Deaconess Florence Buchanan Print Page

The stained glass window commemorates Deaconess Florence Buchanan who was a missionary and teacher.

Florence Buchanan was seriously injured in a riding accident in 1888 and left permanently crippled. After teaching her Melanesian servants English and Bible stories, she later assumed responsibility for the fundamentalist non-denominational South Seas Evangelical Mission (also known as the Queensland Kanaka Mission). In addition she served as Queensland secretary of both the International Scripture Union and the Young Women's Christian Association, and maintained at her own expense a hostel for English migrant girls. She was ordained a deaconess on Thursday Island in 1908. She died of tuberculosis in St Helen's Methodist Hospital on 30 December 1913 at the age of 52 and was buried in Toowong cemetery. Her death was profoundly mourned throughout the Torres Strait.

A meeting was called last week for the purpose of placing some memorial in the Quetta Church to Deaconess Buchanan. It was decided to call for subscriptions to place a colored window in the end of the church in the temporary wooden wall to be so made that it could be lifted out and put in the permanent wall when built. Any money over from the window was to go towards building a hospital at St Paul's Mission, Moa, a work that Miss Buchanan had much at heart. The Deaconess was for many such a well known and beloved figure here that no difficulty is anticipated in raising sufficient money for both projects.
Townsville Daily Bulletin,14th February 1914.

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