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Ministry at the Ends of the Earth: Priests and People in New South Wales, 1830-1840

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Paul Collins
Paul Collins*
Affiliation:
Australian National University
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Extract

Catholics arrived at Botany Bay with the first fleet in January 1788. But it was not until 1820 that institutional Catholicism arrived in the persons of two Irish priests—Fathers Philip Conolly and John Joseph Therry. They had been appointed after considerable negotiation between the British government, the London Vicar Apostolic, Bishop William Poynter, the Vicar Apostolic of Mauritius, Bishop Edward Bede Slater (in whose vast territory Australia was included), and the Roman Congregation of Propaganda Fide. In the period 1788 to 1820 sporadic priestly ministry had been carried on by three Irish convict priests and by Father Jeremiah O’Flynn, the maverick Prefect Apostolic, whose brief appearance in Sydney in 1817-18 was terminated by deportation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 25: The Churches, Ireland and the Irish , 1989 , pp. 243 - 258
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1989

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References

1 P. Collins, ‘Australia’s First Bishops’, Australasian Catholic Record, 64 (1987), pp. 189-99.

2 P. Collins, ‘Jeremiah O’Flynn: Persecuted Hero or Vagus?’, Australasian Catholic Record 63 (1986), pp. 87-95:179-94.

3 Hartwell, R. W. and Greenwood, G. (ed.), Australia. A Social and Political History (Sydney, 1955), p. 81 Google Scholar.

4 Campion, E., ‘John Joseph Therry in 1988’ in Brown, N. and Press, M. (eds), Faith and Culture. A Pastoral Perspective (Sydney, 1984), p. 3 Google Scholar.

5 Waldersee, J., Catholic Society in New South Wales 1768-1860 (Sydney, 1974), pp. 186–99 Google Scholar.

6 Kenny, John, A History of the Commencement and Progress of Catholicity in Australia up to the Year 1840 (Sydney, 1886)Google Scholar; Moran, Patrick F., History of the Catholic Church in Australasia (Sydney, n.d. bur 1895)Google Scholar; O’Brien, Eris M., The Life of Anhpriest J. J. Therry. Founder of the Catholic Church in Australia (Sydney, 1922)Google Scholar.

7 Waldersee, Catholic Society, pp. 191-7.

8 D[ownside] A[bbey] Afrchives], Morris Papers.

9 For Irish Catholicism see Conolly, S.J., Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1750-1845 (Dublin, 1982)Google Scholar.

10 N[ew] S[outh] W[ales] S[tate] Archives], Colonial Secretary, 4/2175.2.

11 DAA. Morris Papers.

12 NSWSA, Col. Sec, 4/2175.2.

13 Quoted in Birt, H. N., Benedictine Pioneers in Australia, 2 vols (London, 1911), 1, pp. 337–8 Google Scholar.

14 Ullathorne, W. B., From Cabin Boy to Archbishop The Life of Archbishop Ullathorne, ed. Leslie, Shane (London, 1041), p. 68 Google Scholar.

15 Ullathorne, Autobiography, pp. 74-5. Port Macquarie was 220 miles and New Zealand 1300 miles from Sydney.

16 Quoted in Birt, Pioneers, 1, p. 292.

17 NSWSA, Col. Sec, 4/2224.1. Ullathorne suggested to the Colonial Secretary that printed forms be prepared and sent to the clergy.

18 NSWSA, Col. Sec, 4/2224.1.

19 Theny’s baptismal registers illustrate this. They survive in the S[ydney] A[rchdiocescan] A[rchives].

20 Ullathorne, Autobiography, p. 56.

21 DAA, Monis Papers.

22 SAA, Baptismal Register.

23 Ullathorne, Autobiography, pp. 66-8.

24 W. B. Ullathorne, The Catholic Mission in Australasia (Liverpool, 1837), p. 47. See also Lovat’s Baptismal Register, Catholic Church, Yass.

25 Jean Woolmington, ‘Missionary Attitudes to the Baptism of Australian Aborigines before 1850’, JRH 13 (1985), pp. 283-92.

26 Ullathorne, Catholic Mission and The Horrors of Transportation briefly unfolded to the people (Dublin, 1838). However, the polemical purposes of these books must be kept in mind when assessing what colonial reality might have been like.

27 Ullathorne, Autobiography, pp. 111-12.

28 See the decree Tametsi of the Council of Trent (1562).

29 Historical Records of Australia. Series I, vol. 15, p. 153.

30 Minutes of evidence before Select Committee on Transportation 12 February 1838, British Parliamentary Papers. Crime and Punishment, 3, pp. 34-5.

31 C. H. Currey, ‘The Law of Marriage and Divorce in New South Wales (1788-1858)’, Royal Australian Historical Society. Journal and Proceedings, 41 (1955), pp. 97-114.

32 Legge, J.. A Selection of Supreme Court Cases in New South Wales (Sydney, 1898), pp. 77–85 Google Scholar.

33 Ullathorne, Autobiography, pp. 163-4.

34 Therry, R., Reminiscences of Thirty Years’ Residence in New South Wales and Victoria (repr. Sydney, 1974). pp. 119–20 Google Scholar.

35 Ullathorne, Autobiography, p. 112.

36 Salt, A., These Outcast Women. The Parramatta Female Factory 1821-1848 (Sydney, 1984), pp. 17–21; 37–8 Google Scholar.

37 M. Sturma, The Stereotype of Convict Women, 1788-1832’, Labour History, 34 (1978), pp. 3-10.

38 McDonald, P., Marriage in Australia. Age at First Marriage and Proportion Marrying 1860-1971 (Canberra, 1974), pp. 27–57 Google Scholar. For the whole question of marriage among the lower classes in Austrlia see Atkinson, A. and Aveling, M., Australians. A Historical Library. Australians 1838 (Sydney 1987), pp. 100–4 Google Scholar.

39 Australian Dictionary of Biography, 2, p. 12.

40 British Parliamentary Papers. Crime and Punishment, 3, p. 35.

41 Dublin Archdiocesan Archives, Australian Collection. See also Ullathorne, Autobiography, p. 146.

42 Sisters of Charity Archives, Sydney, H102/1-7.

43 Kenny, Catholicity, pp. 94-5.

44 Father P.J. Moore, in a handwritten history of Bombala parish (1911), from a study of Catholic families with English names, argues that the religion of the Irish wife was dominant in the religious upbringing of the children. MS in Canberra Archdiocesan Archives.

45 Ullathorne, Autobiography, p. 73. A fascinating collection of these petitions can be found in the Therry Papers. See Mitchell Library MSS 1801 /107-9 and 1810/60. See also Therry Papers in SAA.

46 Conolly, Priests and People, p. 91.

47 See his Diaries for 1832-3 in SAA.

48 Ullathorne, Autobiography, pp. 110-11.

49 Ibid., p. 69.

50 O’Brien, Therry, pp. 311-12.

51 Ullathorne, Autobiography, pp. 76-8.

52 Published by Stephens and Stokes, Sydney in 1833.

53 The Colonist, 2 April 1835.

54 M. Sturma, ‘Public Executions and the Ritual of Death, 1838’ in Push from the Bush. 15 April 1983.

55 Ullathorne, Autobiography, p. 77.

56 Hughes, R., The Fatal Shore. A History of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia, 1787-1868 (London, 1987)Google Scholar.

57 Neal, D., ‘Free Society, Penal Colony, Slave Society, Prison?’, unpublished paper, 1987 Google Scholar.

58 Ullathorne, Autobiography, p. 68.

59 See letter of Columbus Fitzpatrick in the Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society, 1, pt 1 (1966), p. 75.

60 Collectanea Hiberniae, 8 (1966), p. 75.

61 ‘Chronicles of the Golden Jubilee of the Colony and Some Aspects of the Catholic Church There in 1838’ in Footprints, 4, pt 12 (1983), pp. 11-16.