Marvellous Melbourne: A Representative Denominational Society in the Nineteenth-Century Evangelical World 

Join us for the Charles Perry Lecture on 13 May 2025.

We are thrilled to welcome David Bebbington as our guest speaker, whose topic will highlight the distinctive evangelical character of “Marvellous Melbourne” in the nineteenth century. As the richest city in the world at the time, Melbourne’s denominations embodied a vision for church and society, which has had powerful and ongoing impact, and is most clearly represented in the design of the Melbourne General Cemetery.

This is a free lecture that is being delivered in-person and livestreamed.

David Bebbington 

David Bebbington is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Stirling in Scotland, and a leading historian of evangelical history, after whom the “Bebbington Quadrilateral” is named.

An undergraduate and postgraduate at Jesus College, Cambridge (1968-73), he subsequently became a research fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge (1973-76). From 1976 he taught at the University of Stirling, where from 1999 to 2019 he was Professor of History.

He now serves as Director of the Evangelical Studies Program at Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His publications include Evangelicalism in Modern Britain (1989), The Mind of Gladstone: Religion, Homer and Politics (2004); Patterns in History: A Christian Perspective on Historical Thought (4th edn, 2018), Baptists through the Centuries: A History of a Global People (2nd edn, 2018) and The Evangelical Quadrilateral (2 vols, 2021). 

For more information and to register go to: https://www.ridley.edu.au/event/the-charles-perry-lecture-in-melbourne-evangelical-history/