Padre White Memorial Chapel Print Page

The Padre White Memorial Chapel is dedicated to all who served in conflicts in which Australia has been involved and is a tribute to Padre White who led the first dawn service. 

The chapel is a project of Herberton’s Lions Club and RSL Sub-branch, strongly supported by the local community. Some $50,000 has been expended. Interpretive panels were placed in the chapel in 2015 with funding provided by the Anzac Centenary Grants program.  The panels provide information on Padre White, the first Dawn Service, the First World War, and also honour those who served.

The chapel structure is set in a restful Reflection Park adjoining the town’s historic hilltop cemetery and surrounded by rolling bush clad hills. Its design is based on a World War One field tent, reminiscent of a typical tent chapel which Padre White reportedly established for the use of the troops he served. On a 60 sq. m. hexagonal base, its striking pyramidal steel roof is pitched steeply  to a height of 7 metres. At its apex is a simple silver cross, angled so as to be lit  up “at the going down of the sun” on each Remembrance Day (11/11). Beneath the ’tent’, the chapel will be only partially enclosed by walls bearing memorial plaques and information commemorating those who have served the  district (e.g., in military services, police, fire, rescue, health, etc.). 

Padre White’s ministry, and his connection to this peaceful resting place at Herberton, will be a prominent feature.

On 25th April 1923, at Albany in Western Australia, the Reverend White led a party of friends in what was the first ever observance of a Dawn parade on ANZAC Day, thus establishing a tradition which has endured, Australia wide ever since. Reverend White was serving as one of the padres of the earliest ANZAC`s to leave Australia with the First AIF in November 1914. The convoy was assembled in the Princess Royal Harbour and King George Sound at Albany in Western Australia. Before embarkation, at four in the morning, he conducted a service for all the men of the battalion.

When White returned to Australia in 1919, he was appointed relieving Rector of the St John`s Church in Albany. White was transferred from Albany to serve other congregations, the first in South Australia, then Broken Hill where he built a church, then later at Forbes in New South Wales. In his retirement from parish life, he moved to Herberton where he became Chaplain of an Anglican convent. However, soon after his arrival (on September 26, 1954) he died, to be buried so modestly and anonymously as "A Priest".

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