A Port Melbourne Easter and Anzac tale

Holy Trinity Port Melbourne has weathered many storms.

The first congregation began by worshipping in a tent in 1854. Within a year, with ‘labour and materials in short supply’, they had imported a prefabricated iron church from Bristol. The church could hold 600 people. The iron church was severely damaged in a storm, described as a cyclone, in 1908.

Parishioner Mrs Jane Rendall lived near the church at 241 Graham St. With other women, she raised funds for the new church including through the sale of a cookery book. She was also instrumental in getting electric light installed in the church. She made a practice of ‘doing something each day for her church’.

Mrs Rendall was clearly well respected in Port Melbourne. ‘At her express wish’, she nominated several prominent Port Melbourne citizens to be the pallbearers for the coffin at her funeral. The funeral was also attended by the mayor, Councillor Southward.

In her will, she gifted a stained glass window to Holy Trinity to give thanks for the safe return of her son, Warren Arthur Rendall, from the war in September 1919. The window depicting the Crucifixion was designed by George Henry Dancey and installed above the altar in the brick church at a special service commemorating Jane Rendall’s life in 1933.

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The brick church, prominent on the corner of Bay and Graham Sts, continued to be a focal point for births, marriages and deaths in Port Melbourne. But by the late 1990s the congregation was dwindling and the Diocese of Melbourne sold the church. It was carelessly treated after being sold ¹ before being re-developed as Holy Trinity Apartments.

The congregation re-located to worship in the church hall.

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In 2011, Father Noel Whale was brought out of retirement by the Archbishop of Melbourne to re-energise the Holy Trinity community in Port Melbourne.

He set out to transform the church hall into a sacred space that would also meet the needs of the contemporary Port Melbourne community. Father Noel was also deeply imbued with the rituals and traditions of the Anglican church.

He imagined a cross above the altar that would express Port. He sought out two carpenters working for the Port of Melbourne who crafted the cross from old pier timbers. The nails embedded in the old pier timber suggested the nails in the cross.

Father Noel was a great fundraiser, like Jane Rendall before him. Fundraising brought the congregation together in shared purpose while raising funds for the many projects to restore the church hall into a space for gathering and worship.

Around the time of the sale of the church, the rosary window gifted by Mrs Rendall was installed at St Bartholemew’s in Burnley. Father Noel arranged its return to HTPM. Stained glass artist Andrew Ferguson re-set the original window into the lancet shape above the altar in colours evoking Port’s sea and sky.

A special service was held in December 2014 to celebrate the window’s homecoming and re-instatement.

The church hall was consecrated as a church by the Archbishop of Melbourne, Phillip Freier, in 2017. Father Noel died in September 2023 after bringing about the transformation he imagined.

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¹ At this time many artefacts from Holy Trinity were rescued by Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society member, Jim Hillis. The Society has cared for them since then. PMHPS has also returned important records, held in safekeeping, to the Diocese.

Bronwyn Hughes Stained Glass at Holy Trinity Anglican Church Port Melbourne June 2016

Warren Arthur Rendall Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society

Father Noel Whale 23 August 1941 to 28 September 2023

Special thanks to David Radcliffe for his assistance with this piece.