Churches of Tasmania

The Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart is a Catholic religious order founded in 1866 at Penola in South Australia. Its first member and Superior was Mary MacKillop. The Sisters were active in several Australian states in education and child welfare, establishing several schools, orphanages and babies’ and children’s Homes. The Sisters have been in Tasmania since their arrival in 1887 when they established the first Josephite school in Westbury. Since then, they have ministered in 25 schools and numerous parishes across Tasmania. In 1968 a Josephite Convent was established at Thirza Street in New Town. The building was blessed and opened by Archbishop Guilford Young on 19 August 1968. Initially it operated as a nursing home and hostel for Sisters of Saint Joseph. In time hospitality was also offered to members of other religious congregations and relatives and friends of the Sisters during times of illness. By 1989 it had become clear that St Joseph’s was too small to be eligibl...

Rivulet is a residential Aged Care Facility situated alongside the Hobart Rivulet which runs past the property. Rivulet was acquired by Southern Cross Care in 2020. Southern Cross Care was established in October 1972 by the Knights of the Southern Cross, a Catholic community group of laymen with a mission to provide dignified and respect-based care for the elderly. The Rivulet Aged Care facility on Gore Street is located on a site deeply layered with Hobart's colonial history. It was once the site of the Derwent Distillery established in 1823 and the area evolved into a major brewing and manufacturing hub. In 1872, William Gracie (a former manager at Cascade Brewery) took over the business. He demolished the old structures to build a new, five-storey stone and brick Artillery Brewery in 1873. In 1883, the premises were leased to Johnstone Brothers (Messrs. Johnstone and Co.). They converted the brewery into a steam-powered woollen mill. The mill produced blankets and tweeds before ...

Shipwrights Point is now known as Port Huon. It was so named as it was the centre of boatbuilding in the district. For many years it was well known for regattas which attracted large numbers of spectators. A visitor to the area in 1875 described the settlement as follows: “Its population numbers perhaps a hundred and fifty, the labouring portion of which are mainly employed in connection with the shipbuilding yards of Messrs. Inches and Sons and Messrs. Hawkins and Co. Old Mr. Inches, by the way, settled here more than thirty years ago, started the industry with which his name will long be associated, and gave to the town the descriptive appellation it still bears. With some slight intermissions, shipbuilding has been carried on here ever since….Mr. Hawkins, in addition to his shipbuilding business, some years ago started a jam manufactory, which, though not of course so large as kindred establishments in Hobart Town, is remarkably complete in its appointments. Steam is used in the man...

Forteviot is a significant historic house built in 1899 for Alexander John Harley (1854-1905), headmaster of the Macquarie Street State School. The house is named after Forteviot, a village in the Perthshire region of Scotland, the birthplace of Alexander Harley’s father. The large Victorian-style house, located at Sandy Bay, on the shore of the River Derwent, was designed by architects Robert Flack Ricards and Douglas Salier. In 1958 Forteviot was purchased by the Catholic Archdiocese of Hobart. For a brief period the house was a base for Sacre Coeur, a prayer community of lay women who promoted educational, missionary and parish work of the Catholic Church. In 1961 Forteviot was purchased from the Archdiocese by the Society of Christian Doctrine. The Society of Christian Doctrine, widely known as the Preca Community, is an international society of Catholic lay faithful. It was founded in Malta in 1907 by St George Preca. The community consists of celibate men and women who dedicate t...

Longley is a rural settlement approximately 20 kilometres south of Hobart. The area was originally named Leslie, a name that has been preserved in Leslie Hill which lies on the eastern side of Longley. The focus of this article is on the first Catholic church built at Longley. St Columba’s opened in 1885 and was destroyed in bushfires which swept through Southern Tasmania in 1898. It was replaced by a new church in 1899. While the church existed for a little over 10 years, and no photograph of the building exists, the building’s history is vividly captured in three newspaper reports, covering the churches beginnings through to its destruction. The reports from the Hobart Mercury have been mostly reproduced here in full as they beautifully capture the texture of life of the faithful Catholic community living along the Huon Track. The first report tells the story of the ceremonial laying of the church’s foundation stone on Sunday 9 March 1884: “Yesterday, in the presence of a large co...