Heritage Matters

Wagga Wagga City Council has unanimously endorsed a proposal by the Presentation Sisters to create an avenue of trees on Bourke Street to commemorate the beginnings of Catholic education in the city.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first five sisters from Kildare in Ireland to establish a school where children could be educated and instructed in the Catholic faith.

The sisters arrived in the frontier town of Wagga Wagga in 1874 and established their first classroom in a stable before the Mt Erin Convent was built.

Mayor Dallas Tout said it was a great initiative to recognise the contribution of the sisters to generations of children across the Riverina.

“To put it in perspective, they arrived here in 1874 and it was only four years after Wagga was declared even a borough,” he said before listing many of the schools they would go on to establish.

“The suggested site marks the route the first sisters took in 1874 to enter Wagga Wagga from Mangoplah.”   93 Claret Ash trees will be planted along Bourke Street between Red Hill Road and Holbrook Road.

From the Mt Erin Heritage Archives