North Sydney’s largest faith group has developed over time
The percentage of people who identify as having ‘no religion’ is growing steadily in Australia. But in North Sydney Catholicism is faring better than other denominations and creeds. The 2021 Census showed it was the area’s largest faith group. Some 20% of the 69,000 population are Catholics.
Back in 1856, when the Catholic Church established its North Shore Parish, Catholics made up 30% of the much smaller population, with Anglicans dominating the count at just over half. The ‘founding fathers,’ mainly Jesuit priests, would be pleased with their legacy.
The first parish church was built in St Leonards, present-day North Sydney, on the corner of Miller and Ridge Streets. From tent cloth to timber and then to sandstone, this would eventually become St Mary’s Church. The current building was designed by architect Joseph Fowell in 1938. In 1877, Irish-trained Jesuit priests arriving in Sydney made the church their own and promptly added two more – Star of the Sea at Kirribilli (1880) and St Francis Xavier in Lavender Bay (1881), which was used as both a school and church until 1901. After the demolition of Star of the Sea in 1978 to make way for a new building at St Aloysius College, another church of the same name was built nearby. Today these three churches form the core of the Parish of Our Lady of the Way in North Sydney.
Schools, as much as churches, were the focal point for building a Catholic community in the 19th and 20th centuries. Staffed by clergy, Catholic schools placed emphasis on religious instruction and sectarian identity.
The first school in St Leonards opened in 1856 in the temporary St Mary’s church, which was used as both a church and a school from the beginning. St Mary’s Primary School has operated on Ridge Street since the Marist Brothers began teaching there in 1888.
Several religious orders came to pursue their education mission on the North Shore. The Josephite Sisters were established in South Australia by Mary MacKillop. They came to North Sydney in 1884 and opened a free school in Mount Street in 1900, which also functioned as a ‘practice school’ for teacher trainees.
By the 1930s, St Joseph’s Domestic Science School specialised in commercial and domestic subjects for older girls while offering kindergarten classes for girls and boys. The school closed in 1963, but teacher training for the Sisters of St Joseph continued at the site. St Joseph’s Training College was formally established in 1913 and began admitting lay students from 1958. The college came under the management of the Australian Catholic University (ACU) in 1990. Mary MacKillop Place, housed in the original practice school, opened as a museum in 1995, shortly after Mary MacKillop’s Beatification by Pope John Paul II. She was canonised as St Mary of the Cross MacKillop in 2010, becoming the first Australian Catholic saint. The Catholic Church has declared 2025 a Jubilee Year (held every 25 years), with Mary MacKillop Place designated an official place of pilgrimage.
The Sisters of Mercy came to Sydney from Liverpool, England. In 1875, they established what later became known as Monte Sant’ Angelo College on the corner of West and Carlow Streets, North Sydney. It was the first independent girls’ school on the North Shore. Four years later the college moved to its present site, Masalou – a ‘mansion and grounds’ on Miller Street. That began a trend of several of the area’s grander residences being transformed into church-based colleges for the children of the middle and upper classes. By 1908 Monte offered mathematics, art, domestic and commercial subjects to young women. It now has around 1,200 students.
To celebrate the 150th anniversary of Monte and the 30th anniversary of Mary MacKillop Place as a museum, visit Stanton Library until the end of April to discover more through school objects and student archives kindly on loan from both institutions.
The Mercy Mission & Heritage Centre is open by appointment at Stormanston House, 27 McLaren Street. For details nsmercy.org.au
Mary MacKillop Place Museum is open every day, 9am to 4pm. See marymackillopplace.org.au
Historical Services, North Sydney Council