New South Wales

The Sydney House of Worship in New South Wales.

New South Wales, abbreviated as N.S.W., is one of Australia's six states. It is the most populous state and the oldest, having been in established in 1788, although it was not constituted as a State of Australia until 1901. It was the first state of Australia to have a Bahá'í presence with the first two Bahá'ís in the country, Hyde and Clara Dunn living in Sydney after immigrating. According to N.S.W. government statistics there were 4,470 Bahá'ís in the state as of 2016, approximately 32% of the national Bahá'í population.

History

The history of the Faith in the state predates the actual presence of Bahá'ís by many years as a N.S.W. newspaper, The Protestant Standard, published an article regarding the Faith in 1872 which included an interview of sorts with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá recorded by a writer for the Times. In addition to reporting some information about the Faith provided by someone the article describes as an 'intelligent convert' it included an estimate of 70 to 80,000 Bahá'ís in Iran who were suffering persecution, and an estimate of 70 to 80 Bahá'ís in what was then known as Syria sharing Bahá'u'lláh's (transliterated as Beheyah Allah) exile.

Hyde and Clara Dunn decided to pioneer to Australia in 1919 after reading ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's Tablets of the Divine Plan which called for the Bahá'ís to spread the Faith across the globe. They arrived in Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, on April 20, 1920. Hyde secured work as a travelling salesman within a year of arriving which allowed him to travel teach in rural N.S.W. as well as within Sydney itself. The first New South Welshman, and Australian, to become a Bahá'í was Oswald Whitaker, an optometrist who was introduced to the Faith by Hyde in Lismore.

Although New South Wales was the first state of Australia to have pioneers, and the first to have a declaration, it was not the first to establish a Local Spiritual Assembly, with the Dunn's succesfully establishing Assemblies in Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, and even Auckland, before establishing the Local Spiritual Assembly of Sydney in November 1925. The Assembly went defunct in 1927, and was not re-established until Keith Ransom-Kehler visited Australia in 1931 to stimulate the community. By 1934 the Sydney community had expanded to twenty-six members. In May, 1934, the first Convention of the Bahá'ís of Australia and New Zealand was held in Sydney, at which the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia and New Zealand was established. As of 1936 Sydney was the only place in N.S.W. with an established Spiritual Assembly or group. By 1938 a Bahá'í group had been established in Broken Hill.

In 1936 Stanley and Mariette Bolton purchased land in Yerrinbool in New South Wales and constructed the first Bahá'í Summer School in Australia, with a School being held there in January 1938.

When Martha Root visited Australia in 1939 her time in Sydney was reported in The Daily Telegraph and The Sydney Morning Herald.

As of 1940 Sydney remained the only Local Spiritual Assembly in New South Wales, but there were also Bahá'í groups in Broken Hill and Lake McQuarrie. By 1944 there were also Bahá'í groups in Blaney, Goulbourn and Yerrinbool.

In 1944 the Australian community began looking for a property to purchase to be used as a Haziratu'l-Quds, and Shoghi Effendi stated in a cable that the property should be within the city of Sydney. A property facing the entrance gates to Centennial Park was purchased and refurbished in time for the Australian and New Zealand Centenary Convention held from May 19th to 24th 1944. This resulted in New South Wales becoming the centre of the Australian Bahá'í community, with Hilda Brooks stepping down as Secretary and personally delivering all items associated with the Secretariat from her Adelaide home to the new Haziratu'l-Quds, and Silver Jackman, also from South Australia, doing the same as Treasurer.

By 1946 a second N.S.W. Local Spiritual Assembly had been established in Caringbah, and a Bahá'í group had been established in Wollongong. A Local Spiritual Assembly was established for Yerrinbool in 1948. A Bahá'í group was formed in Lismore by 1949.

As of 1951 Newcastle was a goal town for New South Wales, and that year ten Bahá'ís conducted a teaching campaign which resulted in newspaper publicity and two public meetings. Clara Dunn pioneered to Newcastle in 1953. By 1953 Local Spiritual Assemblies had been established in Kuring-gai and Wollongong, and Bahá'í groups had been established in Bowral, Kurrajong Heights, Leeton, Newcastle, and Orange. There were also isolated believers residing in Avoca Beach, Bathurst, Glen Innes, Gulgong, Mosman, Mullumbimby, Neville, and Wagga by 1953.

In 1956 a Regional Teaching Conference was held in Sydney to discuss the goals of the Ten Year Crusade, and how to develop new contacts for the Faith. In 1954 a Temple site had been secured in New South Wales, however it was requisitioned by the N.S.W. government for town planning purposes. Late in 1956 a replacement Temple site was secured on Mona Vale road near Sydney. This fulfilled a goal of the Ten Year Crusade, and a House of Worship was erected on the site in 1961. New South Wales goal cities as of 1956 were Bathurst, Glen Innes, Nowra, Maitland, Griffith, Liverpool, Tamworth, Gosford, and Paramatta.

By 1962, as the Ten Year Crusade was drawing to a close, Local Spiritual Assemblies had been established in Enfield, Mudgee, Lismore, Newcastle, Randwick, Rockdale, and Warringah. N.S.W. Localities where Bahá'ís had taught the Faith from 1947 til the close of the Ten Year Crusade in 1963 included Tamworth, Bathurst, Gosford, Griffith, Glen Innes, Liverpool, Maitland, Nowra, Parramatta, Grafton, Bowral, Wagga, Albury, Newcastle, and Wollongong.

In 1968 the Governor of New South Wales, His Excellency Sir Roden Cutler, received an in-person presentation of Bahá'í books at which he asked questions, and the states Premier, leader of opposition, and members of the legislative assembly and council were presented with literature.

In 1978 the Local Spiritual Assembly of Albury was formed, fulfilling an Assembly goal of the National Spiritual Assembly.

In 2017 the New South Wales Premier and New South Wales Leader of Opposition released statements to acknowledge the Bicentennial of the Birth of Bahá'u'lláh..

Demographics

According to 2016 N.S.W. government data the vast majority of N.S.W. Bahá'ís live in Greater Sydney, which reflects the trend of the whole population as near two-thirds of the N.S.W. population lives in Greater Sydney. 9.8% of the Bahá'í population had moved to Australia since 2011. There are nearly 200 more women Bahá'ís in the State than men. 45.1% of the community is aged 45 and over, 34.3% are aged 20 to 44 and 20.8% are under 19.

According to the N.S.W. government data the size of the Bahá'í community dropped by 1.1% from 2011 to 2016. This contrasts with national census data which showed the national Australian Bahá'í communities size increased by 2% from 2011 to 2016. The portion of the national Bahá'í population residing in N.S.W. dropped by approximately 1% from 2011 to 2016.