Arthur Ernest WhitePrint Page

The set of three stained glass windows were erected to commemorate "Padre" Arthur Ernest White, founder of the Dawn Service who was a former rector of the Wirrinya Parish. 

Members of the parish built the church with their own hands and erected what they refer to as "The Dawn Service Window", as their tribute to White`s service to Australia. Reverend White was serving as one of the padres of the earliest ANZAC`s to leave Australia with the First Australian Imperial Force (A.I.F.) in November 1914. The convoy was assembled in the Princess Royal Harbour and King George Sound at Albany, Western Australia.

Before embarkation, at four in the morning, he conducted a service for all the men of the battalion. "Albany", he is quoted to have said, "was the last sight of land these ANZAC troops saw after leaving Australian shores and some of them never returned. We should hold a service (here) at the first light of dawn each ANZAC Day to commemorate them." When White returned to Australia in 1919, he was appointed relieving Rector of the St John`s Church in Albany. That is how on ANZAC Day 1923 he came to hold the first Commemorative Dawn Service.

 "Padre" White lived a life of service to his communities. He was successively a Church of England priest in England (1909 - 1912), a member of its Bush Brotherhood in remote Western Australia (1912-1916), Army Chaplain to Western Front troops during World War One (1916 -17), Anglican Church Rector, then Archdeacon and Canon in Melbourne (1918 -1923), Broken Hill (1923 -1929), Albany (1929 -1938) and Forbes (1938 -1954), and finally a chaplain to St. Mary’s Girls School at Herberton (1954). He died of illness shortly after his arrival in Herberton.

The windows were originally installed in the Wirrinya Church which is now closed, and have been installed in the cloister of St John’s the Evangelist Anglican Church.

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