Reverend George WightPrint Page

In a sermon preached at the Wharf street Congregational Church recently, the Rev. Hugh Jones said:— The Rev. George Wight, the first minister of this Church, fell asleep last week in Melbourne, after a long life of 87 or 88 years on earth.

Mr. Wight arrived in Brisbane from Portobello, Edinburgh, in May, 1858, being commissioned by the Colonial Missionary Society, which is a Congregational Society in the home land, to begin a Congregational cause in Brisbane. The first Congregational service ever held in Brisbane was conducted by Mr. Wight on the afternoon of 23rd May, 1858, in a "rickety loft" in Queen-street. Access to the room was by a "rickety trap ladder," and the dilapidated building itself stood over a "dark, sluggish creek." There were fifty persons present at that first service.

After only two years' stay in Brisbane, Mr. Wight returned to England, after having aided the Church in securing a successor to himself in the person of Rev. Edward Griffith, who commenced his ministry in Wharf-street, in September, 1860. After a sojourn in England of two years, Mr. Wight came again to Brisbane to reside, and settled at Eildon Hill, where he held a service, regularly on Sunday in his own home, with, the result that in course of time a congregational course was begun in O'Connell Town, a building being erected on land donated for the purpose by Mr. Wight. Though often occupying the pulpit, Mr. Wight was never again pastor of any church.
The Queenslander (Brisbane), 24 November 1900.