St Matthew's Church is a heritage-listed

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

in Stirling Square, , Western Australia. The church is part of the

Anglican Diocese of Perth The Anglican Diocese of Perth is one of the 23 dioceses of the Anglican Church of Australia. The constitution of the Diocese of Perth was passed and adopted in 1872 at the first synod held in Western Australia. In 1914, the Province of Western ...

. Saint Matthew's was the first church to be built in the Swan parish. It was a small octagonal mud-brick church, hastily built on land donated by Governor James Stirling on his Woodbridge estate, next to where

Guildford Grammar School Guildford Grammar School, informally known as Guildford Grammar, Guildford or GGS, is an Independent school, independent Anglican Church of Australia, Anglican Mixed-sex education, coeducational Primary school, primary and Secondary school, se ...

now stands.

First structure

Governor Stirling laid the foundation stone on 6 September 1836, and it was opened a few months later before it was finished. It was not completed until 1839 and was consecrated on 23 November 1848. It was later demolished but the graveyard still remains. St Matthew's became the separate parish of Guildford in 1854.

Second structure

The second St Matthew's was built on the present site in Stirling Square and was consecrated by Bishop Hale on 21 September 1860. That brick building with a roof of shingles was destroyed in a hurricane on 12 March 1872 during a baptism. No-one was hurt but only the

harmonium The pump organ or reed organ is a type of organ that uses free reeds to generate sound, with air passing over vibrating thin metal strips mounted in a frame. Types include the pressure-based harmonium, the suction reed organ (which employs a va ...

and a few books could be saved. Parishioners immediately started a rebuilding programme and the present church of St Matthew was opened on 9 June 1873, and consecrated on 15 October 1873. A second-hand pipe organ was installed in 1875. This organ had been built for St. John's Church, Fremantle, but became redundant when they purchased a larger instrument. A much larger pipe organ was installed in the church in 1911, replacing the earlier organ by R C Clifton. This new organ was built by the Adelaide builder J. E. Dodd. The organ has encountered many re-buildings over the years, but has been kept in remarkable condition. In 2004 the organ was fully rebuilt and now features a state of the art transmission system.

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Matthews, Saint, Anglican Church, Guildford

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, England, around south-west of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The nam ...

State Register of Heritage Places in the City of Swan Stirling Square (Guildford) Victorian architecture in Western Australia Western Australian places listed on the defunct Register of the National Estate 19th-century Anglican church buildings in Australia 1836 establishments in Australia Churches completed in 1860 Churches completed in 1873 Victorian church buildings in Australia