‘Harmonise with the rest of the Empire’: Empire’s influence on religious instruction in Australian and New Zealand primary schools, 1880–1962

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article argues that imperial identities embracing Britishness within Anglo-settler colonies significantly influenced provisions for religious education in Australia and New Zealand primary schools from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, corresponding with James Belich’s chronology of recolonisation. The article begins with an overview of the foundational Education Acts of Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and New Zealand, each of which included stronger legal provisions for secularity than in other Australian and settler colonial contexts. The article then tracks the enduring campaigns to promote additional religious instruction in classrooms, revealing a common imperial imaginary shared by Protestant settlers within Australian and New Zealand contexts. Proponents drew upon one another’s tactics, including campaigns for referenda, the creation of Bible-in-Schools Leagues, and parliamentary lobbying campaigns. They also drew upon the idea that Britishness necessitated Christianity, though their calls sometimes did not reflect the legislative reality in Great Britain itself. In the mid-twentieth century, the context of the Second World War precipitated a renewed focus on Britishness as a bulwark and protector of the British Empire. When combined with the diffusion of Agreed Syllabuses, this enabled religious instruction advocates to overcome fierce opposition to strengthen systems of religious instruction from 1940 to 1962.