Samuel Forsyth's Kuitpo Industrial Colony in 1930s South Australia helps more than 7,000 men retain 'self respect'

As superintendent of the Central Methodist Mission in Adelaide, Samuel Forsyth started Kuitpo Industrial Colony in South Australia’s southern Mount Lofty Ranges after being haunted by sight of single unemployed men on the dole during the Depression that started in late 1920s. He devised a farm-training settlement scheme to help them gain jobs.
Images courtesy State Library of South Australia

Samuel Forsyth’s Kuitpo Industrial Colony in South Australia’s southern Mount Lofty Ranges in the 1930s became a beacon of practical welfare, helping more than 7,000 unemployed men with farm training and "retaining their self respect".

As head of the Central Methodist Mission, Forsyth also led the led church’s ownership of South Australia radio stations 5KA in Adelaide and 5AU in Port Augusta, He also initiated a Central Mission Old Folks' Home (Aldersgate Village) at the Adelaide eastern suburb of Felixstow.

Born into a devout Methodist family in 1881 at Aghyaran, Tyrone, Ireland, Forsyth had a primary education at Carricoughan National School, before being apprenticed to a draper in Castlederg.

In 1901, he migrated to Brisbane to stay with his uncle William, father of major general John Forsyth. Samuel junior went to New Zealand in 1902 where he helped with open-air gospel meetings. Forsyth spent 1905 studying mission work at W. L. Morton's Hope Lodge at Belair in South Australia's Adelaide Hills. He and fellow student Tom Willason became successful freelance evangelists on Yorke Peninsula.

At Minlaton in 1907, Forsyth married Ida Rosely Nankivell who shared his work as gospel soloist. Next year Forsyth was accepted as a candidate for the Methodist ministry at Maitland. At Moonta in 1914, he influenced Lionel Bale Fletcher to take up evangelism. Forsyth was ordained at Kent Town Methodist Church in 1912, when a minister at Broken Hill. From 1916, he served as a chaplain with the 10th training battalion for a year in Britain. Later South Australian church appointments took him to the country and suburbs. After his first wife died, Forsyth married Ida Muriel Brummitt, a returned army nurse and writer, at Medindie in 1923.

In 1929, after a six-month tour of British central missions, Forsyth was appointed superintendent minister of the Adelaide Central Methodist Mission. In the 1920s economic Depression, Forsyth soon was haunted by sight of single unemployed men on the dole and he devised a scheme to start a farm-training settlement to help them gain jobs. He personally raised £5,000 by public subscription and obtained land near Willunga at a low rent from the South Australian government.

In 1930, Forsyth opened Kuitpo Industrial Colony where men could work for their board and lodging, “thereby retaining their self-respect, and a sane outlook on life until they could find a job”. It was run on good-humoured, non-militaristic lines. The Methodist church had doubts about the project and never backed the denomination-free colony. After financial struggles, the Kuitpo colony flourished and more than 7,000 men were helped. An employment agency was set up in the city to help “colonists” find work. In 1931 Forsyth formed and chaired the South Australian Council of Charitable Relief Organizations.

In 1937, he was appointed to the order of the British empire and next year became president of the South Australian Methodist Conference. The Kuitpo colony became a rehabilitation centre.

In 1943, Forsyth negotiated for the Central Methodist Mission to run the Adelaide radio stations 5KA and 5AU, and was chairman of directors of their companies. He saw the radio as an outlet for the Christian message and the source of much-needed additional income to finance the mission's social work. Next year, he initiated a Central Mission Old Folks' Home (Aldersgate Village) at Felixstow. Forsyth retired in 1952 and his wife Ida wote his biography called He Came from Ireland. 

• Information from E. Vogt, “Forsyth, Samuel (1881–1960)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University,