James Jefferis starts education society in 1860 at North Adelaide Congregational Church; university promoter
The former North Adelaide Congregational Church in Brougham Place where James Jefferis started his young men's educational society.
James Jefferis became a Congregational minister after declining a wealthy uncle’s offer to put him through Oxford or Cambridge with a guaranteed income if he entered the Anglican Church.
Instead, Jefferis was attracted to Protestant dissent. In 1852, he entered the Congregational New College, linked to the University of London. Here he reconciled scientific discovery with religious belief and liberal theology.
Because of health concerns, Jefferis accepted Thomas Stow’s invitation to come out to South Australia and help to form a Congregational Church in North Adelaide.
Arriving in Adelaide in 1859, Jefferis’s preaching at the North Adelaide Congregational Church (with its new building in 1861) attracted many with his liberal approach to religion. His evening sermons applied Christianity to topical questions.
In 1860, he started the North Adelaide Young Men's Society. The future leading citizens who were educated through the society were remembered as “the Jefferis boys”.
Shunning the notion that Congregationalism's mission was for the thoughtful urban middle classes, Jefferis assisted in home missions for the country and the predominantly Catholic poor of lower North Adelaide.
An earnest promoter of education, Jefferis failed in the 1860s to lead Congregationalists into establishing a first-class nonsectarian school in Adelaide. This, and a visit to England in 1868, persuaded him to support compulsory comprehensive and secular education provided by the state. He inspired Congregationalists in 1871 to join Presbyterians and Baptists in opening an academy for nonsectarian higher education and theological training.
Union College was formed in 1872 with Jefferis as tutor in mathematics and natural science. The college eventually led to Adelaide University being started. Jefferis was a member of the association that launched the university and a member of university council in 1874-77 and 1894-1917.
