Following the discovery of good pastoral land in the region now known as the Pilbara by explorer Francis T. Gregory in 1861, Governor John Hampton made special regulations for the settlement of what was designated as the North District of the State.

At Gregory's recommendation, his cousin Emma Withnell and her husband John moved to the District, where they established a sheep station on the banks of the Harding River at the foot of Mount Welcome.

[1] In 1865, Robert John Sholl, the Government Resident of the North District,[2] arrived at the Harding River to assist in founding a settlement.

[4] On 14 June 1878, a public meeting chaired by Sholl was held at Cossack Government School to discuss the establishment of a church in the North District.

The remaining fragments, together with other materials shipped direct from England via Singapore, were used to build the present, reconstructed church, which has a number of adaptations to the local environment.

The following year, a rectory was built just to the west of the church; the rector lived there until 1920, when Rev Henry Wood Simpson began ministering from Broome.

Gerard Trower, the first Bishop of North West Australia, held the first Holy Communion in the apse on 13 December 1925; he consecrated it on 18 January 1927.

[6] In 1995, a pair of stained-glass windows was commissioned to mark the centenary of the reconstructed church; they were designed and made by Hilde and Richard Apel formerly of Mallina Station.

[4][7] However, by the time Richard Goscombe arrived to take up the role of Anglican Minister in Wickham in 2009, the church had been subjected to decades of neglect in harsh outback conditions.

Salt leaching out of the stonework and mortar had rusted and compressed the windows, and jammed most of them open, allowing water inside and increasing the damage to the interior.

[8] In 2016, the Wickham parish and the Friends of the Holy Trinity Church combined with the National Trust of Western Australia to establish a conservation management plan, and to launch an appeal for restoration funding.

[10] Additional funding of over AUD 400,000 later arrived, including in the form of grants from the National Trust and Heritage Council of Western Australia, along with $100,000 from an anonymous benefactor.

According to Baessler, the restoration was "challenging at times"; it included repairs to the roof and stone floor, creation of shutters and unique leadlighting and a complete rendering of the interior.

In May 2021, more than 50 people, headed by the Bishop of North West Australia, Gary Nelson, attended a ceremony to mark the completion of the church's restoration and, belatedly, the 125th anniversary of its reconstruction.

[8][9] The church is located on a low ridge on the south-eastern slopes of Mount Welcome, and at the south-western corner of the nineteenth-century town centre.

Decorative elements of the building include articulated quoins on the exterior of the walls, stained-glass windows, and the original black wrought-iron interior chancel screen.

She foundered just two years later on the Alceste Reef, Gaspar Strait in the then Dutch East Indies, en route from Hong Kong to New York.