Sir, - Do any of your readers know any descendants of the Reverend Edward Gifford Pryce, son of Edward and Eleanor (Gifford) Pryce, of Liverpool, England?

He was the first clergyman to enter Gippsland - in 1845 - to minister to his people, for Gippsland was then part of his parish of Maneroo. He left Cooma, his parish centre, in May, 1845, and entered Gippsland via Delegate. He conducted the first service ever held in Gippsland by any denomination, at Odell Raymond's Station at Stratford, and then continued on to the only township in Gippsland - Port Albert. He repeated this 'tour of duty' in 1846 and 1847.

Edward Gifford Pryce was born in Liverpool, England in 1804, graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland in 1837, and was a curate at Ardath, Ireland, 1837-1839, came to Australia in 1840, and was the parish priest at Lower Hawkesbury, 1840-1843, Maneroo, 1843-1855; Daylesford, Victoria, 1860-1866, and White Hills (near Bendigo), Victoria, 1867-1875. His wife died in 1875, and he returned to New South Wales serving mainly in the Goulburn Diocese.

In 1850, he married Miss Emma Weston, at Maneroo. There were three children of the marriage - Eleanor (born 1850), Charles (1853) and Hugh (1857). He died at Liverpool, New South Wales, 18 June 1904, at the home of his son, Hugh Pryce, 'Rossmore,' Liverpool.

If you know anything more about Edward Gifford Pryce, please contact us - the Morwell Historical Society, Box 104, Morwell, Victoria, 3840.

I. T. MADDERN,
President,
Morwell Historical Society,
Victoria

WHAT stories of drama, folly, and sometimes horror, lie behind the entries in the pages of the church registers of some of our early colonial clergymen.

In a Church of England burial register from the Monaro we may read the following entries under 'Cause of Death.'

The burial register entries are in the handwriting of the Reverend Edward Gifford Pryce, one of the pioneer priests of the Monaro. In 1843 he was appointed to that district and his reports and registers contain some of the dramatic raw material for a history of the beginnings of white settlement in the high country.

Holidaymakers on their way the the snowfields might scarcely notice the sign pointing to the little stone church of St. Mary the Virgin, Gegedzerick, near Berridale. This little bush church is filled with memories of the early years and of the ministry of Edward Gifford Pryce.

Sir Keith Hancock, in his book, "Discovering Monaro," writes, "Most evocative of the spirit of that time is the tiny stone church of Gegedzerick station. In hallowed ground close by, the rude forefathers of Gegedzerick sleep."

It is a long way from the battlefields of the American Civil War to the Gegedzerick churchyard. There one may notice a simple tombstone inscribed, "In loving memory of JACKSON CLARKE, born in Scotland, 27th December 1839, died at Spring Creek, 13th August 1934."

There is nothing to indicate that Jackson Clarke, who was one of Mr. Pryce's most faithful Churchwardens for many years, had had a most adventurous career before he reached Australia.

He was born in Dundee, Scotland, and baptised in the Scottish Episcopal Church. As a young man he went to America and enlisted in the Union army on the outbreak of the terrible Civil War in 1861.

He fought under General Ulysses S. Grant and in a battle had two fingers of one hand shot off. Most remarkably he claimed that he knew the man who had fired the shot and later shook hands with him after the war. He returned to Scotland, got married and came to Australia to settle near Gegedzerick.

The story of Jackson Clarke is only one of the fascinating tales that lie beneath the graves of what Sir Keith Hancock calls "the rude forefathers" in Gegedzerick churchyard. the story of Edward Gifford Pryce is equally interesting.

Pryce arrived on the Monaro only 20 years after Currie and Ovens became, as far as is known, the first Europeans to cross the Bredbo River in 1823. Soon after the exploration of the district Mr. Richard Brooks, of Denham Court, near Liverpool, settled at Gegedzerick. His descendants still live in the area as do those of Pryce.

Within a few years many other settlers had arrived. A letter from 'Guyandra, Maneroo,' dated August 28, 1834, published in the "Monitor" newspaper speaks of the stations of Mr. Palmer and Dr. Gibson being buried under a snowstorm that had killed hundreds of head of cattle and one assigned servant who had perished in snow up to 3m deep.

A few years later Bishop William Grant Broughton, the Anglican Bishop of Australia, visited the area and he wrote "The extended plains of Maneroo, and a great part of the course of the Murrumbidgee, are occupied by hundreds of beings to whom the very name of religion is a stranger . . . living in a state of concubinage, frequently promiscuous, without books or means of instruction of any description . . . " One is not surprised to read one very early baptism entry in which the occupation of the child's father is recorded as 'Bushranger'!

It was into this social and spiritual wilderness that Edward Gifford Pryce arrived in 1843. Within a few months he had travelled by horseback all over the district. On his first tour he baptised 53 children.

In a report the following year to Bishop Broughton, he described his way of life. He had no residence and consequently no home and so he was obliged to go from house to house. He stated that in the whole time he had been there he had never spent more than three days at once in the same place, except for one occasion when he was ill for a week. He was a familiar sight from Micalago to the mouth of the Snowy River.

The travels of Pryce became a legend. He heard that there was need for ministry in the Gippsland area so he saddled his horse and with a packhorse and a boy, known as the 'parson's Johnny,' he made his way down the Snowy River and across the Black Mountain into Gippsland. He brought back with him over 200 sovereigns which he devoted to building the church and parsonage in Cooma.

In February of 1845 Pryce had a visit from Bishop Broughton who came to found the churches at Cooma and at Gegedzerick. Richard Brooks started to build St. Mary's Church in weatherboard but it was not finished until about 1860 and it was built in stone from the local granite. Pryce also planned a tower and spire but these remained a dream.

At the end of Bishop Broughton's visit to the district Pryce returned with him to the Limestone plains where he acted as Chaplain at the Consecration of St. John's Church.

Pryce remained in charge of his vast area until 1856 when he resigned and went to Victoria for a period. On his retirement he settled with his son, Charles Pryce, at 'Arable' Station between Cooma and Berridale, and he continued to conduct services at St. Mary's, Gegedzerick until the 1880s. He died at the age of 90 at Liverpool, near Sydney, and is buried there.

Though the old church is built of stone the lines of the Catholic Priest-poet 'John O'Brien' fit it very well: