Australia’s First Christmas

by Christopher Reynolds
What a Capital Idea – Australia 1788-1901

Captain David Collins, Judge Advocate for the Colony, reports that 

on Thursday, December 25, 1788 “the Christmas Day was observed with proper ceremony. Mr. Johnson preached a sermon adapted to the occasion, and the major part of the officers of the settlement were afterward entertained at dinner by the governor.”

Collin’s description of the day is brief yet there is so much more to be said of the day that was not reported.

 The year of 1788 had been one of mixed blessing. A suitable site for the Colony had been well chosen. It was a beautiful place this Port Jackson and Sydney Cove. There had been 15 marriages in a joint ceremony in the first weeks of the settlement, and even on this Christmas morning, the Reverend Richard Johnson had married William Eggleton and Mary Dickenson and baptised their baby, Sarah. There had been 33 babies born that year in the Colony. On the other side of the ledger page there had been 56 deaths in the Colony from January 26, 1788. This included four killed by ‘natives’ and five executed. There were 14 people gone missing and there had been 36 people die on the voyage from England.

While fish had been in abundance and vegetables were grown and collected, although fare more successfully on Norfolk Island, it had been the failure to grow wheat which had caused distress and the need to send ships to purchase flour.  Huts had been built for the convicts and other construction was underway at a reasonable pace – managed by Henry Dodd, the Superintendent for the Colony.  

Christmas was a time to give thanks but also, as the coming of Jesus proclaims, a time to look in hope to the future: 1789 would be a better year than 1788. One had to recall that no new settlement had been an instant success and trials and tribulation would proceed prosperity for the Colony of New South Wales if people held onto their hope and tenacity. All these thoughts would have gone through Revd. Johnson’s mind as he prepared his sermon.

 On the morning of December 25, 1788, everyone in the colony was required to attend the Christmas service –as attendance of church services was mandatory. Most sat on the ground while others stood in the shade of the trees to find relief from the rising sun and the summer heat. Some of the 4,200 bibles and prayer books that Revd. Johnson brought with him were distributed and it was the perfect occasion for surgeon Worgan’s piano to be set up at the front of the gathering for the singing of hymns.

Revd. Richard Johnson was of the lower-church, or evangelical wing, of the Church of England. He had been a member of the Clapham Street Christian Society, been influenced by the great John Wesley and was a friend of William Wilberforce. Indeed, it was Wilberforce that requested Prime Minister Pitt have Johnson sent out to New South Wales as its chaplain. Johnson believed in social reform and social kindness and would endeavour to bring the gospel of care and concern to the new colony.

Christmas in Sydney was to be celebrated, as much as was possible, in the traditions of British society. Christmas, at this time, was a season rather than a single day’s celebration. It was a season of the 12 days of Christmas that ran from Christmas Day to Epiphany, where, by tradition, the three wise men had appeared in the stable to greet the child, Jesus. In this period of the 1780s, there was no giving of Christmas cards or decorations of trees and certainly no Santa Clause – which was an invention of the Coca Cola Company out of its Chicago office in 1932.

The Catholic Church, Church of England and Presbyterians had three essential festivals: Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. It was the Methodist revival of the 1700s which stimulated the Christmas feast to become the season of joy and celebration. It became, as Charles Dickins would write, a social feast. It was in this period that the emphasis of Christmas grew to be a time of intimacy with families coming together to share a meal of thanksgiving. It also became an expression of material prosperity by a growing middle class and a time to share and give. The benevolence of Christian giving and charity became important as Christmas was a season to ‘give as God gave to us’.

The Methodists gave the church music and song like never before. Christmas was now filled with the singing of Christmas carols such as: Silent Night, Oh Come All ye Faithful, Hark the Herald Angels Sing’, Joy to the World and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

When Collins wrote “the Christmas Day was observed with proper ceremony”, the whole colony would have sung some of these carols. Revd. Johnson would have enthusiastically lead the worship and delivered his sermon. The congregation would have ‘passed the peace’ by wishing each other a merry Christmas. And, Aborigines, no doubt, stood on the edge of the gathering watching the celebration.

It was Governor Phillip’s desire to give to each person extra rations of flour, as he did in years to come, but during this first year in the settlement with restricted supplies, this was not possible. Certainly, extra rations of wine and rum would have been made available.

After the ceremony, people were free to continue to celebrate as they desired and were able. No doubt, people pooled their food supplies in order to cook themselves a Christmas lunch. The officers were invited and attended a Christmas dinner with the Governor where they were ‘entertained’ with more singing, laughter and stories of home and of their recent adventures and consumption of more of the ‘cheap wine’ that the King had ordered be bought in Cape Town on the way to New South Wales.

Throughout the Day, people toasted the health of King George and enjoyed the occasion as a Merry Christmas.

Today, Christmas Day is celebrated around the world with the giving of gifts and, for Christians, the singing of hymns and remembering that there is hope and blessing. It is distressing that the fictitious character of Santa Clause now takes centre stage at Christmas as people turn from the confronting message of the coming of Jesus Christ. It is also disturbing that major retail companies don’t even decorate their stores with Christmas decorations this year. We are moving to become a non-Christian country as we are forced to recognise that we are a multicultural, multi-religious, divided society moving quickly to having no common faith, hope or future. Maybe even Santa is on the way out and Christmas 2024 will be Santa’s last Christmas.

But Christ has risen and Christmas is a great Day to remember the promise of life renewed and to stop and give thanks. We, like the first settlers, don’t need Woollies, Coles and Santa to give us reason to celebrate.