St. Matthias' was an unpretentious timber building with a corrugated iron roof, situated 17 km. south of Bendigo. Formerly the building was theSt. Stephen's Chinese Church, Golden Square, before it was moved to the Ravenswood site and dedicated in 1925. The subject of the window, The Good Samaritan, was an appropriate memorial for the former Rector, the Reverend WE Holt, who served the men in 9 Division in the Pacific. Services ceased at the church in 1975.
Chaplain William Edmund Holt was born in Kent, England and enlisted at Royal Park, Vic. He was a member of the Australian Army Chaplains Department attached to the 2/28th Battalion (Infantry) when he died of wounds in Borneo on 22 June 1945, aged 36.
References & Acknowledgements
Herald, 22 November 1949, p.11; Keith Cole, A History of the Diocese of Bendigo 1902-1976: an Anglican Diocese in Rural Victoria, Keith Cole Publications, Bendigo, 1991, pp. 213-14.