Methodist Home Missions Systematic Giving Envelope.

[Melbourne : Methodist Home Mission Society, between 1920 and 1930]. Stiff envelope, 112 x 150 mm, recto with map of Australia showing areas where the Home Missions are active (in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and western and northern Queensland), and slogans including ‘This Society seeks the Salvation of men, women and children irrespective of class, color or creed’; verso with descriptive title ‘Methodist Home Missions Systematic Giving Envelope’ and table for recording donations; small area of surface loss to verso, otherwise the envelope is in excellent condition (never used).

Wesleyan Methodism is generally considered to have formally been established in Australia in 1815 with the arrival of clergyman Samuel Leigh, although there were lay preachers who had been active since the late eighteenth century.

The Methodist Missionary Society of Australasia was associated with a number of missions in Western Australia, western and northern Queensland, and the north of Australia from 1916 to the 1930s. These missions included Goulburn Island, Milinginmbi and Elcho Island. The mission to the Yolngu people at Milingimbi in Eastern Arnhem Land was begun in 1923 and continued operating up until 1974. Other missions were also established in the 1930s in Yirrkala and Caledon Bay. In the mid 1930s the Methodist Missionary Society of Australasia became known as the Methodist Overseas Mission.