COALDRAKE, Frank William

Family Name: Coaldrake

Given Names: Frank William

Gender: Male

Birth-date: 12 February 1912

Death-date: 22 July 1970

Marital Status: Married, from 1959

Age/ Age Range: mid 20s to late 50s

Location: QLD, Brisbane, VIC, Melbourne, Japan

Occupation: Anglican Priest and Missionary

Primary Motivation: Pacifism- Religious

Military Event: WWII

Reason for Court Appearance: NA

Court Name and Location: NA

Court Hearing Date: NA

Court Outcome: NA

Personal Summary:

Frank was born on 12 March 1912 in Brisbane. After spending time with the Bush Brotherhood of the Anglican church he developed an interest in ministry and was ordained in 1943. It was within the Australian Student Christian Movement (ASCM) he found spiritual and intellectual affinities which stimulated him to apply his Christian faith to what he saw as the great moral issues confronting his generation. During his term (1938-39) as ASCM travelling secretary he became convinced that all Christians should be pacifists. Three weeks after Australia’s declaration of war in 1939, he founded The Peacemaker, a monthly paper to inform and assist men who conscientiously objected to military service. Frank was also its first editor. He believed that with Australia at war there was a need for an Australia-wide journal to unite the nine Pacifist groups then in existence. They combined to form the Federal Pacifist Council of Australia (FPCA). Frank was a member of the FPCA and president during 1943-46.

After Frank left his job as Travelling Secretary of the Australian Student Christian Movement, circa 1940, he joined the Anglican celibate Brotherhood of Saint Laurence in Melbourne. For the next 5 years he combined his pacifist activities with a program of study, and his social work with the Brotherhood. His ordination as priest was delayed because the concern by the church authorities about his Christian pacifism. The FPCA was advocating to the Federal government to legislate a provision for conscientious objectors to apply for exemption from all military duties, not just combatant. It was grounds during the Vietnam War period 1964-1972.

Kenneth Rivett stated that, Frank Coaldrake was the outstanding figure among Australian pacifists in the difficult years of WW2. He recalled, I met him first in 1938, Soon after I accompanied him to a meeting in the Melbourne Town Hall at which the Prime Minister, Mr Lyons, was seeking recruits for the citizen forces when the audience rose to sing “Land of Hope and Glory”. Frank remained seated and I was enough of an admirer to follow his lead. He objected, he told me, not to the song but the aggressive spirit in which the audience was singing it. In general, however, he did not consider that gestures of that kind were appropriate. He was utterly candid about the strength of the case against pacifism especially in face of Nazi and Japanese aggression. In that respect as in others, he set a standard some of us have often looked back to and sought to live up to.

After his presidency he was accepted as a missionary to Japan, where he served until 1956. He had first offered to serve as ministry in Japan at the height of the war in 1943. The travel was refused by the Federal government. Bishop Felix Arnott at his funeral service described his ministry in Japan as, a real Christian attempt to live out the life of reconciliation between enemies. Frank married Maida Williams in 1949 and she shared his mission life in Japan, along with its privations. The couple had three children. Shirley Abraham remembered that, During his 10 years in Japan, Frank wrote regular newsletter and continued to contribute to “THE PEACEMAKER from time to time. Shirley and Vivienne Abraham were joint editors of The Peacemaker until its demise in September/ December 1971.

The Coaldrakes returned to Australia in 1956, afterwards Frank was invited to exercise ministry through the Australian Board of Missions (ABM), mostly with indigenous Australians. He came to believe that “assimilation” was harmful to Indigenous culture and persuaded the ABM to adopt “acceptance” as a guiding principle and to involve Aborigines in decision making. He was the first Australian-born priest to be elected Archbishop of Brisbane on 10 July 1970. Sadly he died on 22 July 1970 aged 58 years, before he could be consecrated. His death was believed to have been caused by the privations he suffered in post-war Japan that had seriously undermined his health.

The wors of Bishop David Gurnsey provides a glimpse of the life of this outstanding Australian Peacemaker, He upheld unpopular causes -pacifism, the rights of tenants, student participation and self expression, the genuine acceptance of Aborigines as equals. He did this with force and tenacity, but with remarkable sense of humour and complete absence of ill-feeling.

Confirmatory Source:

Peacemaker, August/ September 1971, p5.

O’Brien Laurie, 1993. Australian Dictionary of Biography: Coaldrake Frank William (1912-1970), Vol. 13, Melbourne University Press. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/coaldrake-frank-william-9771 accessed 28 May 2021.

Religious Groups and Key Figures – Reverend Frank Coaldrake, The University of Melbourne, https://library.unimelb.edu.au/asc/collections/archives/resources/research-guides/the-peace-movement/religious-groups-and-key-figures#side-3 accessed 12 January 2024

Image:

Frank Coaldrake

Courtesy: The Peacemaker , August/ September 1970, p.5.