Anecdotes from the Archives

The Sister who started it all... 

Mother Ellen Francis Xavier Murphy is undoubtedly the hero of our foundation story at St Mary’s College. When the newly appointed Bishop of Hobart, Daniel Murphy, Ellen’s brother, in 1866 asked her to establish a school in Hobart, she did not hesitate and arrived with her little band of eight other women later that year.

Ellen was a woman very much in the image of her own hero, Nano Nagle. Born in County Cork in 1820, Ellen was professed at Fermoy in 1845. Much of her early work involved helping the people of Fermoy during the ravages of the Great Famine, which made her well-suited to carry out her mission in a spiritually stricken place on the other side of the world. There, she proved that the impoverished and oppressed were always dear to her heart. 

Ellen and her Sisters spent their first 14 months ministering to the people of Richmond and the surrounding areas. The small schoolhouse in Richmond, which is still standing, can be considered the cradle of Presentation education in Australia.

After taking over the convent at Mount St Mary's in Hobart in January 1868, Mother Xavier went on to oversee the establishment of a boarding school and various poor schools before establishing St Columba's School near Brisbane Street (later demolished). It was said of Mother Xavier that after tending to her daily duties, she preferred spending her time with the infants and children of the "poor school". 

Mother Xavier died in 1880 and was buried close to the Cathedral. Her grave is marked by a white cross and placed within a lovely garden where the St Virgil's College Junior School playground now sits.  If you look closely at the image, you'll notice there's no sign of the large sandstone extension added in 1888 or the parapet building. Back then, the land on the hill was used for raising various animals for food and growing vegetables. 

At some stage in the 1940s, Mother Xavier's grave was relocated beside the Cathedral wall near the sacristy. Later, in recent years, she was reinterred in a corner of the Cathedral grounds, also the resting place of several of our archbishops. Finally, her weary bones were settled at Cornelian Bay, where she is laid to rest amongst her Presentation sisters.