St Mary Magdalene Church
copied from: Church (archive.org)
The "Sydney Herald" on the 29th April, 1840, recorded that "The new Church of St Mary Magdalene at South Creek was consecrated by the Lord Bishop on Wednesday last. The Church, which is a very neat building, elegantly fitted to contain about 500 persons, has been erected by subscriptions on a piece of ground given for that purpose by Captain King, Royal Navy. Lady O'Connell has presented the Church with a very valuable plot of five acres of land in the immediate vicinity". Previously, on the 23rd April, 1840 the Rev. William Grant Broughton had consecrated the church and with the churchyard, both have been in use for around 142 years - less over time because "God's little acre" has filled up totally over those years with the burials of some of the most prominent St Marys citizens as well as those who came out in chains and those who passed through and also settled in the St Marys (South Creek) area. Of course, the most prominent family buried in the churchyard is the family of Governor Philip Gidley King and his wife Anna Josepha King (who was buried here).
In 1989, after the celebrations of the First Fleet re-enactment was fading into history, the headstone of Philip Gidley King was laid to rest beside the King Vault after being brought from Tooting in England where Philip was buried. Anna Josepha Coombe was born at Hatherleigh in Devon in 1765 and died on the 26th July, 1844 at the age of 79 years. Philip would return to England and Anna would take over running the family property "Dunheved" at St Marys with the aid of managers. After King's death in 1808 she was writing to her friend Sir Joseph Banks to see if he could intervene on her behalf regarding her petition to Lord Castlereagh for a widow's pension.
She was the Organizer of the Bridge Street orphanage for girls that provided wives for many settlers and she continued to help the poor and sick right up to her death. The name "St Mary Magdalene" commemorates the King family church in Launceston, Cornwall. The church stands on a grant of land made to surveyor-explorer, John Oxley in 1823 and was acquired by Phillip Parker King in 1828. Before the church the people of "South Creek" had to wait for visits from the Reverend Samuel Marsden or Reverend Thomas Hassall who held services in a slab hut that was believed to be on the Great Western Road (Highway) where Victoria Park now stands.