Reverend John YoulPrint Page

The brass plaque commemorates the Reverend John Youl (1777- 1827).

John Youl was born at Epsom, Surrey, England, in 1777. He received an English education, and when he was 23 he was sent with a group of men by the London Missionary Society to Tahiti. The mission was not a great success. Some of the members lost their lives and all but two were expelled from Tahiti. John Youl was one of those expelled. He failed to gain weight in the fattening pens, and was rejected as a tasty meal by the cannibals. He gained his freedom, and no doubt that of his friends, by being able to shave thirty of the tribesmen with his cut-throat razor without spilling one drop of blood.

The missionaries made their escape and by 1807 John Youl was at Port Jackson and there he met with a group of Non-Conformists, who had formed a settlement at Portland Head, on the Hawkesbury River in New South Wales. In 1808 this group formed the 'Portland Head Society for the Promoting of Christian Knowledge and the Education of Youth'.

In 1809 this Society built on Ebenezer Mount a small building to be used as a church and school. It still bears the name 'Ebenezer Church' and is claimed by the Presbyterians as the oldest one in Australia. John Youl became its first minister and school teacher.

In 1809 John Youl married Jane Loder, daughter of 'Sergeant' George Loder, local gaoler and pound keeper. Youl worked in New South Wales for six years and then returned to England where he was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Chester on 15^th March 1815 and in June the same year he was ordained priest by the Bishop of London. He returned to New South Wales with an appointment as chaplain at Port Dalrymple, Van Diemen's Land.

The Reverend Youl was detained in Sydney until he could take up his appointment at Port Dalrymple in 1819. He arrived there in November and settled at George Town, making regular seasonal visits up the Tamar to Launceston.

In 1824 the main settlement was moved from George Town to Launceston and he became a resident of Launceston. The building in the settlement first used for worship was a converted blacksmith's shop. It also served as a school and court-house.  In September 1824 the foundations were begun for a church, and on 28th December, 1824, the corner stone was laid with great ceremony. The land, set in the bush away from the river and the houses, had been consecrated the previous year, 1823, by the Reverend Samuel Marsden of Sydney, the senior chaplain of the two colonies.

On the memorable day of Friday, 16^th December 1825 the Reverend John Youl first opened the new St. John's Church for divine service. It was in a very unfinished state. The galleries were not fitted and the tower was incomplete. Youl opened a public subscription to purchase an organ. He took an interest in the labours of a prisoner at the Launceston Goal who was making a cast-iron clock for the church. This was to be the first town clock.

His parish extended to all the settled areas in the north of the island, and included duties at the church, the gaol and the factories where the female prisoners were, the schools and the condemned cell.  He did not live to see his church completed as on 26^th March 1827 he died as a result of hard work and ill-health. He was buried in what became the Cypress Street Burying Ground.

John and Jane Youl had nine children. The Government had given the Reverend Youl 200 acres of valuable land beyond the Norfolk Plains area, and after her husband's death, Jane moved onto their property called 'Symmons Plains' with her family. The Reverend Youl glass challic was taken to Symmons Plains and only returned to St John’s Church in 1973 when a young descendant of John Youl, the Reverend David Lewis was appointed the church as assistant curate. Jane Youl died on 19^th July 1877. 

In the church a brass plaque was erected in memory of John Youl.

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