St Paul’s Cathedral Melbourne

St Paul’s Cathedral Melbourne provides an entry-point into the architectural history of William Butterfield’s ‘final masterpiece’, as well as the chronicle of a City congregation and a study of the changing role of religion, particularly the Anglican expression of it, in civic life.

Bishop Grant notes that the book is not an officially commissioned history.

‘While this account draws upon my memories,’ says Bishop Grant, ‘it is undergirded by original research within the Cathedral archives and by conversations with past and present Cathedral identities’.

The book begins with an extended account of the construction, embellishment, upkeep and modification of the cathedral building, from 1879 to 2009. It then moves to consider the individuals, the relationships and the activities that, taken together, comprise the entity we know as ‘the Cathedral’.

According to Bishop Grant, ‘After the publication in 2010 of my Episcopally Led and Synodically Governed: Anglicans in Victoria 1803–1997, it seemed appropriate to follow this with an account of Melbourne’s Anglican Cathedral’. 

Bishop Grant graduated from the Melbourne School of History in 1953. In 1957 he co-authored The Melbourne Scene with Geoffrey Serle. He was ordained in 1959 and was an Assistant Bishop in the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne 1970–99 and Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral 1985–99. He has also authored Perspective of a Century: Trinity College 1872–1972. He is currently a fellow of Trinity College.

St Paul’s Cathedral Melbourne is published by Australian Scholarly Publishing.