Friends Farm: A ustralia’s First Quaker Commune

Australia has a long and rich history of religious groups trying to establish some sort of utopia by removing themselves from urban centres to rural idylls. The first of these was H errnhut , in western V ictoria (1853–1889), and today there are many such as D anthonia B ruderhof and N ew G ovardhana , in NSW , C henrezig , in Q ueensland and R ocky C ape H utterites in T asmania. While Q uakers in the UK and USA have a tradition of forming rural communes starting from the seventeenth century, the first, and most important of such in A ustralia was F riends F arm , established in 1869 on what is now Q ueensland’s S unshine C oast. This group was led by the charismatic A lfred A llen, a radical Q uaker from S ydney. He believed that he had been reborn, held C hrist within him, and had achieved sin‐free perfection. He was disowned, twice, by S ydney Q uakers after when he led his small band of would‐be communards to the “wilderness” of Q ueensland where they sought to create a perfect society. Not surprisingly, it did not quite work out that way.