Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 36:3 (Summer 2022)
Article: Remembering Sarah Jane Lancaster Without Forgetting Winifred Kiek: Just Who Was The First Female Minister In Australia?
Author: Jim Reiher

PP 36:3 (Summer 2022) p. 3

Remembering Sarah Jane Lancaster Without Forgetting Winifred Kiek: Just Who Was The First Female Minister In Australia?

Jim Reiher

Jim Reiher holds a master of arts in theology and taught church history and New Testament studies for fifteen years in Melbourne, Australia. In retirement, he has turned his focus to writing. He is author of Women, Leadership and the Church (Acorn Press, 2006), as well as other books and journal articles.

The Australian church generally recognizes the first female Christian minister in the country to be Winifred Kiek (1884–1975). This is because Winifred was the first woman ordained as a minister of an existing Christian denomination. For this, and for the tandem truth that she was the first Australian woman to secure the necessary credentials for ordination, she should be remembered. It is the thesis of this article, however, that such a criterion for being remembered as the first female Christian minister is not broad enough. A different criterion is offered, and a different woman is then seen to be the holder of that “title”: Sarah Jane Lancaster (1858–1934).

Is ordination the correct basis for being seen as the first female minister in the country? Or should the criterion be “the first woman to run a church, deliver sermons, preside over communion, and serve as senior minister of her congregation”? Or should it be something else? Indeed, softening our emphasis on “firsts” and expanding the definition of ministry to include those not formally ordained will set the stage for finding other important early voices that deserve remembering and honoring.

Winifred Kiek was indeed a champion for women in the church. She was an amazing woman and one of the great early pioneers in women’s leadership in the church in Australia. Recognition of Winifred is prolific. Janet West writes regarding her: “a Congregationalist of Quaker origins . . . the first woman to be ordained in Australia—in Adelaide in 1927.”1 Likewise, The Australian Women’s Register states: “In 1927 she was ordained as a minister of the Congregational Church, making her the first woman to be ordained to the ministry of any church in Australia.”2 Walter Phillips notes the same in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, as do Carolyn Collins and Roy Eccleston in their book, Trailblazers: 100 Inspiring South Australian Women.3 All sources remind us that Winifred was the first ordained woman minister in Australia. This article will argue for a more nuanced approach to the history of the ministry of women in Australia, and that Sarah Jane L...