St Peter's College () is a Catholic secondary school for boys in the Edmund Rice tradition,"Edmund Rice Tradition", St Peter's College website (Retrieved 25 October 2022) and dedicated to St Peter. The proprietor of the school is the Catholic Bishop of Auckland. It is located in the central Auckland area of Grafton, Auckland, New Zealand. With a roll of over 1300 it is one of the largest Catholic schools in New Zealand. St Peter's College was established in 1939 as a successor of Auckland's earliest school (Mr Powell's School, established in 1841) and of St Peter's School, founded in 1857. However, there was also another Catholic secondary school dedicated to St Peter, Hato Petera College or St Peter's Māori College, which existed for 90 years from 1928 until 2018 in Northcote.
The Outhwaite family, who acquired the Mountain Rd land around 1841, donated the site of St Peter's College. The Christian Brothers provided staff for the college for 70 years.
St Peter's is the oldest existing Catholic boys' school in Auckland still on its original site. For nearly 50 years, the school had direct access to an adjacent railway station, specifically created for the college and known initially as the "St Peter's College station". The school was integrated into the state system along with 240 other New Zealand Catholic schools in 1982.
History
The original schools
Mr Powell's School (1841)
Auckland's first school was a Catholic school for boys, that commenced on 27 September 1841. It was established by Catholic laymen of Auckland following the first visit of Bishop Pompallier. The teacher was Edmund Powell (who was a leading layman also involved in building St Patrick's Church, later consecrated as a cathedral), and classes were first held in his home in Shortland Crescent. This school appears to have existed only for a short time.
St Peter's School (1857–1885)
In 1857, St Peter's School was established by a group of laymen (Messrs Coolahan, Boylan, Dignan, McGauran and O'Rafferty) led by Father O'Hara, the curate at St Patrick's Cathedral, as Auckland's first Catholic secondary school for boys. In that year Bishop Pompallier prepared a list of church schools for the Government and for "propaganda" which stated: "St Peter's Select School is established for the more advanced boys. The Greek, Latin, French, Italian and German languages are taught in it, also Geometry, Mensuration, Arithmetic, Geography, English Grammar etc ... Terms per Annum 12.0.0 for each pupil." The school had a board of governors composed of its founders which included the Member of Parliament, Patrick Dignan. Classes commenced in rented accommodation, probably in Drake St, Freemans Bay. John Logan Campbell donated a sum of £500 and a block of land on the corner of Pitt and Wellington Streets. A brick school building was built there.The Freeman's Journal, 16 August 1881. The founding teacher was Richard O'Sullivan and, during his tenure, the school was often identified with him (St Peter's boys were said to be "educated by Richard O'Sullivan" rather than by the school). Amongst his students were John Sheehan, Joseph Tole, Peter Dignan and Charles and William Outhwaite. O'Sullivan resigned in 1861. In 1865 the teacher was Peter Morand.
Bishop Pompallier made an annual inspection of the school. On 16 December 1864 he visited the school along with some priests and many parents. The proceedings were commenced by an address "to the Right Reverend Dr Pompallier, Bishop of Auckland", delivered by a pupil, Laurence Lorigan, on behalf of all the pupil's.
Earlier in 1864, St Peter's School gave an address to Bishop Pompallier on his feast day, the feast of St John the Baptist. That address was delivered by Martin Maher on behalf of the pupils.
St Peter's School was also prominent in St Patrick's Day celebrations. On Friday 17 March 1865, St Peter's boys together with pupils of other Catholic schools began their celebrations with a Pontifical High Mass whose principal celebrant was Bishop Pompallier, in the cathedral. After addresses to the Bishop, the pupils went to the "paddocks" of Peter Grace Esq where "the sports for the youths consisted of feats of bat and ball, football etc. etc. A very spirited cricket match came off between 11 students of St Francis de Sales School (a girls' school) and a corresponding number of St Peter's School, the former being the victors in the game". In 1867 the celebration occurred on Monday 18 March. After Mass, the addresses to the bishop were read by a pupil of St Patrick's School and by "Master Anthony [Patrick] Martin, son of Mr Anthony Martin of Hobson St" on behalf of St Peter's. The pupils then went to paddocks of Mr Dinnin on Ponsonby Road for sports, entertainments and "refreshments".
In the 1870s and 1880s, Mr B Hammill was a well-known teacher.The Freeman's Journal, 1 May 1880. He was said to have a "first-class certificate from the Irish Board of Education" and to be "enthusiastically devoted to his profession". Mr Peter Leonard was another prominent teacher who went on to teach at other schools in Auckland. In 1874, a report of the annual public examination of the boys attending St Peter's, presided over by Bishop Croke, stated that there was a "regular and good" attendance of about 70 pupils at the school. In 1879 St Peter's had a roll of 43. In 1881, Mr Cronin (who had "high certificates from the Irish and Auckland Education Boards") was a teacher at St Peter's School which in an advertisement for pupils also offered night classes ("7-9pm") to prepare pupils for "mercantile pursuits, civil service and teacher's examinations".
In about 1884, St Peter's started to use a larger adjacent building as the number of pupils was exceeding the capacity of the brick school. In October 1884, William Mahoney, who received all his early education under Mr Hammill at St Peter's, paid a visit to the school on his return to New Zealand as a priest. He was Auckland's first New-Zealand-born priest. St Peter's School continued (largely, by then a primary school) until the Marist Brothers established their own school on the site in 1885.
Troubled establishment Walter Steins S.J., third Catholic Bishop of Auckland (1879–1881) thought, that as they were a French congregation, the Marist Brothers might not be welcome in Auckland and that it would be better to invite the Irish Christian Brothers as most of the Catholics in Auckland were Irish. Steins's successor, the Englishman John Luck OSB, fourth Catholic Bishop of Auckland (1881–1896), had no such qualms and invited the Marist Brothers to establish their school. An unsuccessful move may have been made in 1885 to open a Christian Brothers School.
Nearly 40 years later, in 1923, Henry Cleary, the sixth Catholic Bishop of Auckland, issued an invitation to the Christian Brothers to found a school. The Marist Brothers, well established at Sacred Heart College (then located in Richmond Road, Ponsonby), objected strongly and Cleary wrote to the Provincial of the Christian Brothers, Brother Barron, changing his offer to a primary school. As a result, the Christian Brothers lost interest.
Shortly after he became seventh Catholic Bishop of Auckland in 1929, James Liston renewed the invitation to the Christian Brothers, whose pupil he had been in Dunedin. This again aroused the opposition of the Marist Brothers. They were concerned that a new boys' Form I to VI school would take enrolments from Sacred Heart College and would diminish their revenue. Unmoved by the Marist Brothers' opposition, Liston requested his old Dunedin classmate, Brother Michael James Benignus Hanrahan (Brother Benignus), the Christian Brothers provincial, to provide brothers to staff the school. This was agreed to.
A contractor cleared the Mountain Road site in 1931 and it was expected that the school would open in 1933. But financial problems caused delays. The Marist Brothers appealed to the Apostolic Delegate to Australia and New Zealand, resident in Sydney, and to the Sacred Congregation of Religious in Rome.
They believed that Bishop Cleary had promised them the St Peter's School site but as no written record could be found, Bishop Liston was informed by the Sacred Congregation that he could invite the Christian Brothers and the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Giovanni Panico, ruled "that the Bishop is free to make whatever provision he may decide in the matter". The Marist Brothers accepted this ruling, but unhappily.
Outhwaite donation, construction and opening
The school was constructed on the corner of Khyber Pass Road and Mountain Road, a site which had been given to the church for educational purposes by the Outhwaite family a pioneering family of Auckland. The family acquired the site in 1841. Isa Outhwaite, the last surviving member of that family, bequeathed the site of the college and also a part of the fund required for its erection. The Outhwaites, who lived nearby, had pastured livestock on the site. The dedication of the college to St Peter was not only a specific revival of the earlier St Peter's School in Auckland, but also referred to the first Catholic school in New Zealand opened in Kororareka in 1840 and dedicated to St Peter. The foundation also commemorated the beginning of the Catholic Church in New Zealand in 1838 when Bishop Pompallier arrived in New Zealand and set up the Marist Mission in the Bay of Islands.
The Christian Brothers arrived in Auckland from Australia and the South Island for the 1939 school year. They were accommodated by the parish priest of Remuera, Monsignor J. J. Bradley, in his presbytery until the Brothers' residence was habitable. Bradley, who had been a pupil of the Christian Brothers in Ireland, was responsible for the laying out of the grounds of the school, which took ten months to complete. However, work continued until 1941 on the development of Reeves Road (a street that later disappeared as it was incorporated as the entrance to St. Peter's College), the building of stone walls, and the very significant soil transfer from the netball courts to level the playing fields was accomplished largely by workers on the Government Relief scheme following the Great Depression.
These workers worked on the project for three years and finished it on 1 November 1941. The school grounds consisted of three different levels, i.e. the netball court level (from 2010, the site of the St Peter's Sports Complex), the old tennis court level (later filled in under the playing field level) and the playing field level (called the "St Peter's College oval"). Originally, the quadrangle of the college was not paved but was covered in heavy ash from the Auckland Gas works in Freemans Bay.
The school was opened on Sunday, 29 January 1939 by Bishop Liston and in the presence of Hon. H. G. R. Mason, (Attorney-General and local member of parliament – for the Auckland Suburbs electorate), the Mayor of Auckland, Sir Ernest Davis, and Mr Justice Callan of the Supreme Court (who had been a pupil of the Christian Brothers in Dunedin and had also been a classmate of Liston's). Br Keniry represented the Provincial of the Christian Brothers, Brother Hanrahan, at the opening. The opening took place on a wet afternoon and, as he read his speech, Bishop Liston was sheltered under an umbrella held by the foundation headmaster of the college, Brother F.P. O'Driscoll. In spite of the rain, many friends and well-wishers participated in the opening.
After referring to the bequest of the Outhwaite family and making placatory remarks about the Marist Brothers, Liston welcomed the Christian Brothers.