By Hugh Ryan
St Marcellin Champagnat founded the Marist Brothers on January 2, 1817 at La Valla in the Archdiocese of Lyons in Southern France as part of a Marist project envisaged as priests, nuns, brothers and lay people to help the Church in France recover from the wreckage of the French Revolution.
Fr Champagnat was committed to the Brothers because of his sense of the need for education for rural youth, and in 1863 they were approved by Rome as a separate Religious Institute.
The Brothers arrived in New South Wales in 1872 and quickly established themselves as outstanding educators, spreading to Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and New Zealand.
They came to Western Australia in 1913 at the request of the Benedictines who had built St Ildephonsus College (SIC) at New Norcia and needed teachers to conduct it.
The agreement to staff SIC was reached by Lord Abbott Torres and the Superior General of the Marist Brothers, Br Stratonique, in Europe in 1912.
The College itself was, and still is, a very impressive building, a tribute to the skills and the faith of the Benedictine builders.
However, it was isolated and suffered from inadequate transport and unreliable supplies of water, power and refrigeration which made life difficult for Brothers and students alike.
The Benedictines had also built St Gertrude’s College for girls and it had been operating under St Mary MacKillop’s nuns since 1908.
The greatest religious advantage of New Norcia was that Benedictine priests went to the College every morning to say Mass, the Brothers led the Rosary every evening, the Monks had built the chapel in the heart of the college so that students could easily make visits to the Blessed Sacrament as they moved about the premises, and there were regular prayers during the classroom day.
SIC was officially opened on February 22, 1913, and the College quickly became a valuable addition to Catholic education facilities in Western Australia.
Despite the historical myth that girls’ education was ignored in favour of boys, sisters from various Orders had opened more than 80 schools in WA before SIC started.
One day, history may give sisters (teachers and nurses) their rightful place as the true heroes of the early settlement of WA.
Marist Principals
The first Principal at SIC was Br Stanislaus Healy, an outstanding Religious and educator. After receiving the Habit from Archbishop Polding in 1874, he was Master of Juniors (1876-1890) Director of St Joseph’s (1890-94), Provincial of Australia and New Zealand (1903-06) and Master of Novices (1906-12) before coming to WA.
Unfortunately, he died of heart trouble in 1916 at the age of 59. Br Stanislaus was accompanied by Br Sebastian Hayden from Napier, NZ, and the College’s first lay teacher Mr Roy McKechnie, of South Australia, who later joined the Brothers.
A second contingent of Brothers arrived from Europe on January 25, 1913. They were Br Columban Cooke, 32, an Irishman who became the cook, Br Edward Hurley, 23, born in London but raised on the Continent with little English, and Br Priscillian Blanc, 16, Italian, and Br Emile Nuber, 18, German, both of whom had just completed their novitiate.
In its 52 years, SIC had 13 principals, all of them impressive men. These brief summaries of their careers show how remarkably successful the Marist Brothers were in spreading high quality Catholic education around Australia and New Zealand in a relatively short time.
Br George O’Meara followed Br Stanislaus from 1917-1919. Born in Portland, Victoria, he entered the juniorate at 14 under Br Stanislaus.
After a year on the staff of the Marist flagship, St Joseph’s College, Hunters Hill, Sydney, he was sent to New Zealand for 19 years, gaining his MA with Honours in English and Latin at Auckland University.
On his return to Sydney it was intended that he become inspector of Marist schools, but the death of Br Stanislaus meant he was required at SIC for three years. In 1920 he was chosen by the Brothers as Delegate to the General Chapter at Grugliasco, Italy.
On his return he was appointed Principal of St Joseph’s (1921-23) and then returned to Auckland where he died at the age of 48 in 1926.
While in Sydney he was President of the Catholic Teachers’ Association and a life member of the GPS Headmasters’ Association. Following Br George was Br Borgia Coughlan, 1920-21, who was regarded as an outstanding educationalist wherever he went. Born in New Zealand in 1878, he held many significant teaching posts, including
Principal of Darlinghurst, of St Joseph’s and of Sacred Heart College, Auckland (twice) and was Provincial of South Africa 1930-36 and of New Zealand 1946-53.
He made his Second Novitiate in Grugliasco, attended the Sorbonne, and was a member of the General Chapter of the Order in 1946. A year after completing his term as Provincial of NZ, he died in Auckland at the age of 76 after 60 years as a Marist Brother.
The next principal was Br Guibertus Browne, one of the great figures among the Australian Brothers.
Born in Bendigo in 1881, he began his outstanding teaching career in Sydney schools before being appointed to South Australia where he gained his Master of Arts degree.
He spent the six years 1922-27 at New Norcia as Principal and spoke of this time affectionately, as he did of a similar period spent at Assumption College, Kilmore, Victoria.
He also taught at Mosman, St Joseph’s, Mittagong, Forbes and Broken Hill before being appointed Master of Novices in the NZ province at the mature age of 61.
After nine years he returned to Australia and was appointed to Bendigo where he continued teaching until ill health forced him to retire.
However, retirement did not sit easily with Br Guibertus and he re-appeared at New Norcia in 1953 to keep the College books and to manage the bookshop.
In 1955 he coached the Leaving French class for its Alliance Francaise exams and taught the Leaving Latin class for the whole year.
In 1956 he taught a small Leaving Latin class which included Michael Naisbitt who became the first permanent deacon after the Vatican II decision to re-introduce that order, and who eventually fulfilled his lifelong desire to become a priest.
Those classes of 1955-56 recognised a master teacher at work and all of them passed his subjects. He left New Norcia at the end of 1956 and was still making himself useful at Assumption College in 1962. Br Guibertus was 87 when he died in St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne in 1968.
New Zealand-born Brother, Joseph Henry McAteer, had the shortest reign as Principal at SIC. Appointed in 1928, he returned East the following year.
Br Joseph was a brilliant all-round scholar and his teaching skills in the Sydney schools soon had him appointed to St Joseph’s.
He was transferred to Victoria in 1908 and in 1916 he began a very fruitful 9-year stint as Principal at Sacred Heart College, Glenelg, where he expanded the College and built the chapel.
On his return to Hunters Hill in 1930, a fatal fall deprived the Brothers of an attractive and energetic personality. He was 50 years old.