St. Peter's Church - Variety Bay

The Bligh Museum of Pacific Exploration at Adventure Bay is built where the early voyagers first trod the soil of Tasmania, gathering wood from the abundant growth on the foreshore and collecting water from the rivulets which spilled into the bay.
Even the bricks of which the building is constructed have a long history. About 20,000 bricks made by hand on the site for St. Peter’s Anglican Church at Variety Bay, opened in 1847, were not used and remained on the kiln near the church for more than a century. Twenty thousand of these, still in perfect condition, were used in the construction of the Bligh Museum.

Variety Bay had a big community (287 in July 1846), mostly convicts, who manned the whaleboats carrying pilots to ships making for Hobart. Pilotage then was competitive and keen were the races between the pilots to reach the ships first. The base of the round watchhouse at Variety Bay is still extant.

St. Peter’s was built at the expense of one of the Bruni pilots, William Lawrence and the prayer book he provided for the church is on display in the museum.

It is entitled “Book of Common Prayer, the United Church of England and Ireland, of St. Peter’s Church, Bruné Island,” and was published by Oxford University Press in 1842 for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

Captain William Lawerance - Settlement builder and pilot

The “Hobart Town Courier,” of July 18, 1846, records that on July 14 of that year the first Bishop of Tasmania, Francis Russell Nixon, left Hobart Town in the 285 ton Arequipa for England via Sydney.

The Arequipa sailed at 8.30 a.m. and at noon anchored in midstream and William Lawrence took the Bishop and his party two miles down the Bruni shore in boats.

The Bishop was to lay the foundation stone for St. Peter’s. The party assembled “at the spot chosen as the site, on the dividing range of Bruni Island, with the sea on both sides in full view.”

The Archdeacon and three Clergymen assisted the Bishop in the service, hymns were sung by the congregation, a reading was included and the Bishop led in prayer and spoke appropriate words.

The “courier” of April 21, 1847, tells of the first service in the church at which the Archdeacon officiated and the Rural Dean, the Rev. R. R. Davies, gave the sermon. Most Bruni inhabitants were there despite inclement weather.
The “Courier” said of the church “it is a great Gothic building situated on the summit of the hill immediately over Adventure Bay the first spot ever visited by Englishman (in Tasmania), Capt. Cook having landed there more than 70 years ago.
“His name is still visible carved on the tree in the neighbourhood of the church and a short time since a bottle containing the account of his landing was found at the foot of the tree. The church is neatly fitted up inside, with font, pulpit and reading desk etc. The bell weighing more than 110 pounds was cast in Hobart Town and is a gift of Mr. Lawrence.”