Anecdotes from the Archives

Prep travel back to the past  

Not all people may be aware that St Mary’s College has a cottage in Brisbane Street, opposite the school gate, in which many artefacts from our long and rich past are house. Sadly, there are very few artefacts from the period 1866-1940, especially no school registers of names, but there are other interesting things to see.

This term, the Prep classes have been talking about history and especially the history of St Mary’s College. A few weeks ago, I visited them in their classroom, taking some very early photos of the convent building just after the first Sisters moved in. We talked about the reasons the Sisters were invited to establish a school in Hobart and the terrifying ship journey which they made from Fermoy in Ireland to Hobart. 

The Prep students were interested to hear that the Sisters quickly built a second school close to Brisbane Street, to teach the poor ragged children (and often boot-less as well) who would otherwise have been deprived of a Catholic education. This school was called St Columba’s School. 

The next step for Prep was to visit Fermoy Cottage. There they looked at old school desks (complete with holes in the desk for inkwells), a replica boarding school dormitory and photos of St Columba's School. The most exciting part by far was dressing up in variations of old school uniforms, dating from the 1940s. The photos tell the story better than words...