Lilian Wells

Lilian Wells (1911–2001) was an Australian church leader who served as president of the Congregational Union of Australia, and the first moderator of the New South Wales Synod of the Uniting Church in Australia. She was the only woman to serve in the role of president for the Congregational Union. She served on the joint committee that planned the merger of the Congregationalist, Methodist and Presbyterian churches that formed the Uniting Church in Australia in 1977. She was appointed an Officer of Order of the British Empire in 1977, for her service to the church.

Early life and education Lilian Charlotte Ault was born on 15 December 1911 in Moonee Ponds, Victoria. She was the first child born to her parents, Frederick Howell Ault and Mabel Lydia Ault (née Leslie). Her father worked as an engineer, and during her secondary school years, the family moved to Hobart, Tasmania, because of a change in his employment. After graduating from the Hobart high school, she attended the University of Tasmania, where she earned a bachelor of arts in 1932 and a master's degree in 1934. She completed a diploma of education at the University of Melbourne in 1935.

Lilian Ault was raised in the Methodist Church and participated in the Australian Student Christian Movement, serving as a Methodist delegate to SCM gatherings in Melbourne and Ballarat. Through her participation in SCM, she met Henry Thomas Wells, a Congregationalist from South Melbourne. The couple married on 11 July 1938, at the Auburn Methodist Church, in Auburn, Victoria. Henry Wells had been ordained a Congregationalist minister in 1937, and began his ministry serving a church in Brunswick, Victoria. The couple had three children together, one son and two daughters. Wells served on the joint planning committee for the merger, and was influential in shaping the new denomination,

Wells was one of two women participating in the inauguration service for the Uniting Church in Australia, held in July 1977. At that gathering, she was confirmed as the moderator of the New South Wales Synod of the Uniting Church in Australia, a position she had held in an interim capacity as the new denomination was formed. She was the only woman in a leadership position in the newly formed church. She served one year as moderator, and in 1978, was succeeded by Ronald Bevan Sparks, who served from 1978 to 1979.

Wells later worked for Amnesty International and taught English as a second language. She also was an advocate for reconciliation with Indigenous people.