ADAM, Alexander, Rev., M.A. (1824-1915)
Assembly memorial minute 1916
Chronology:
Theological education, MA(Hons)- Marischall College, Aberdeen, Scotland
Chronology:
Ordination (Free Church of Scotland)- 1853
- Presbytery of Glasgow, Scotland
Chronology:
Charge(s)- 1854–59
- Ballarat and Burnbank (Lexton), VIC
- 1860–99
- Beaufort, VIC
- Established the Beaufort church; resigned from the ministry in 1899
- 1881–82
- Moderator, Presbyterian Church of Victoria
Assembly memorial minute 1916
The Assembly places on record its appreciation of the work and worth of the late Rev.Alexander Adam, M.A. By his death a link with the past has been severed, he being the last of the Ministers who consummated the Union of 1859 and the last of the pioneers of the early “fifties”.
The late Mr. Adam was born in Aberdeenshire. He graduated as M.A. at Marischal College, Aberdeen, at the age of 18. During his theological course the Disruption occurred, and the young student espoused the cause of the Free Church. He was licensed by the Presbytery of Alford in 1847, and ordained by the Presbytery of Glasgow in 1853, to the charge of Albury, New South Wales.
On his arrival in Victoria by the ship “Hurricane” in 1853, he was appointed by the Presbytery of Geelong to the charge of Ballarat and Burnbank, Albury having been occupied in the meantime by the Rev. Mr. Ballantyne.
He decided, on visiting the scene of his future labours, to settle at Burnbank (now Lexton), as the population of Ballarat was a shifting one. Mr.Adam was inducted to his parish in Geelong in 1854. For a year he lived at Buangor; from 1855 to 1866 at Lexton. Here, in 1857, the first church in the district was built. For years his nearest co-labourer was the minister of Buninyong, the boundaries of his parish in all other directions being only limited by his capacity for overtaking the work.
In 1860 he established a regular service at Beaufort, which town had come into being as a result of the Fiery Creek gold rush. A church was built at Beaufort early in 1866, and from the end of that year to the time of his resignation he made Beaufort the centre of his field.
Mr. Adam was Moderator of the General Assembly in 1881-2. He resigned his charge of Beaufort in 1899, after a ministry of forty-six years. Throughout his long ministry he was nobly supported in his work by his wife, who predeceased him in 1895.
Mr.Adam died at his home at Parkville on 26th March of this year, at the age of 92. He has left the impress of his strong, yet kindly and genial, personality on the wide district where he laboured so long and so faithfully for Christ’s Kingdom and cause, and his ministry is remembered there with deep gratitude to God.
The Assembly expresses its sympathy with the family of the late Mr. Adam in their loss, and commends them to “ the God of all comfort.”
Gender
- Male