St Mary's Cathedral, Wellington: Difference between revisions

St Mary's Cathedral
41°16′36″S 174°46′34″E
Location	Thorndon, Wellington Central City
Country	New Zealand
Denomination	Catholic
Website	Sacred Heart Cathedral
History
Founded	1851
Founder(s)	Philippe Viard, 1st Bishop of Wellington
Dedicated	7 December 1851 (the feast of the Immaculate Conception)
Associated people	Francis Redwood, 2nd Bishop and 1st Archbishop of Wellington
Architecture
Architectural type	Gothic Revival style

St Mary's Cathedral was Cathedral of the the Catholic Bishop of Wellington, New Zealand. It was opened in 1851 and was destroyed by fire in 1898.

History

On 1 May 1850, the barque Clara arrived in Wellington Harbour from Auckland bringing the first Bishop of the diocese, Philippe Joseph Viard, S.M. Within three weeks of his arrival, accumulated funds collected by Catholics were placed in a special bank account at his disposal, and the site for the new cathedral was bought. The site is now occupied by Sacred Heart Cathedral, Wellington and Sacred Heart Cathedral School. The Bishop also chose as the site for his mission, two sections adjoining this, both in Hawkestone Street, now occupied by St Mary's College. These sections were given by the Hon. Henry Petre.

On 8 September 1850, a "a lovely day, bright, calm," the feast of the birthday of Mary, Bishop Viard laid, "with a procession and all form", the foundation stone of the church which was to be his cathedral. The Cathedral of St Mary was complete enough to be blessed and opened for worship on Sunday 7 December 1851, the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Some finishing work still remained to be done, but the Bishop wanted the context of the feast day, for the Cathedral was being dedicated to Mary under that title. A reporter said" The consecration, including the celebration of Mass, occupied something more than four hours."

Bishop Viard died on Sunday 2 June 1872. His funeral was presided over by Bishop Patrick Moran of Dunedin. He was buried in a brick-lines grave in the Cathedral in front of Mary's shrine in some pomp. 1,500 people of all denominations crowded the Cathedral. On 26 November 1874, Viard's successor, Francis Redwood, was received "solemnly and canonically" in the Cathedral "then unfinished except in the chancel". Redwood eventually installed a marble altar and and a new organ in the Cathedral but he did not think that the Cathedral was adequate and in 1892 he put before the clergy in synod assembled the choice of either building a new cathedral or enlarging improving and finishing the present one. Constrained by the opinion of his clergy, who considered the diocese could not afford the cost of a new building, he commenced to do these things at a cost of £5,000. Repainting a section of of the tower proved necessary when part of the original work was below standard and had blistered.

About 8.30am on Monday 28 November 1898 the dry timber of the tower of the Cathedral caught alight when a workman was burning off old paint. The horse-drawn fire engine was slow to arrive, water pressure on the hill was low. Fanned by a southerly, the fire gradually took hold, burning upwards through the funnel of the tower and downwards until the nave was engulfed. Bystanders, including Sisters of Mercy, saved some of the sanctuary furnishings before the fire chief declared the building too dangerous to enter, and efforts were concentrated on stopping the blaze spreading to surrounding buildings. The cast-iron statute crashed down from the tower, but was later salvaged with minor damage. It took about three hours for the Cathedral to be reduced to a smouldering ruin. Redwood treated the fire as providential and decided to replace the the destroyed cathedral with a new parish church for Thorndon and to transfer the title "St Mary's" to a new cathedral to be built on the corner of Tory St and Buckle St adjacent to St Patrick's College, Wellington. The projected site change and, in the event, the new St Mary's Cathedral was never built and Wellington was without a cathedral until 1984. The replacement building for St Mary's cathedral in Thorndon, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart was opened on 3 February 1901. In 1984 the Basilica was officially designated as the Cathedral of the Archdiocese, and, with a bow to the title of "St Mary's", it was dedicated under the title of "Metropolitan Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of St Mary his mother".

Main sources

• Charles Fearnley, "The Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Catholic: Hill St", in Early Wellington Churches, Millwood Press, Wellington, 1977, pp. 145–149.
• Dan Kelly, On Golders Hill: A History of the Thorndon Parish, Daniel Kelly/Parish of the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Sacred Heart and of Saint Mary His Mother, Wellington, 2001.
• Michael O'Meeghan SM, Steadfast in hope: The Story of the Catholic Archdiocese of Wellington 1850-2000, Dunmore Press, Wellington, 2003.

External links

• Sacred Heart Cathedral