 1977 . UCA Synod of Victoria. 1985.
STEWART, D. Macrae. The Presbyterian Church of Victoria, Jubilee History. Melbourne: D. W. Paterson Co.
TALSMA, Alexe. There Were Many Women, United in a Century of Service 1890 – 1990. Melbourne: Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union of Victoria. 1991.