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James Moore Hickson's 1923 Western Australian Mission: Media Reception of a Globe-Trotting Anglican Healer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2022

PETER ELLIOTT
PETER ELLIOTT*
Affiliation:
Alphacrucis College, 3/642 Albany Highway, Victoria Park, Perth, Western Australia 6100
*
E-mail: peter_elliott@aapt.net.au
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Abstract

In the wake of World War I and the Spanish flu epidemic, the Anglican layman James Moore Hickson embarked on a five- year international healing ministry. What circumstances contributed to his positive reception by the public and the press, and how did he gain episcopal support and private audiences with the archbishop of Canterbury? Hickson's ministry in Western Australia near the end of his global tour sheds light on some of the reasons why his ministry was so widely accepted.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 74 , Issue 3 , July 2023 , pp. 605 - 617
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2022

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References

1 Pusey, E. B., An eirenicon, New York 1866, 98–9Google Scholar.

2 I. Breward, ‘Anglicanism in Australia and New Zealand’, in J. Morris (ed.), The Oxford history of Anglicanism, IV: Global western Anglicanism, c.1910–present, Oxford 2019, 331.

3 Mews, S., ‘The revival of spiritual healing in the Church of England, 1920–26’, in Sheils, W. J. (ed.), The Church and healing (Studies in Church History xix, 1982), 300–1.Google Scholar

4 Ibid. 310.

5 This short summary of Hickson's life is derived from Mark Hutchinson's article, ‘Hickson, James Moore (1868–1933), Anglican healing exponent, accountant, bank clerk’, <http://webjournals.ac.edu.au/ojs/index.php/ADPCM/article/view/9476/9471>.

6 Hutchinson's article goes into depth about the network of relationships and influence supporting Hickson, which cannot be explored fully here: ibid.

7 Mews, ‘Revival of spiritual healing’, 312.

8 M. Hutchinson, ‘The Worcester circle: an Anglo-Catholic attempt at renewal in the 1920s’, <http://academia.edu/345662>.

9 Hughes, M., Archbishop Randall Davidson, London 2018, 104Google Scholar; Bell, G., Life of Archbishop Randall Davidson, Oxford 1952, 10–12Google Scholar.

10 Bell, Davidson, 16.

11 Ibid. 28.

12 R. Davidson (ed.), The six Lambeth conferences, 1867–1920, London 1929, 391.

13 Davidson manscript, quoted in Mews, ‘Revival of spiritual healing’, 313.

14 Mews, ‘Revival of spiritual healing’, 311ff.

15 Hughes, Davidson, 104; Bell, Davidson, 744.

16 Hughes, Davidson, 99.

17 Estimates are 50 million worldwide for the Spanish flu, and a minimum of 16 million for the war.

18 Lambeth Conference 1920, resolutions 55, 65, <http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/archive/1920/in1920.htm>.

19 Ibid. resolution 61, <http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/archive/1920/in1920.htm>.

20 Hughes, Davidson, 124.

21 Ibid. 113.

22 Davidson, Lambeth conferences, 125.

23 Lambeth Conference 1920, resolution 63. The tensions in the committee are documented in Mews, ‘Revival of spiritual healing’, 319ff.

24 M. Maddocks, The Christian healing ministry, London 1981, 103, 100ff, quoted in Mews, ‘Revival of spiritual healing’, 299.

25 Farley, A. F., ‘A spiritual healing mission remembered: James Moore Hickson's Christian healing mission at Palmerston North, New Zealand, 1923’, Journal of Religious History xxxiv/1 (2010), 6Google Scholar.

26 Cunningham, R. J., ‘James Moore Hickson and spiritual healing in the American Episcopal Church’, Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church xxxix/1 (1970), 5–6Google Scholar.

27 Ibid. 7.

28 Although early Australian Pentecostalism was well aware of American healing ministries, and it was something of a two-way relationship (cf. John Alexander Dowie), Hickson's ministry developed outside the Holiness-Pentecostal nexus. The comprehensively Anglican nature of Hickson's ministry is one of its most distinctive features.

29 Daily News, 16 Dec. 1922, 8, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/83257913>.

30 Ibid. 30 Dec. 1922, 15, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/83261430>.

31 The West Australian, 2 Mar. 1923, 5, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/23888951>.

32 Ibid. 3 July 1923, 8, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22619764>.

33 Kalgoorlie Miner, 4 July 1923, 5, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/93200829>.

34 Great Southern Herald, 11 July 1923, 3, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/146194054>.

35 Tambellup Times, 9 June 1923, 4, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/211147371>.

36 South Western Advertiser, 1 June 1923, 4, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/149632746>.

37 The Sunday Times, 15 July 1923, 1, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/60009144>.

38 The West Australian, 31 July 1923, 6, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22621690>.

39 Ibid. 2 Aug. 1923, 7, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22628734>.

40 Ibid. 4 Aug. 1923, 11, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22625552>.

41 Daily News, 3 Aug. 1923, 17, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/78073734>.

42 The West Australian, 3 Aug. 1923, 10, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22620170>.

43 Ibid. 11 Aug. 1923, 12, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22634136>.

44 The Sunday Times, 5 Aug. 1923, 7, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/60009933>.

45 South Western Times, 4 Aug. 1923, 2, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/210776121>.

46 Southern Argus and Wagin-Arthur Express, 3 Aug. 1923, 3, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/206570049>.

47 Bunbury Herald and Blackwood Express, 7 Aug. 1923, 3, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/87061997>.

48 Ibid. 10 Aug. 1923, 3, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/87064474>.

49 South Western Times, 7 Aug. 1923, 3, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/210776584>.

50 Ibid. 11 Aug. 1923, 4, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/210775457>.

51 The West Australian, 16 Aug. 1923, 10, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22618691>.

52 Kalgoorlie Miner, 5 Sept. 1923, 1, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/93297187>.

53 The West Australian, 16 Aug. 1923, 10, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22618646>.

54 Ibid. 16 Aug. 1923, 10, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22618625>.

55 Daily News, 30 Dec. 1922, 15, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/83261430>.

56 Ibid.

57 The West Australian, 31 July 1923, 6, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22621690>.

58 Ibid.

59 Truth, 16 June 1923, 9, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/207435459>.

60 <https://slwa.wordpress.com/2015/11/23/adultery-murder-scandal-and-gossip-more-than-thirty-years-of-the-truth-newspaper/>.

61 The Australian, 20 Apr. 1923, 4, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/210255221>.

62 Geraldton Guardian, 1 Apr. 1924, 4, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/66924367>.

63 Hickson, J. M., The healing of Christ in his Church, New York 1919Google Scholar, <https://archive.org/details/healingchristin00hickgoog/>.

64 Ibid. 3.

65 Mews, ‘Revival of spiritual healing’, 326.

66 For example, in his unpublished PhD dissertation, Paul Egan has traced Hickson's influence on Agnes Sanford, and through her on the ministry of Canon Jim Glennon of Sydney's St Andrew's Cathedral: ‘The development of, and opposition to, healing ministries in the Anglican diocese of Sydney, with special reference to the healing ministry at St Andrew's Cathedral, 1960–2010’, Macquarie University 2012.

67 The response to Hickson was broadly similar across Australia.