Research candidate

Leon J. Lyell

Following completion of an MPhil at ACU Melbourne Campus on Washington Territory newspaperman Alonzo Marion Poe (1826-1866), Leon is undertaking PhD candidature on a communicator of a different kind.

Research topic

Reverend F. A. Marsh (1897-1976): Mission and the end of Empire

Rev F. A. Marsh is one of the most significant Australian and Victorian Baptist figures of the mid-twentieth Century and worthy of a more thorough historical study than has yet been the case.

He is best remembered for his statesman-like management of the Australian Baptist foreign missions. But Marsh was also an active ecumenist in the pre-Vatican II era when many Protestants viewed Catholics and Orthodox Christians with suspicion. His travels and working life brought him into contact with people of different faiths in the Asia-Pacific and those living 'behind the Iron Curtain' during the Cold War. Marsh’s experience and perspectives are credited by some as moderating more narrow fundamentalist theological views circulating in Australia at the time. His diverse network included Rev Sir (Clarence) Irving Benson, Rev Halsey E. Dewey, Mrs Cecilia Downing, Rev Norman Faichney, Rev R. G. Nichols, Dr Lam Chi-Fung 林子豐 OBE and Archbishop Eris Michael O'Brien CMG.

An examination of his life is an opportunity to better understand one aspect of the waning of British and missionary influence in our region, the dynamics of social change in Australia and the place of India and Hong Kong in the Australian imagination.

Supervisory team

Principal supervisor: Dr Ellen Warne
Co-supervisor: Dr Ben Mountford
Associate supervisor (end-user): Rev Dr Marita Munro, Archivist, Baptist Union of Victoria

Learn more about End-user Associate Supervision and Industry PhD opportunities at ACU

Publications

Lyell, Leon J., ‘Absent from the Ceremony: Freemasons and the founding of the University of Melbourne,’ La Trobeana: Journal of the C J La Trobe Society Inc, Vol 19, No 1, March 2020. 15-23. < https://www.latrobesociety.org.au/LaTrobeana/LaTrobeanaV19n1.pdf>
Lyell, Leon J., ‘Not quite America: Alonzo Marion Poe in the Washington Territory.’ M.Phil. thesis, Australian Catholic University, 2022.
Lyell, Leon J., ‘Revd Frank Arnold Marsh: Formative Influences,’ Our Yesterdays: Pioneers and Leaders, Volume 32, 2024, 63-87.