Ted Noffs

Theodore Delwin "Ted" Noffs (14 August 1926 – 6 April 1995) was a Methodist (later Uniting Church) minister who founded the Wayside Chapel in Kings Cross, Sydney, in 1964.

As part of his pastoral agenda, he established an unconditional relationship with drug-using youths, marginal intellectuals, eccentrics, down-and-outs and other denizens of Kings Cross, an area of Sydney known widely for its crime, drug-abuse, prostitution and, in the late 1960s, its flavour of Bohemian radicalism.

The Wayside Chapel was pivotal to the realisation of Ted Noffs' idiosyncratic ministry, becoming the focal point not only for regular church services, but also topical debates, small theatre productions, its own poetry magazine Cross Beat and an 'ideas journal' named Logos.

The broader social context of the time was rapidly becoming one of debate and division, partly defined by the U.S. involvement in Vietnam which had escalated in the early 60s, becoming a cause celebre amongst large numbers of Western youth, adding to an already perceived polarisation of the generations and of political allegiances.

As race equality became more dramatically highlighted as an issue in the United States, with its main focus on the plight of the African-American, there was also a dawning local awareness of the inequalities and prejudice affecting the Australian indigenous population.

1971 Ted and Margaret Noffs form The Wayside Foundation as a non-religious organisation focused on social welfare issues without bias to creed, culture or religion.

1979 The Wayside Foundation is asked to manage The Errol Flynn Children's Refuge, initially set up to provide a safe haven for teenage runaways.