Ellen G. White: The Australian Years: 1891-1900 (vol. 4)

A Union Conference Is Born

As was the case with all local conferences and missions throughout the world, those in Australia were separate units under the direction of the General Conference, with headquarters in Battle Creek, Michigan. Local conferences, when formed, were accepted into the General Conference. The arrangement oftentimes proved awkward. 4BIO 120.3

One problem was the time element. Mail to and from the States took a month each way. Then there was the distance between local conference or mission and the General Conference. Institutions were developing to serve the peoples of the whole South Pacific, and they needed careful supervision. All this led A. G. Daniells and W. C. White to give study to a type of organization that would bind together the local organizations in a given area into an administrative unit, which in turn would be responsible to the General Conference. In several trips they took together to New Zealand and back, they had time to canvass the matter carefully and to outline a course that might be followed. 4BIO 120.4

But they were not alone in their concerns. O. A. Olsen, as president of the General Conference and chairman of the Foreign Mission Board, had clearly seen the problems. He was now in Australia in close association with White and Daniells, and Mrs. White as well. While the workers were assembled in Brighton for some days together, there was opportunity for united study to the forming of what was called a union conference. With the business of the Australian Conference out of the way by the end of the second week, the key workers turned their attention to the creation of a new type of organization, which would stand between local conferences, missions, and institutions, and the General Conference. In this way matters of local concern could be studied and acted upon by those nearby. 4BIO 121.1

On Monday morning, January 15, with W. C. White, who had been appointed by the General Conference as the “superintendent of the Australasian Field,” in the chair, some 250 persons came together to consider the matter of forming a union conference. Olsen was asked to preside at the meetings dealing with the matter. There were nine in all, during the next ten days. Committees on organization, nominations, and resolutions were appointed. Early in the work, the committee on school location gave its report, which was printed in the February 26, 1894, Bible Echo: 4BIO 121.2

The committee on school location reported that diligent inquiry had been made for suitable sites near Melbourne and Sydney; that several places had been found which they thought were worthy of consideration: and they recommended that the executive committee of the conference be authorized to take immediate steps to raise funds, and to purchase land which in their judgment is most suitable, and that their decision be made as early as is consistent. 4BIO 121.3

The committee on organization presented a constitution that would foster the beginning of the new union conference and called for steps to be taken to enable it to hold church and school property. The nominating committee recommended for officers: 4BIO 121.4

President, W. C. White

Vice-President, A. G. Daniells

Secretary, L. J. Rousseau

Treasurer, Echo Publishing Company