From early days the Wingecarribee district has had a strong Roman Catholic presence.
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A Catholic mission was established at Berrima in 1838, housed in two former convict huts on land provided by the Government. The ministry extended north to the Mittagong Ranges and south to Marulan. It is recorded that Father McGinty, appointed in 1847, regularly travelled on horseback to outlying areas to say Mass and administer the sacraments.
The Church of St Scholastica opened at Berrima in 1851, built in Gothic Revival style to a design by famed English architect Augustus Pugin. It served as the hub of worship for the widely spread Catholic flock until the 1880s. It was renamed St Francis Xavier in 1891 and placed on the NSW Heritage Register in 2008.
By the 1870s, the railway towns of Mittagong, Bowral and Moss Vale were developing and Berrima went into decline. In 1886 the local Catholic Mission was split into two parishes: the district’s east and south portions centred on Moss Vale, and the north and west portions, encompassing Berrima, Joadja Creek, Bowral and Mittagong.
By the early 1890s the district had four Catholic churches: St Francis Xavier at Berrima, St Paul’s at Moss Vale (opened in 1888), St Michael’s at Mittagong (1889) and St Thomas Aquinas at Bowral (1891), all solidly built to suit the needs of each town.
A history of Catholic worship at early Mittagong follows here.
Catholic services in the Mittagong area were initially held in private houses at Lower Mittagong, where settlement began in the late 1820s. Mass was sometimes said in a chapel erected about 1859 in the vicinity of the Chapel Hill cemetery, behind the present-day Marist Bros Winery site.
By the 1860s the Fitz Roy Ironworks had attracted many new settlers to the Nattai area (now Mittagong). A wooden structure came into use as a Catholic church/school, named St Peter’s, and situated on a slope above Gibbergunyah Creek, in the area now known as Welby. It soon became dilapidated, being poorly ventilated and prone to damp. Catholic parishioners, then numbering 74 adults, would often prefer to travel to Berrima to hear Mass.
By the 1880s the Anglicans and Presbyterians had erected fine churches at Mittagong, and the town’s Catholics decided to do likewise. Fund-raising efforts commenced in December 1886 for a building to serve as both church and school, with fetes organised and numerous concerts and balls held at the Canterbury Hall.
In June 1888 the foundation stone of the new church, St Michael’s, was laid by Bishop O’Reilly (of Port Augusta) with about 400 people present at the site on the corner of Alfred and Victoria Streets. The opening on February 17, 1889 was described in the local press as a major occasion. The Mittagong-based Southern Mail, then owned by JC Murphy, an Irish Catholic, provided highly detailed coverage from the Roman Catholic perspective.
Following here, however, are extracts from a report on the ‘Opening of the new Roman Catholic Church at Mittagong’ by Onlooker, published on February 20 in the Bowral Free Press, owned by William and Daniel Beer, sons of a staunch Methodist family. While at times being somewhat irreverent and admitting to ignorance about Catholic rituals, Onlooker found much to praise:
“On Sunday morning last one of the brightest dreams of every enthusiastic member of the Roman Catholic body was realised. After years of patient waiting and watching, working and hoping, a little church has risen on one of the grassy slopes which skirts the rear of Mittagong, and on the Sunday morning in question it was duly consecrated by His Eminence Cardinal Moran.
“During a visit to this district he picked out the site and contributed liberally towards paying for the land. Great efforts have been made to raise money. Concerts have been held, proving extraordinarily successful, private subscriptions raised, ladies of the faith exerted themselves loyally in the fete, giving, collecting, the outcome being that despite the rather limited number of the congregation, hard times, and general depression, land has been paid for, a church erected, furnished and finally opened comparatively lightly in debt.”
Extracts will continue in following articles.
- Berrima District Historical & Family History Society – compiled by PD Morton. Part 1 of a 3-part series.