ABSTRACT
The essays in this volume consider the ways that religion intersected with childhood in a variety of geographical and denominational contexts during the period from 1800 to 1950, and how the interaction helped to form children’s identity. This chapter considers the experience of early-twentiethcentury children of Methodist families and communities in two contrasting but interlinked contexts: Australia and Fiji. 1 Both countries came under the umbrella of the British Empire but Australia, newly federated in 1901, was self-governing while Fiji had been a Crown Colony since 1874. Australia’s Methodist Conference was fully independent of its British roots, but bore responsibility for the Methodist mission in Fiji. 2 Most Methodist missionaries in Fiji were Australians (alongside the occasional New Zealander), and the ‘mission fi elds’ that Australian Methodists heard about, and supported fi nancially and spiritually, were mostly in the South Pacifi c, with particular focus on Fiji, Tonga, Papua and New Guinea. 3 Australian Methodists were proud of the success of their missionary activity in Fiji, and knew a considerable amount about it from church periodicals for both adults and children, and from furlough visits from missionaries serving in Fiji.
