GEDDES, Peter, Rev (1906-1944)
Assembly memorial minute, 1944
It is with unfeigned sorrow that the Assembly records the sudden removal by accidental death of one of its young and promising ministers, the Rev. Peter Geddes. Long years of earnest preparation terminated in a brief ministry: but we hold to the faith of the Church of Scotland, that “In His infinite wisdom God governs all things, and overrules all events for perfectly wise and loving ends. ”
Peter Geddes was born in Port Gordon, on the North Coast of Banffshire, Scotland, on January 27th, 1906. By his own account, he* was constrained to dedicate his life to Christ by a “vision of God” on the moors* of Scotland. He came to Australia and was living at Stratford, where he came under the influence of the late Rev. John Watson.
Through that influence he, with three other young men now in the Presbyterian ministry, was led to dedicate himself to that vocation.
He spent nine years as a Home Missionary, his appointments being Gormandale (1928), Lindenow (1930), Port Campbell (1930), Heytesbury Forest (1931), Market Street (1934), and Neerim South (1935). During these years he went through the Home Mission Course, and (1934-1936) the Theological Course at Ormond.
He was practically the founder of the Heytesbury Mission, riding through trackless forests in search of the settlers’ homes, and his name is fragrant there to-day. While at Neerim, and attending the Theological Hall, he frequently rode his bicycle all the way to Melbourne, a distance of 80 miles.
On January 6th, 1937, he was appointed as Exit student to Lang Lang, which later called him, and he was ordained and inducted there on December 6th, 1937. While there he married Miss Charlotte O’Brien, a member of a Protestant family from West Ireland, whom he had met at Timboon during his stay at Heytesbury Forest, and who was now a teacher at the Methodist Ladies’ College. On March 30th, 1943, he was translated to Murchison, and there he spent nine of the happiest months of his life, winning in that short time the most affectionate loyalty of his people.
On January 21st, 1944, accompanied by his wife and their two children, he was returning from his holidays, eager to resume work, when, near Seymour, his car collided with a military truck, and he was killed instantly. The children escaped unhurt, but his wife received serious injuries from which she is slowly recovering.
After so long and strenuous a preparation, there is a pathos in so short a ministry: yet who can tell what great good God had already wrought through him? He is thus described by a fellow-student, who, after alluding to his “splendid character” and “likeableness” (“in fact, in the Hall we all loved him”), proceeds: “Very unassuming in character, and of quiet studious habits, he had the capacity of sticking to his work and doing it faithfully. One felt concerning him that, with the distinction of a Scotch quaintness in speech, as well as with the gift of a keen sense of humour, and with an unreserved surrender to the great work of a minister of the Word, he would make good. And he did. ” In his preaching he was direct, simple, earnest, and evangelical. In the last two sermons which he preached at Murchison, there was noted, at the time, a very special and tender urgency of appeal. His pastoral work was marked by brotherly sympathy.
To Mrs. Geddes and the children, to the father and mother in Banffshire, and also to the congregation of Murchison, the Assembly tenders its deepest sympathy.
Gender
- Male