Celebrant (Australia) celebrancy was established by the Australian Commonwealth Attorney General Lionel Murphy on 19 July 1973, when his first appointee, Mrs Lois D'Arcy, was categorised as a Civil Marriage Celebrant. Later, as civil marriage celebrants branched out into the performance of other ceremonies such as Funerals and Namings the term was shortened to Civil Celebrant. According to civil celebrant Dally Messenger III: The civil celebrant program is almost entirely the result of one man's vision. Murphy himself told me the story of how he was opposed by his own staff, the public service, his fellow members of parliament and officials of
Utopian Community of Modern Times crime or violence during its 13 year history. Different reasons are posited for the inability of Modern Times to continue beyond its fourteen-year life span. Vern Dyson wrote that “the economic panic of 1857 undermined the business enterprises of the village and the civil war completed the task of annihilation.” William Bailie also stated his opinion about the deleterious effects of the Panic of 1857 on Modern Times.Roger Wunderlich felt that Bailie exaggerated the impact of the 1857 crash on Modern Times and states that after the crash a slow but steady influx of settlers continued. Wunderlich further says that