City Mission, Hobart

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From The Companion to Tasmanian History:

The Hobart City Mission, founded in 1852, and the Launceston City (Town until 1889) Mission, established in 1854, were modelled on the London City Mission. Their object was to extend the knowledge of the gospel to those inhabitants who did not attend their place of worship. Missionaries visited homes, urged church attendance and distributed religious tracts, but desisted from proselytising for any particular denomination. The prevalence of drunkenness among the poor was the greatest problem confronting early missionaries.

The Hobart City Mission established a Ragged School in Watchorn Street in 1853. Services were conducted in churches, chapels and schoolrooms before the present Mission building at 50 Barrack Street was opened in 1911. The Mission, the oldest in the Commonwealth, also conducts the Glenorchy City Mission.

From the Hobart City Mission web site:

Established in 1852, the Hobart City Mission was the first City Mission in Australia and is the third oldest Mission in the world. At the time, poverty and vice were prevalent in Hobart Town. The London City Mission had been operating for seventeen years and a number of concerned citizens saw the need for similar work in Hobart.
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