Bishop Hale

The Reverend Matthew Blagdon Hale came to Australia soon after Augustus Short was consecrated bishop of Adelaide in 1847. Hale was invited by the Bishop to become archdeacon and examining chaplain in South Australia. Eager for missionary work among the Aboriginals, Hale accepted and sailed in the Derwent Short’s party and his daughters.

After much work in persuading the authorities in South Australia to give him funds to found an institution where Aboriginals from Adelaide could receive practical training in isolation from corrupting influences, Hale was eventually recommended, in 1857, by Bishop Short to be appointed the first bishop of Western Australia.

Constant travelling in his huge diocese had brought on repeated attacks of back trouble which led to the suggestion, in 1875, that he should succeed Bishop Edward Tufnell in Brisbane. Hale protested against “putting a man of sixty-four in such a position”, but, somewhat typically, he added, “Nevertheless as I have always professed to go by duty and not by choice”, and became Bishop of Brisbane on 15 December 1875.

Bishop Hale retired in 1885 and returned to England where he continued to promote the Church’s mission to the Australian Aboriginals by his writing. He died in Bristol on 3 April 1895, survived by his second wife, five sons and three daughters.