St. Patrick's Hall Schools: 1826 - 1999

By Joseph B. Darcy C.F.C.

St. Patrick's Hall Schools, the creation of the Benevolent Irish Society (BIS), was the first modern school in Newfoundland. No ordinary educational establishment, it played a primary part in raising the Catholic young men of St. John's from the degrading poverty that was their lot in the early 19th century to economic affluence and to positions of importance in society in the 20th century.
In Newfoundland itself, St. Pat's, as it was known played a seminal role in transforming the primitive social and economic structure that existed in Newfoundland in the 19th century into the sophisticated society of the present. It did this by developing educated, responsible citizens who were capable of providing the infrastructure that made this transformation possible.
Newfoundland owes a debt of gratitude to the BIS, which inspired and financed St. Pat's, as well as to the Christian Brothers who were the main architects of its development.

A native of St. John's, Br. Joseph B. Darcy is uniquely placed to write the history of this illustrious institute. His family history is intertwined with that of the school. His grandfather graduated in 1861 while it was still called The Orphan Asylum School, and served as a pupil monitor. HIs father attended St. Pat's and acheived the distinction of being the school's 'head boy' in his final year, 1904. Still later, as treasurer of teh BIS for many years, he was responsible for overseeing the financial support which the Society provided for the school.

While Br. Darcy did not himself attend St. Pat's, his position on the American Provincial Council of the Christian Brothers during the 1960s gave him a close view of the St. John's Catholic schools during that turbulent period. His later position on the General Council of the Brothers in Rome provided him with the unique opportunity of studying the voluminous correspondence that went back and forth between the early Brothers in Newfoundland and teh General Council of the period., depicting vivdily the many trials and challenges that these Brithers faced. The fact that he is now living at Mount St. Francis, where the Canadian archives of teh Brothers are located, has enabled him to study much correspondence and other information which would normally be unavailble to reserachers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Flanker Press
• Release date: Jan 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781771173421

Joseph B. Darcy C.F.C.

A native of St. John's, Br. Joseph B. Darcy is uniquely placed to write the history of this illustrious institute. His family history is intertwined with that of the school. His grandfather graduated in 1861 while it was still called The Orphan Asylum School, and served as a pupil monitor. HIs father attended St. Pat's and acheived the distinction of being the school's 'head boy' in his final year, 1904. Still later, as treasurer of teh BIS for many years, he was responsible for overseeing the financial support which the Society provided for the school. While Br. Darcy did not himself attend St. Pat's, his position on the American Provincial Council of the Christian Brothers during the 1960s gave him a close view of the St. John's Catholic schools during that turbulent period. His later position on the General Council of the Brothers in Rome provided him with the unique opportunity of studying the voluminous correspondence that went back and forth between the early Brothers in Newfoundland and teh General Council of the period., depicting vivdily the many trials and challenges that these Brithers faced. The fact that he is now living at Mount St. Francis, where the Canadian archives of teh Brothers are located, has enabled him to study much correspondence and other information which would normally be unavailble to reserachers.

Book preview

The new St. Patrick’s Hall Schools

decorated for a gala event in the spring of 1945,

the year in which they were opened.

Dedication

This work is dedicated to

the many teachers,

lay and religious,

men and women,

who served St. Patrick’s Hall Schools

so well, for so many years,

and to the

innumerable students

whose devoted loyalty

made the school

the outstanding institution

that it was.

These schools were superior to any he had ever visited. He was surprised beyond measure at the high standard of education- Governor Herbert H. Murray, 1895.

I believe that in the world there is not such a people. Br. R. B. Fleming’s reaction to the support given the Christian Brothers by the people of St. John’s, Catholic and otherwise, 1881.

Regarding the boys here I had no idea that such a class of boys existed, for manliness and, better still, for politeness, it would be a difficult task to find their equals. Christian Brother, letter to Ireland, 1896.

One boy, on invitation, came to the board and explained the ‘twentieth prop,’ [in geometry] with ease. When asked, he replied that he was eight years of age, and then set to work on a problem in algebra. Inspection report to Ireland of Brother Burke in 1896.

The impetus given to education in the past few years has largely come from them (the Christian Brothers)…they… have succeeded in leaving their impress in an awakening of educational interest hitherto unknown in this Colony. Royal Gazette, December 1896.

Acknowledgements

My acknowledgements for assistance in preparing this book must go, first, to the ex-pupils’ committee of St. Patrick’s Hall Schools,who inspired, encouraged and sponsored this account of their beloved school. Then to the late lamented Brother John G. Shea, C.F.C., whose first draft for this work was almost completed at the time of his untimely death. His research made my own work much easier than it would otherwise have been. Next to Brother Gordon R. Bellows, C.F.C., archivist of the Christian Brothers archives in St. John’s, both for his patient assistance in providing needed data from the archives, and for his meticulous proofreading of the manuscript at several stages of its development, as well as for his almost superhuman ability to detect grammatical and other errors. Finally many thanks are due to Becky and her fellow workers at the HuB for their undertaking the printing of the finished manuscript. I hope the book is worthy of the efforts of all of them. The opinions expressed in the book, of course, and whatever mistakes still remain are my own responsibility.

Brother Joseph B. Darcy

ST. PATRICK’S HALL ALUMNI COMMITTEE

BACK ROW: FRANK KELLY, STEPHEN CLEARY, SANDY ROCHE, GARRY FARRELL, TED GARDINER, WALTER DALTON.

FRONT ROW: JOE MULROONEY, JOHN MCGRATH, BR. EDDIE WAKEHAM, GERRY SULLEY, PAT HAYWARD.

Foreword

After a continuum of almost two hundred years there is no longer a St. Patrick’s Hall School in St. John’s. A Memorial to the long and noble history of St Patrick’s Hall Schools in our city now stands at what was once the inviting entrance to the grounds of the last St Patrick’s Hall School.

In the minds of all its ex-students that school continues to exist. It is etched in our collective memories as a place and a time full of spirit and vitality. The school provided us, as was to be expected, a high standard of education, but it was also a place of fun and friends wherein a true sense of individual belonging was fostered. The school building may have burnt to the ground, but it still stands proud and strong whenever we wax nostalgic about the halcyon days of our youth as inevitably occurs upon encounters with fellow former students.

What is it that we, the Alumni Committee members, remember about St. Pat’s? School rallies, hockey, basketball, soccer teams, winning the Boyle Trophy, Hand scholarships, marching to St. Pat’s Field for Sports Day, Captain O’Grady, May altars in the class, wearing blue ribbons in May and red ribbons in June, flower beds in front of the school, St. Patrick’s Day concerts with Ignatius Rumboldt and the Glee Club, Cadet Band, the Cadet shooting range in the school basement, white shirts, green and gold ties, white short pants, long grey pants, green and gold caps, attending Mass at the Basilica with the boys on one side and the girls on the other, the outdoor ice rink, school rivalry with St. Bon’s and Holy Cross, the Bowling Alley, mission boxes, Friday night socials in the gym, chasing down the corridors, all comprise the mosaic of our memories. In addition there were the teachers: Irish Christian Brothers: Shea, Nash, Moore, Slattery, Molloy, Fitzpatrick, Quinn, Warren, Rice, PV Shea, Shaw, Wakeham, the Brennans; and the lay teachers: McGrath, Coombs, Ennis, Fitzgerald, English and Broderick...dedicated teachers all who carried on the tradition of learning and character building that was the very essence of the school.

We worked, we learned, we played, we won and we lost, There was much fun and so many friends. It was good to be part and parcel of the heart and soul that was St. Pat’s.

With the wisdom that comes with age we can better appreciate the debt we owe our school. Our time at St. Pat’s played a significant role in making us who we are. It shaped us physically, mentally and morally.

We can only speak of our own times, of course, but we are sure that preceding and later generations share the same sentiments. We think particularly of the debt owed by more recent generations to the motherly women teachers who eased so capably the transition of their young charges from home to the more tumultuous life of school. We think also of the still later generation of young girls who attended the school in its last stage of evolution adding so much to its social and cultural life.

The indomitable spirit of the St. Patrick’s Hall Schools is alive and well. Brother Darcy’s book will help ensure that the legacy of the Schools is not forgotten.

THE GREEN AND GOLD FOREVER!

St. Patrick’s Hall Alumni Committee     September 2013

The original Orphan Asylum School with the tower and later extensions and the new BIS building in the background.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1 – 1806–1875 – Setting the Scene

Chapter 2 – 1875–1880 – A New Beginning

Chapter 3 – 1880–1890 – The Changing of the Guard

Chapter 4 – 1890–1894 – Through Many Trials

Chapter 5 – 1894–1899 – Scholarships or Jobs

Chapter 6 – 1900–1926 – Forging Ahead

Chapter 7 – The Christian Brothers’ System of Education

Chapter 8 – 1927–1940 – The ‘Don Bosco of St. John’s’

Chapter 9 – 1940–1945 – Raising the Bar

Chapter 10 – 1945–1953 – A New Abode

Chapter 11 – 1953–1962 A Tsunami of Students

Chapter 12 – 1962–1977 – Portables and a Saint

Chapter 13 – 1977–1988 – Meeting Many Needs

Chapter 14 – 1988–2005 – The Final Days and the Aftermath

Appendix I – Clerical and Religious Ex-pupils

Appendix II – Hand Scholars, 1922–1926

Appendix III – Ex-pupils in WWI

References and Notes

Index

Setting the Scene

1806–1875

This conversation¹ actually took place in the town of St. John’s, Newfoundland, in the spring of 1889, between a young, ragged lad and a tall, robust gentleman, Brother John L. Slattery, who was on his way home after a demanding day’s teaching in the senior room of St. Patrick’s Hall Schools. But it could just as well have taken place in any other city of North America or Europe at any time during the 19th century when the education of the poor was still a novelty, and a novelty often strongly resisted by the upper classes on the plea that it was likely to encourage the poor to think above their ‘divinely ordained’ station in life. Even as late as 1886, the then Governor of Newfoundland, William Des Voeux,² could note after a visit to the school mentioned above:

I sometimes doubt whether free instruction for all alike does not lead to more disappointment than pleasure. Every one of these boys will regard himself as above manual labour, and most of them will go to swell the already overcrowded ranks of clerks. If compelled to do manual labour they will be dissatisfied for the rest of their lives.

But was Governor Des Voeux right? The Bishop of St. John’s, Michael A. Fleming, OSF, evidently didn’t think so, for he wrote to his superiors in Rome in 1837, urging the need for schools:³

The boys, at a very tender age, are employed in some way or other about the fishery, in order to earn as much as will support themselves and render them almost altogether independent of their parents. The consequence is that, free from every domestic restraint, they are much exposed to the temptation to drink rum, which, according to custom, is served out to them regularly three times a day.

The above conversation, together with the governor’s and bishop’s comments, does much to explain the plight of the typical St. John’s boy in the early 19th century. Unlettered, unchurched, living in squalor, and threatened by the frequent epidemics that afflicted the town, constantly exposed to the temptation of strong drink freely available on the waterfront, dependent on the vagaries of the fishery for employment, such a youth was suited only to the drudgery of the most menial and dangerous of physical tasks.

As for the town itself, it reflected its inhabitants. Here is how the town appeared to a visitor in the spring of 1839:⁴

.…We caught a view of the town, which, from its being built for the most part of unpainted wood, had a sufficiently sombre and dismal appearance. The harbour, however, was full of vessels, and on landing there seemed to be much bustle and business going on. The melting of the previous winter’s snow had, however, furrowed the streets in various places with gutters running across them, while from their ill-kept state, from their long, straggling, and irregular appearance, the narrow dirty alleys and lanes leading out of them, the dingy aspect of the unpainted houses, and the groups of idle and half-drunken sailors and fishermen, the absence of street lamps and drains, the entire want of all police, and the air of disorder and confusion which reigned throughout, it was evident that the scene was a foreign one.

That description was made in the spring when St. John’s, still showing the results of a hard, dreary winter, is traditionally at its worst. This view, then, needs to be modified when the town is seen on a bright summer’s day, as witnessed by a newly arrived Presentation Sister in September1833:⁵

The view of the harbour and surrounding country is most picturesque and beautiful on whatever side you turn and appears to be in a perfect state of cultivation.… All around there is to be seen hills and mountains, perfectly green, interspersed with houses, green fields and small gardens.

As for such schools as existed, they were indeed primitive as is revealed by the condition of the schools under the R. C. School Board for St. John’s in 1843, the first year of its operations.⁶ This board had 15 schools outside of St. John’s under its control: Petty Harbour, Portugal Cove, etc. Of these, five had satisfactory teachers, three had temporary teachers, while the remaining seven had no teachers at all. In 1876, Br. Holland could report,⁷ An old pensioner who learned to read after leaving the army and can scarcely write his name is getting charge of River Head School.

In the remote settlements, of course, things were much worse. An official school report⁸ of 1845 about a school in the Burin District stated that there were: upwards of 60 of these poor little children seated upon stones, arranged in order for them and with but one school desk in the school. Another report about the school in Presque in the Placentia District⁹ was even worse: a wretched long hut, without a window, 21 children, the greater number seated on large stones. For the want of paper, or even slates, and desks or tables to place them on, if they had them, there are none writing.

Thomas Talbot, himself a distinguished teacher, wrote of Newfoundland schools as they existed even as late as 1882:¹⁰

(They) were the humblest and least efficient that could well be imagined.… They were badly taught, badly furnished, and badly paid. The teachers were for the most part old or crippled fishermen, and broken-down or discharged commercial clerks.… On the whole, the state of education throughout the island was in as low a condition as it is possible to conceive.

But this was not because of the stupidity of the boys. Talbot, having found a teaching position in Harbour Grace and having invited some of the farmers’ sons to attend classes in maths., navigation, and other such more difficult subjects, found¹¹ that they were very intelligent, and quick to learn. They were generous and manly too, and full of enterprise and spirit.

Why were the town and the Island generally so backward? Simply because, from the discovery of the Island in 1497, the fishing magnates had done everything in their power to prevent colonization so that they might keep it as their private fishing station. The Rev. M. Harvey, in his work, Newfoundland in 1897, exclaimed bitterly:¹²

It was owing to the operation of one of the most nefarious and heartless systems, continued for over one hundred and fifty years, that the brain of man ever devised to keep a fine island, one-sixth larger than Ireland, in a wilderness condition, and to forcibly prevent its settlement, in order that a few West-County merchant adventurers might enrich themselves by the exclusive use of its shores and fisheries. Never was a Colony so cruelly and unjustly dealt with.

Yet the merchants had to have workers to pursue the fishery and, inevitably, these restrictions on immigration gradually disappeared. By the early 1800’s, there were some 20,000 inhabitants in St. John’s. Besides the merchants and their families (mainly Anglican), there were the poor fishermen (mainly Catholic.) Then there was a large body of Volunteers under the command of Major MacBraire, and a garrison of some 700 men. McBraire, who could rightfully be regarded as the originator of the events which led eventually to the existence of St. Patrick’s Hall Schools, started life as a poor Protestant boy from Northern Ireland. After joining the British army, he rapidly rose to the rank of sergeant. On leaving the army, he migrated to Newfoundland where, proving himself to be a man of prodigious energy and ability, he became one of the Island’s leading merchants. Other Irishmen, mainly Protestants, had also established themselves, either as successful merchants or as senior officers in the army.

This last fact is important for our story for, with the swelling numbers of indigent Catholic Irish, there came also great want and hardship. Apparently, whatever the cruelties of the system, not all the merchants were as hard-hearted as Harvey makes them out to be for, in 1806, a meeting of the leading Irish citizens was called to see what could be done to alleviate the sufferings of their less fortunate fellow countrymen. It was presided over by the first Catholic bishop in Newfoundland, Dr. James Louis O’Donnell, an enthusiastic supporter of the project. As a result of the meeting, a society was formed, dedicated to benevolence and philanthropy, and named the Benevolent Irish Society, henceforth to be called by its familiar name, the BIS. Membership was limited to natives of Ireland or their descendants. A leadership committee was elected consisting of three army officers and three merchants. Only one of them, Henry Shea, a merchant from Waterford, was a Catholic. He was elected secretary. McBraire became treasurer, while two army officers, Captain Tonge and Lieutenant-Colonel Murray, became president and vice president respectively. The society adopted St. Patrick as its patron and the motto: ‘He that gives to the poor, lends to the Lord.’

For some years, the BIS acted vigorously and effectively in providing financial help to the ‘deserving poor.’ This aid became particularly necessary after the end of the American war in 1814, when the opening of the Grand Banks to the Americans, French and Norwegians caused a drastic fall in the price of fish and hence intense hardship in Newfoundland, a hardship augmented by a succession of fires that, during exceptionally severe winters, wiped out much of the town. Fortunately, not only was the BIS able to help the poor during this crisis, but, so generous were its subscribers, that the society was able to accumulate a substantial reserve sum that, when lodged with bankers in England, provided capital for future projects.

As a consequence, when, in 1823, Patrick Morris, a young, energetic Catholic Irishman from Waterford was elected president of the BIS, he was able to expand its activities considerably. He believed that ‘prevention was better than cure,’ and that besides aiding the poor in their distress, the efforts of the society should be directed towards lifting them from their poverty particularly through farming, an occupation which, under previous law, now rescinded, had, for a long time, been illegal and hence fallen into disuse. Seed potatoes were purchased and distributed to those worthy families who would attempt this new venture.

HON. PATRICK MORRIS

By this time, economic conditions in the Island had improved and the need of providing food for the poor less pressing. Consequently, another project now attracted the attention of the society: the condition of the orphan children of the Island. Because of the hazardous nature of the fishery and the frequent epidemics with which the Island was plagued, there were great numbers of these unfortunate children, often left to fend for themselves, entirely dependent on casual charity. The society decided to explore the possibility of establishing an orphan asylum for which, when established, public support might be obtained. As a result, at the quarterly meeting of the society on August 17, 1823, Mr. Timothy Hogan proposed, An asylum for the support and education of orphan children be established by the Society. Having obtained the encouragement of the Governor, Charles Hamilton, the BIS resolved, at a special meeting on August 24th, that:¹³

The Society in their collective and individual capacities will use every means in their power to establish an Orphan Asylum for the support and education of orphan children without distinction of country or creed. That the sum of £100 per annum will be appropriated by the Society for that object, and that the charitably disposed in St. John’s, and throughout the island and in other parts be respectfully solicited for subscriptions for the same object.

This resolution might be called the Magna Carta of the future St. Patrick’s Hall Schools. When this project became generally known, it proved universally popular. Subscriptions, not only from the members of the society, but from all over the Island, poured in. The rector of the Anglican church and another Protestant clergyman preached charity sermons on its behalf. The military, both navy and army, were equally supportive; the theatrical company performed a special play for the same purpose.

But, in spite of strong support from Governor Hamilton, obtaining a suitable piece of land from the British authorities for the proposed building proved difficult. It took four years and the efforts of two governors before, in 1827, the unoccupied ground on the right side of the road to Fort Townshend was finally deeded to the society for this purpose by the then governor, Thomas Cochrane.¹⁴

Patrick Morris, however, was not a man to brook delay. Two years previously, in February, 1825, he had delivered a stirring address to the anniversary meeting of the society, in which he mooted the desirability of providing a school from which the orphans themselves, as well as others in need of it, might derive the advantages of education. (emphasis added). Moved by his words, the assembly had resolved that: the Society do immediately take ten orphan children who shall be entirely provided for at its expense until the Asylum is in a state fit to receive them, and that twenty other children be fully clothed from the funds of the Society.¹⁵

There was strong opposition, however, from within the BIS itself to the enlargement of the original proposal to include a regular school. Nevertheless, after strenuous debate, Morris’ proposal carried the day, and from then on "The Society