St John's Cathedral, Brisbane and the Anzac Legend

Apart from housing an historic flag from the original Anzac campaign at Gallipoli, St John’s Cathedral also has important links with the establishment of Australia’s Anzac Day commemorations. For the principal architect of Anzac Day was Lieutenant-Colonel the Reverend David Garland, a canon of St John’s Cathedral. During and after the First World War Garland was a Brisbane-based parish priest and Army chaplain, as well as a Cathedral ‘canon’ (that is, he was a member of the Cathedral’s governing body). He took up the challenge to devise meaningful ways for the community to honour the bravery and sacrifice of those killed in the Gallipoli landings. The result was the creation of what became the annual Anzac Day commemorations in Australia, the characteristic features of which owed much to Garland’s personal drive and initiative. David Garland was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1864. He studied law and in 1886 emigrated to Queensland. An inner calling led him to become active in the Anglican Church and in 1889 he moved to New South Wales where he was ordained a deacon, working as a parish missioner across the Grafton and Riverina Dioceses. In 1892 he transferred to Western Australia where he was ordained priest, eventually becoming a canon of St George’s Cathedral in Perth. In 1902 he returned to Queensland as Archdeacon and Diocesan Administrator in North Queensland. In 1907 he moved to Brisbane as rector of Holy Trinity Church, Woolloongabba and was installed as a canon of St John’s Cathedral. Throughout his ministry Garland displayed a whirlwind zeal and an extraordinary talent for organisation, entrepreneurship and innovation. In Western Australia and Queensland he was particularly noted as a crusader for religious education in State schools. During the Boer War in South Africa he was chaplain to Western Australian soldiers assembling in Fremantle before they were sent overseas. At the start of the First World War, he became a senior chaplain at Brisbane’s Enoggera Barracks, where Queensland soldiers of the First AIF were training as they prepared for active service in Gallipoli, and later in the Middle East and the Western Front. Garland also took on the role of organising secretary for the State Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, challenging young men to join up for the war.

Opposite page: Lieutenant-Colonel the Reverend Canon David Garland OBE, the principal architect of Anzac Day in Australia.

State Library of Queensland

Army recruits at Enoggera Military Camp Brisbane, 1915, where Canon Garland was Chaplain and a major force in Queensland’s military recruitment campaign in the early years of the First World War.

State Library of Queensland

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