Anglicanism and Nationalism in Australia,1901–1962

In recent years Australian nationalism has attracted considerable attention from historians, but most of the literature has been written from a secular standpoint. The present paper focuses on the contribution of the Anglican Church to the development of nationalism in the period between the coming of Federation and the attainment by the church of a new constitution that gave it autonomy. The first part of the paper examines the English character of the church and its attitudes towards empire, monarchy and “White Australia.” The second part explores the emergence of a more distinctively Australian identity within the church. Although importannt, this was not strong enough greatly to influence the church whose presence helped perpetuate the hold of British cultural values in ways and to an extent not hitherto fully appreciated.