# Harvard Divinity School ## expand\_more ![Divinity School Veritas](/sites/g/files/omnuum10876/files/styles/hwp_1_1__100x100_scale/public/harvaus/files/divinity_veritas.png?itok=oJA-K6PB) Thomas Jefferson Gore, a native of Kentucky, came to Australia in 1866 to become first pastor of the Grote Street Church of Christ, Adelaide. Perhaps because of his influence, the College of the Bible in Lexington, Kentucky became a Mecca (if such conflation of religions is permissible) for young Australian men associated with the Churches of Christ. In 1907, a College of the Bible was established at Carlton, Victoria (moved in 1910 to Glen Iris) and the strong connection to Kentucky was broken. The Adelaide *Advertiser* of Tuesday 31 May 1904 published a letter from Mr. James E. Thomas in the United States: “An event that is unique, inasmuch as it was the introduction of our Australian flag to the land of the Stars and Stripes, took place at the annual entertainment of the Australian Club in Kentucky University (U.S.A.) on Friday, April 15. … The chairman was Mr. Mark Collis, minister of the Broadway Church, of Church of Christ, who went to Kentucky from Adelaide over 30 years ago. After several items of the programme had been rendered, the ceremony of unfurling the Australian national flag was performed. Miss Sarah Adelaide Collis, the beautiful daughter of the chairman, who received her name from her father's native city, made a very appropriate speech as she presented the flag to the club on behalf of the Enmore ladies. Mr. Coningsby M. Gordon, president of the club, acknowledged the treasured emblem in a feeling speech, and called on the club to salute the flag and give three British cheers. Then the members of the club, surrounding their flag, sang ‘The song of Australia.’ Those taking part in the national song were:—Arthur G. Day, Horace E. J. Kingsbury, Reginald J. H. McGeorge, of Sydney, New South Wales; Donald C. McCallum, Percy D. McCallum, and W. Cecil McCallum, of Kaniva, Victoria; J. Stuart Mill, of Melbourne; Alfred Marshman, of Dalkey, South Australia; Ira A. Paternoster, of Salisbury, South Australia; Coningsby M. Gordon, of Finniss, South Australia; and James E. Thomas, of Unley, South Australia.” Three of these patriotic singers, Donald Campbell McCallum, William Cecil McCallum, and Coningsby Mathieson Gordon, were among the first four Australians to study at the Harvard Divinity School. The fourth, Harold Elkin Knott, was also associated with the Churches of Christ. All four of these men eventually settled in the United States. I have not found Australians attending the Harvard Divinity School again until after the Second World War. This pattern of stronger Australian-Harvard associations in the early twentieth century than later in the century resembles that observed at the Harvard Dental School and the reasons seem similar. Students came to the United States to get an education or degrees they could not get in Australia and ceased to come when other options became available at home. Other early theological connections between Harvard and Australia include: Wilfred Harris was an Englishman who studied at Harvard Divinity School (1893–1894). He came to Australia in 1908 as minister of the Unitarian Christian Church in Adelaide. The first two Australians to receive degrees from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences were clergymen, Ernest Northcroft Merrington (PhD 1905, Presbyterian) and George Edgar Moore (AM 1913, Churches of Christ, later Congregational). Arthur Sheridan Westneat (c. 1880–1965, Baptist) was born in Victoria and studied at Grenville College Ballarat. In 1908 he departed Australia for the United States, never to return. He studied at Georgetown College, Kentucky (1910–1913) and Andover Theological College (1915–1916) which shared the campus of the Harvard Divinity School. ### Class of 1909 expand\_more #### Donald Campbell McCallum Donald Campbell McCallum (1876–1927) was born at Yorketown, South Australia. He sailed to America in 1902 on the same boat that took George Stephen Smith Greenwell and Howard Robinson Greenwell to study at Harvard Dental School. McCallum travelled in steerage while the future dentists enjoyed the comforts of the saloon. After study at the College of the Bible at Lexington, and various ministries in Kentucky, he was pastor of the Church of the Disciples, Everett Massachusetts from March 1908 to February 1910. During this time he obtained the degrees A.M. and S.T.B. from Harvard Divinity School. In 1910, he resigned his pastorship and married a young member of the congregation, Georgia Messinger. The newly-wed couple travelled to Australia, for a brief visit, and then on to the Philippines where they were missionaries at Vigan from 1911 to 1916. The marriage appears to have failed because Georgia and Donald McCallum returned separately to the United States in 1916. In the U.S. Census of 1920, Georgia McCallum is listed as a widow living in Everett Massachusetts with her son John Hamilton McCallum (born in the Philippines), and Donald McCallum is listed as a widowed minister living in Calhoun, Kentucky. The Harvard Alumni Bulletin of 1921 erroneously reported he had died in 1918. Donald McCallum worked as a pastor at Calhoun Kentucky (1919–1920), Madison Indiana (1923–1925), and New Philadelphia Ohio (1926–1927) where he died on 11 March 1927. A posthumous son, Donald Campbell McCallum, was born later that year in Kentucky. Georgia McCallum worked in University Hall, Harvard University for fourteen years (resigned 1938). Their son, John Hamilton McCallum, graduated in the class of 1933. Donald Campbell McCallum was an older brother of William Cecil McCallum who also attended Harvard Divinity School. ### Class of 1911 expand\_more #### Harold Elkin Knott Harold Elkin Knott (1880–1934) was born in Lancashire. His family came to Queensland as bounty immigrants in 1884 but eventually settled in Melbourne. He travelled to the United States in 1904 where he obtained an M.A. from Drake University (1910) and an A.M. from Harvard Divinity School (1911) after which he returned to preach in Victoria for the Churches of Christ. In 1913, he became a professor at the College of the Bible, Glen Iris, where he taught until taking a position at Bible University, Eugene, Oregon in 1922. During the 1920s he organized missions in South Africa. He died in a car crash in California in 1934. ### Class of 1913 expand\_more #### William Cecil McCallum William Cecil McCallum (1880-1969) was born at Lucindale, South Australia. He completed studies at the College of the Bible in Lexington, Kentucky in 1910 then transferred to Harvard Divinity School (1911–1913). During 1914 and 1915 he was pastor of the Church of Christ, Hobart, vice-consul for the United States in Hobart, and chaplain for the military forces in Tasmania. In 1916, he returned to the United States to become pastor of the First Christian Church in Alliance, Ohio where he served for many years. William Cecil McCallum died in 1969 at Indianapolis. He was a younger brother of Donald Campbell McCallum who also attended Harvard Divinity School. ### Class of 1918 expand\_more #### Coningsby Mathieson Gordon Coningsby Mathieson Gordon (1876–1957) was born Alina Plains, South Australia. He was a clergyman for the Launceston Church of Christ in 1899. He travelled to the United States to study theology at the College of the Bible in 1902 and returned to Australia in 1906 where he served as pastor of the Church of Christ at Swanston street Melbourne. He taught at the Australian College of the Bible (established at Carlton in 1907, moving to Glen Iris in 1910). He returned to America in 1914 and obtained an A.B. from Butler College in Indiana, before attending Harvard Divinity School (1917-1918) where he obtained the degrees S.T.B. and A.M. He returned to Australia in 1919 where he was active in the Anti-Liquor League of Victoria. C. M. Gordon returned to the United States in 1924 and served as a pastor in Norfolk, Virginia where he died in 1957. ### HDS Graduates by Year expand\_more (See Individual Bio Statements at Left) ##### 1909 Donald Campbell McCallum, 1911 Harold Elkin Knott, 1913 William Cecil McCallum, 1918 Coningsby Mathieson Gordon,