Page:History of Knox Church Dunedin.djvu/28

2 of settlement, their arduous pastoral labours were far from being lessened.

About the year 1857, a number of settlers in Dunedin and neighbourhood, who in the Home Country had been members of Presbyterian, Congregationalist, and other churches, met for public worship on the Sabbath in the Mechanics' Institute, under the ministry of the Rev. Mr Jeffreys, an English clergyman who had taken up his residence in Otago. Mr Jeffreys was a most worthy man, and was held in high esteem. It is believed that he would have been welcomed as a coadjutor by the ministers and office-bearers of the Otago Presbyterian Church had he consented to join them, but the very precarious state of his health prevented him from entering into any engagement of a permanent nature.

The first Church of England clergyman settled in Dunedin was the Rev. (now the Venerable Archdeacon) John A. Fenton, who arrived from Auckland in 1852, and conducted divine service in the Court-house till his people had erected a church of their own. Mr. Fenton continued in the active service of the ministry, first in Dunedin, and afterwards at Waikouaiti, till his return to England in 1863. He proved himself a zealous, faithful, and liberal-minded clergyman; and, there being no other minister in the Waikouaiti district in those days, his ministrations were largely taken advantage of and much appreciated by members of the Presbyterian and other denominations, by whom he was held in very high esteem. He was succeeded in his Dunedin charge, in 1859, by the Rev. (now the Venerable Archdeacon) Edward George Edwards, who has from first to last maintained the most pleasant and friendly relations with the minister and congregation of Knox Church, and has often manifested his sympathy by his presence among them on occasions both of rejoicing and of mourning.

Although Mr Burns had thus been relieved of the spiritual oversight of a large portion of the district originally under his care, and