A LETTER harking back to the opening of St John’s Anglican Church in Fremantle has been rediscovered after falling from an old prayer book.

Rev Ernest Lennon took over as St John’s rector about three months ago and said he was rearranging and tidying up with church greeter Donald Reid when a piece of paper became dislodged.

“I was playing around with old prayer books and moving things, and experimenting with different energies and this just happened to float out of one of the books and Donald said ‘have a look at this, this is kind of old’,” Rev Lennon said.

At the bottom of the page was a date, 1879 and it was marked “Fremantle”.

“It’s really fascinating because it’s a prayer that was used in the old church in Fremantle, while the current one was being built.

“It was something that they prayed at every service that they held.

• Rev Ernest Lennon with the 1879 letter. Photo by Steve Grant

Hopes

“It says a lot about the hopes for the new building and praise for the protection of the workers as they’re building it,” Rev Lennon said.

He feels that being handwritten, obviously with an old-fashioned fountain pen, the note feels like a message to the future from someone in the early parish.

“I like to think that possibly it was even George King, who was the first vicar whose whole mission was about the church being built up.

“He’s portrayed on our wall in a triptych, holding the church, so I like to think it connects with his ambition for the church and his work to make it a reality.

“I put it on one of the little weekly newsletters that we do just under the pew sheets, and people were really intrigued, and they were really quite touched that there was something like this.”

Although the date 1879 corresponds with the laying of St John’s foundation stone in what was then Kings Square, the letter refers to the completion of the church, which didn’t happen until 1882 when the first services were held.

There had been a Church of St John just metres from the current one from 1843, but it was demolished as congregation numbers swelled. The parish applied to the council for the strip of land where its grander replacement now sits, freeing up land for the council to build Fremantle’s town hall and extend High Street through the square.

by STEVE GRANT