Launch of fundraising appeal for maintenance to Cooma's Christ Church

The appeal is the first visit to Monaro for new Canberra and Goulburn Bishop, Mark Short.

The event will present an opportunity for the community from near and far to contribute to the upkeep of this important building.

The event starts at 10am at the church, and includes morning tea.

While being cared for by trustees involved with St Paul's Anglican Church Cooma, the church has served most denominations over its long history.

The decision to build this church was taken in 1845.

It was only in 1823, from a site north of Bunyan, that Europeans first sighted this region.

It lay outside the Limits of Location set by NSW Governor Darling beyond which the acquisition land occupation of land was prohibited.

Those who settled there did so in defiance of the government and became known as squatters.

Victoria did not become a separate state until 1851 so that, in 1845, it was till part of NSW and The Monaro area was regarded as taking in county extending from Michelago well into what became Victoria.

Not surprisingly, it took years for people, to settle there in significant numbers and for decades there was no town of Cooma existing - rather there existed what we now call a "locality".

A burial ground developed in land on the road which led to Myalla. It is believed that there are a number of graves for which there are no records or markers.

Of graves that are recorded the oldest is that of Johanna O'Rourke from Tipperary Ireland who died aged 21 years in 1842. Another of the early graves is that of Murray Mitchell, the son of the explorer and surveyor, Sir Thomas Mitchell, who died aged 18 years in 1846.

In 1843 the Reverend Edward Gifford Pryce was appointed by the Church of England as missionary chaplain to Monaro and the South Coast. He was the last of the missionary chaplains to be sent from England to Australia by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and after months of homelessness he took up residence at The Grange, a house located close by the burial ground. This house remains and has recently undergone renovation. At that time there was no church on the Monaro.

Early in 1845 Bishop William Grant Broughton (the first and only Church of England Bishop of Australia) visited this area and while there, after consultation with Pryce, John Lambie (Commissioner for Crown Lands) and Government Surveyor McCabe, decided to build Christ Church on land adjoining the burial ground.

He actually designed it and on February 17 in that year he laid the foundation stone.

The cemetery, following Crown Land subdivisions, was sub-divided into sections along denominational lines - Roman Catholic, Church of England, Wesleyan, Presbyterian, Quaker, Jew and 'other denominations' in accordance with the practise of the time. Early in the 20th Century the Church of England purchased from the Crown that section of the cemetery on which the church stood.

Over the years 1845-1850 the town of Cooma developed quite quickly and even by the time the construction of Christ Church was completed it had become apparent that it had been built in the wrong place and was too small and plans for another Church of England were under consideration. Services took place at Christ Church in and from January 1850 until 1872.

There have been a few periods when the church was used for services by other Christian groups. It has also been used for special services for descendants of the early settlers and pioneers of this district buried in the cemetery, most recently 2011 and from time to time it is visited by groups of people in the course of historic church/building tours.

Following the development of the present cemetery located off Mittagang Road in Cooma, the old cemetery was closed to further burials except for a very few people, having a close ancestor who was a worshipper at the church during the 22 years that it was the sole Church of England church in the district.

Records show that the number of people known to have been buried in the cemetery is 243 and of that number all but between 50 and 60 died in the 1800s. The church has the distinction of being the oldest church on the Monaro and is classified by the National Trust of Australia as a building of interest and architectural merit.