An Anglican priest who asked parishioners to pray every day at noon to save three Meander Valley churches, Reverend Josephine Pyecroft of Quamby Parish was one of four nominees for Senior Tasmanian Australian of the Year.

Bruce French AO, a 76 year agriculturalist from Burnie was the 2022 finalist chosen to represent Tasmania.

Aged 84, Reverend Pyecroft works with the three historical churches of Westbury, Hagley and Carrick, still ministering weddings, baptisms and funerals. 

Reverend Pyecroft was a key figure in saving the Quamby churches from being sold in 2018, when the Anglican Diocese of Tasmania needed to raise money it was obliged to pay to the Child Sexual Abuse National Redress fund. 

The three Quamby Parish churches, given to the people in perpetuity, were eventually saved from the Anglican church and cemetery fire sale when a church-owned block of land in Carrick was proposed instead.

The plan was that if the parish could raise $400,000 from the sale of vacant land on the corner of Meander Valley Road and East Street in Carrick, three churches would be saved.

The three churches were St Mary’s Church, rectory and cemetery in Hagley, built with donations from the Dry family, St Andrew’s Church in Carrick, given by the Reibey family, and St Andrew’s Church in Westbury, built by the British Government with convict labour.

At the time, Reverend Pyecroft said she was amazed at the decision.

‘I thought we might save Hagley because Sir Richard Dry, the first Tasmanian-born premier of this State, is buried beneath the altar there but all three churches were off the list,’ she said.

‘In the lead-up to the decision I asked parishioners to pray every day for two minutes at 12 noon and I’m silly enough to think that had a lot to do with it.’

During the COVID-19 lock down Reverend Pyecroft harnessed modern technology to post her sermons on the Quamby Parish Facebook page using her iPhone.

Before moving to Tasmania, Reverend Pyecroft was one of the first ordained women in the Anglican Church and the first female precentor (congregational leader) in the world, looking after the Anglican Cathedral in Brisbane.

The other nominees for Senior Tasmanian Australian of the Year were Michael Barrenger, a George Town paramedic, and Margaret Hoban, founder of the Launceston Youth and Community Orchestra.