The Early Church in
Australia
A Testament of Faith
The First Fleet and Early
Settlement
Review and Brainstorm what you know about the First Fleet
and early settlement in Australia.
Early
settlement
in
Australia
Rev. Samual Marsden
The Rev. Samual Marsden arrived
in Australia in 1800 as the
Senior Anglican Minister in
the New South Wales Colony.
He, like many other English
(Protestant) settlers in the
colony had great concerns
about the growing number of
Catholics – the vast majority
of convicts.
Rev Samual Marsden
Marsden identified through a number of letters to the
Governor of the colony and British Government that
should Catholicism continue, the British Empire would
loose control of the New South Wales Colony.
 “…The colony would be lost to the British Empire in less
than one year.”
 For Marsden and many others, this threat was real, and
more distressingly, possible, due to the colony being
made up of large numbers of Catholic convicts from the
lower Irish class.
 According to Marsden these Irish Catholics were a most
repulsive people, uncivilized and mischievous. They
were seen as a “…most wild, ignorant and savage race,”
which had been brought up in a society of murder and
crime and of which they had brought with them to
Australia.
 Marsden believed that these Catholics were lacking
“…of every principle of Religion and Morality”. They are a
people who are dangerous to society governed only by “…the
impulse of passion.”
 “If they (Catholics) were allowed to assemble together, they
would do so not to celebrate mass but instead they would
inflame one another’s minds with some wild scheme of
Revenge.”
 Marsden identified that Catholic were “…extremely
superstitious, artful and treacherous.”
 “They (Catholics) have no true concern whatsoever for any
religion nor fear of the Supreme Being. They are instead more
often involved in riot drunkenness.”
Activities
 Why do you think Samual Marsden spoke so critically of
the Catholics in the New South Wales Colony?
 Could Marsden’s views towards Catholics been justified
considering most Catholics in the colony were convicts?
Explain.
Governor
Lachlan Macquarie
 Lachlan Macquarie became
Governor of NSW in 1810.
 He envisaged a colony which
went beyond a convict
settlement.
 However, like Marsden,
viewed the Catholics in the
colony with great suspicion
and distain.
 Most notable was Governor Macquarie’s encounter with
the (uninvited) arriving Catholic Priest, Father O’Flynn.
After six months in hiding, performing Catholic masses,
baptisms and marriages, O’Flynn was arrested on
Macquarie’s order and deported back to England.
 According to Macquarie, should O’Flynn have remained
in the colony he would “… do a great deal of mischief
amongst the lower order Catholics.”
 Macquarie acknowledges the people of the colony are
presently “quiet and peaceful” and those who are convicts
“attend divine worship in the regular Protestant
Churches in the colony.”
 However, if Fr. O’Flynn were to remain in the colony
“…their religious feelings might be worked upon by a designing
Artful Priest, so as to excite a Spirit of Resistance,
Insubordination and Insurrection.”
Activity
 In your own words, explain Governor Macquarie’s
justification for sending Fr. O’Flynn back to England.
 Compare Marsden’s account of the colony to the
impression given by Governor Macquarie. How are they
different? Are their any similarities in their accounts?
The Early Church in
Australia
The call for Clergy
Rebellion!
 In 1800 the first Catholic Priests arrived in the colony –
as convicts!
 One of these priests was James Dixon who was granted
freedom and permission to say mass of the Catholics of
the Colony (the vast majority of convicts).
 This continued until March 1804 when the Castle Hill
rebellion alarmed the Governor (King) and Dixon’s
privileges were withdrawn.
 Castle Hill Rebellion (Irish Rebellion) of 1804
 The Castle Hill Rebellion
was a large scale rebellion
of Irish convicts against
British colonial authority.
 The untrained, uneducated
convicts stood little
chance… The ‘battle’
lasted only 15 minutes!
 The rebel leaders and
participants were rounded
up and arrested.
 9 convicts faced the
gallows. Many others were
given between 100 – 500
lashes.
 Dixon returned to Ireland soon after the Castle Hill
Rebellion, having been banned by the Governor from
saying mass.
 The Mass was not celebrated legally again in the colony
until Father John Joseph Therry and Phillip Connolly,
arrived in 1820, appointed by the British Government.
Activity
 Generate reasons as to why you think the Irish convicts
decided to rebel against British authority?
 To what extent could this event support Samual
Marsden’s harsh comments about the Catholics in the
colony?
 Do you think that withdrawing Fr. Dixons Mass
privileges was the best course of action? Would you
have done differently if you were Governor King?
Enter Bishop Polding!
 Bishop John Bede
Polding was an
English Benedictine.
 After numerous
requests from the
few priests and now
between 16 -18,000
Catholics in the
Colony for more
clergy and a Bishop,
Polding was
appointed in 1835.
 Polding wished to establish a Church in the Colony
founded on monastic ideals (as he himself had been a
Benedictine monk).
 In particular he wished to establish a Benedictine
Seminary in Sydney to minister to a country which
“…the foot of European had not previously touched.”
 As Polding saw it, the seminary would be established to
account for the vast continent “…wherein are thousands of
uninstructed Natives in the lower state of barbarism, thousands
of Catholics without sacramental means of salvation; numbers
of well intentioned individuals prepared to embrace truth.”
 Polding also saw the Seminary as a means of the Church
establishing a permanent existence in Australia.
“In the absence of a Missionary, …our children will be
baptized by them – parents, careless at first, will be subverted –
the Natives will perish in their ignorance – Ruin must ensure!”
 However, the there were strong feelings against Bishop
Polding from both the clergy and laity in the colony – in
part no doubt, because the majority of them were Irish!
 (Right) Downside Abbey
England, where Polding
had began as a Benedictine
monk.
Activity
 Why do you think the British Empire relaxed its colonial
law to allow more Catholic priests and even a Catholic
Bishop to stay in the colony?
 Why do you think Polding – who is an English Catholic,
was appointed to a colony with a majority of Irish
Catholics
 Why do you think the majority of the Catholic Clergy
and Laity were against Polding’s idea of a Seminary?
Stage 2a - Focus
Questions
How would you use the content covered to answer these questions:
 To what extent did the the Catholic Church influence the
development of early Australian society?
 To what extent did early settlement in Australia influence the
Catholic Church?
The Early Church in
Australia
The Church Established
 Transportation of convicts to the east
coast of Australia ceased in 1840 after a
report by Fr. William Ullathorne on “The
Horrors of Transportation.”
 Bishop Polding popularized the name
“Australia” when he declared as early as
1840 that the people in Australia were no
longer English, Irish, Scottish etc. but
Australians.
 He implored his people to leave the
quarrels and the prejudices of the
countries from which they came, and to
begin as ‘One people – Australians.
(www.catholicenquiry.com)
Catholic Education
 With the arrival of Fathers Therry and Connolly on
1820, significant developments began in the way of
Catholic education in Australia.
 By 1833 there were about 10 Catholic schools in
Australia .
 Between 1833 until the end of the 1860’s, the Catholic
schools received some government funding, however,
between 1872 and 1893 each of the colonies (states)
passed an “Education Act” removing aid to Catholic
schools.

St. Mary's Cathedral in 1830's. The Cathedral is in background. The school-house erected in 1824, called
the Josephian School, is on the left. At the right is the first Cathedral Presbytery, while behind it (partly
obscured) is St. Joseph's Chapel, first Catholic church build in Australia
 The Bishops and people persevered with the Catholic
education system. With no money to pay teachers, the
bishops appealed to religious orders in Ireland and other
European countries, and soon religious sisters and
brothers were responding to the crisis.
Growth of Religious Orders

There were already a few Religious
Orders in Australia before the
educational crisis. Bishop Polding had
founded the Good Samaritan Sisters in
1857, and the Sisters of St. Joseph,
founded by Fr. Julian Tenison and Mary
Mackillop in 1866.

By 1871 the ‘Josephites’ were running
35 schools in the Adelaide diocese.

By 1880 there were a total of 815 sisters
from all orders teaching in schools.

By 1910 the number exceeded 5000!

All of this with very little money and
facing considerable hardship.
 The largest of the male teaching orders, the Christian
Brothers, had 115 brothers teaching in 30 schools by
1900.
 Under the influence of religious orders, Catholic schools
not only survived but flourished; the sisters and brothers
were to be the mainstay of the schools for one hundred
years!
Activity
 What do you think would be some of the ‘hardships’
facing the Orders of Sisters and Brothers as they tried to
establish and maintain the Catholic schools?
 Write a journal entry for a day in the life of a student
attending one of the Catholic schools run by the sisters
of St. Joseph.
Consider factors such as; how you get to school; what
you write with; the lessons that would be taught;
discipline etc.
The Early Church in
Australia
The Western Front
The Swan River Colony
 The Swan River Colony is established in 1829
 Unlike the Eastern Coast, the Swan River Colony was
not established as a Convict settlement, and was made
up mainly of free settlers.
 By the 1840’s there were over 300 Catholics living in the
colony. However, there was no Catholic priest to
minister to them.
 In 1841, a local school teacher by the name of Robert
D’Arcy made a request to Church Authorities in Sydney
for a priest to be sent to Perth.
Father John Brady
 In 1843 approval for the request was granted by the
Vatican and Fr. John Brady, Father John Joostens
(Belgian) and Patrick O’Reilly (Irish Catechist) soon
arrived in Fremantle on the ship ‘Water Witch’.
 Fr. Brady only stayed in Perth for 2 months, however,
was able to requisition land for the Church on Victoria
Avenue. This was to be the site of the first Catholic
cathedral for the colony: The Church of St. John the
Apostle and Evangelist. Construction began during
Brady’s brief stay.
 St. John’s Pro-Cathedral, Perth (Present Day)
(The Pro-Cathedral still contains the Bishop Brady’s chair that he
bruoght with him from Europe)
 On the 6th of May 1845 the Diocese of Perth was established
by the Apostolic letter of Pope Gregory XVI.

In 1846,the Vatican sent (now) Bishop Brady, together with
27 Missionaries (including Benedictines, Sisters of Mercy,
heart of Mary priests and brothers, diocesan priests and
catechists) back to the colony, believing that there were now
over 3000 Catholics in the Colony (which there were not!).

They arrived on the ship ‘Elizabeth’ in January 1846.
 At this time very little was known of the interior of WA and
its inhabitants.
 The missionaries face many hardships, but they were
never deterred from establishing Catholic missions in
sometimes the most remote and difficult places.
Swan River
Settlement
1848
The Sisters of Mercy
 The Sisters of Mercy concentrated their efforts in the
Perth Colony itself.
 As the Pro-Cathedral was being established, the Sisters
started a small school.
 A cottage on St. George’s Terrace was obtained by
Bishop Brady and given to the Sister’s of Mercy. Under
the direction of the Reverend Mother – Ursula Frayne,
the First Covent of the Holy Cross was established.
The Early Church in
Australia
New Norcia
 A few months after Bishop Brady’s return to he colony,
he sent an expedition party to find suitable land to start
missions for the Aborigines. The party included Dom
Rosendo Salvado and Dom Joseph Serra both
Benedictine monks.
 In 1948 New Norcia was founded with the granting of
7,500 hectares of ‘freehold’ land to the Benedictines to
develop a missionary.
 The monks at New Norcia worked to be self-sustaining,
growing their own food and produce.
Activity
 Read “The Story of the Catholic Church in Western
Australia”
 Answer the Questions below:
1. Where and how did Fr. Brady celebrate the first mass in
Perth?
2. When was the foundation stone of the first church laid?
3. How did Dom Salvado raise the money for the mission?
4. List the achievements of New Norcia by 1882.