Abstract Despite the wide diversity of beliefs, personalities and geological expertise of 10 ‘clerical geologists’ of varying Christian denominations who worked in Australia, mainly during the nineteenth century, there is little indication that they saw any contradiction between a belief in a divine being and the pursuit of geology. There was a continuity of these attitudes throughout the century, within the changing social and professional geological environment as Australia moved from being a set of independent colonies to a federation. Four of the ‘clerical geologists’, Johannes Menge, W. B. Clarke, J. E. Tenison Woods and Walter Howchin, made significant contributions to geological science, which deserve to be better known internationally.