All Hallows' School Buildings are a heritage-listed group of Roman Catholic private school buildings at 547 Ann Street, Fortitude Valley, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. They were designed by a number of notable Brisbane architects and were constructed over many years. The earliest is the All Hallows Convent, also known as Adderton. The buildings were added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
History All Hallows' Convent and School was established in 1863 on Petrie Bight, as the first permanent site of the convent and school of the Sisters of Mercy in Queensland. The site comprises many important buildings reflecting the growth of the school. The arrangement of the site and the buildings thereon reflect the acquisition of land and the introspective nature of the planning of the school.
Following the separation of Queensland from New South Wales in 1859, a new Roman Catholic diocese which separated the newly formed Diocese of Queensland from the Diocese of Newcastle. On 14 April 1859 James Quinn, who was residing in Ireland at the time, was appointed the first Bishop of Queensland and arrived in Brisbane on 12 March 1861. Between his appointment and his arrival, Quinn recruited desperately needed clergy and religious Sisters. He arrived in Brisbane with several priests and five Sisters of Mercy, under the guidance of the Mother Superior, Mother Mary Vincent Whitty.
The Sisters of Mercy were principally a teaching order, founded in Ireland by Catherine McAuley in 1831. The establishment of religious schools in the new colony was seen as a crucial need to instil and strengthen faith in the struggling community described as one in which religion was very secondary and money-making was the object and aim of existence. The day after Mother Vincent's arrival a deputation from Ipswich requested that the Sisters settle in their town, but accommodation was soon found for the sisters in Brisbane, where the need for them must have been greater felt.
Adderton and the Convent In December 1863 Bishop Quinn purchased on behalf of the Sisters of Mercy the former home of Dr George Fullerton who had been appointed to the first Legislative Council of Queensland but soon after left for Maranoa. The house, presumably built for Fullerton was known as Adderton and was sold to Quinn for . The house was located on Petrie Bight, across Ann Street from the Bishop's own rented residence, Dara, and these two properties were considered two of the largest and best appointed homes in Brisbane at the time. On their arrival the Sisters had been provided with only temporary accommodation near St Stephen's church. Adderton was to be used as a convent for the Sisters of Mercy, and as accommodation for a boarding school. Among the chief concerns of the Bishop was the establishment of a Catholic education system, and this was his primary motivation for introducing to Queensland the order of sisters renowned for their teaching.
It is thought that the newly formed school was named All Hallows' by Mother Vincent after All Hallows' College, Dublin which was in turn named to recall the seventh century parish church, All Hallows'-by- the-Tower in London. All Hallows', Brisbane was to operate in conjunction with the school at St Stephen's which had been established and operated by lay members of the community since 1845, but for which the Sisters assumed the management of upon their arrival in 1861. All Hallows' was established as a "select" school, where money raised from fees could be used to finance the parish or "poor" schools, of which the school at St Stephen's was an early example.
Adderton is presumed to have been built in the late 1850s for Dr Fullerton after he purchased the property above Petrie Bight, which with its far reaching views of Brisbane, from Thomas Adams in 1858. Adams, with Henry Watson, acquired the original Deeds of Grant of the land in two separate deeds in July 1844 and May 1852. After its construction Adderton was located on on what was known as Duncan's Hill but the site is now perceived, after the cutting down of Ann Street, as a cliff face to Ann Street sloping south eastward to the Brisbane River.
Adderton forms the central section of the present day convent, and was originally a two storeyed house with basement which was designed and constructed by early Brisbane builder, Andrew Petrie. Petrie was principally a building contractor, but was able to provide designs for local buildings until the influx of architects to Brisbane in the 1860s. Petrie was also responsible for the design and construction of the 1853 Adelaide House, later known as The Deanery, for Dr William Hobbs.
An early photograph of Adderton reveals it as a simple stone building of Georgian proportion and detail; a centrally located doorway with an elliptical fanlight above, flanked by timber shuttered windows and with chimney stacks protruding from each end of a simple gabled roof. Many of the features of the early house including a geometric stair, entrance door and light, windows and shutters, fireplaces along with the general planning of the interior are extant within what has become a much larger convent.
On 1 November 1863 the Sisters and some boarders from St Stephen's school transferred to Adderton. Classrooms were established in the reception and dining rooms on the ground floor, the study to the rear of these was used as a chapel and the floor above became sleeping quarters. Thus began the school and convent of All Hallows' which continues today as the head convent of the Sisters of Mercy in Queensland and from where the Sisters rapidly expanded their network of educational and social welfare institutions.
The education offered by the Sisters for the young women of Queensland was of a high standard, and sought after by members of all religious denominations from regional centres all over Queensland and northern New South Wales. Indeed, the number of non-catholic enrolments exceeded that of the catholic enrolments for many years until the 1880s, and remained equal to them until the turn of the century. This ecumenical spirit persisted despite the establishment of the Brisbane Girls Grammar School in 1875. 1879 saw All Hallows' produce its first candidate for the Sydney University Junior Public Examinations, being the first female candidate from a convent school in Australia. The Sisters were able to provide a comprehensive education including music, domestic science as well as more academic pursuits where specialist teachers of this sort were not introduced into state schools until the 1940s.
Adderton remained unaltered as the head convent for the Sisters of Mercy in Queensland until 1890, when major alterations were planned which saw the former two storeyed house engulfed in a much larger complex involving another storey, an extension of fifty feet in the length of the house and the addition of transverse wings. These alterations were planned by local architects Hunter and Corrie and executed in 1892, by contractors Messrs Woollam and Norman for upwards of . A descriptive report of the nearly completed building was carried in the national architectural periodical, The Building and Engineering Journal of 27 February 1892.
The basement of the new convent contained accommodation for "House of Refuge" girls, work rooms, bathrooms and storage areas. The ground floor housed various reception room and offices, a nuns' sacristy and halls for the building's three main staircases, along with the sisters' dining room and a chapel in the south-western wing. The chapel featured an apsidal chancel, floored with encaustic tiles and accessed via wide marble stairs; fine pine joinery and panelling stained to a light cedar colour; and a memorial stained glass window from Munich. Seating accommodation in the chapel was divided such that the Sisters sat on the ground floor and the boarders at the convent were seated in a gallery above the entrance of the chapel. verandahs were added to the front and rear of the ground and first floors of the central section of the building at this time. The cement rendered brick extensions were erected on concrete foundations, and with a slate roof.
With this 1892 extension a walkway was constructed which connected the convent to the school building erected in 1884. Incorporated as part of the walkway was a bell tower in which was placed an Angelus bell brought with the Sisters from Ireland in 1861 and dedicated to Saint Charles Borromeo, which to this day chimes daily at noon.
Along with education the Sisters of Mercy at All Hallows' provided many other social programmes, including the care and concern for the welfare of those considered less fortunate. Bishop Quinn approved the establishment of a House of Mercy (occasionally also referred to as the previously mentioned House of Refuge) at All Hallows' on February 11, 1875 with the aim of the protection of poor women of good character, and in fact, providing accommodation for women including unwed mothers, inebriates and former gaolees in return for domestic work of various types. Later, parents or the police were able to send young girls to the House as a preventative measure against further trouble. A separate building was constructed as the House of Mercy at All Hallows' in 1878 between the rear of the convent and the Ann Street boundary. This building had a U-shaped plan, forming an enclosed courtyard with the convent. A large laundry was built in the vicinity in 1897, and this was one of the principal workshops of the inhabitants of the House of Mercy.
The north-eastern wing of the convent was extended toward Ann Street in 1913 to house further dining, library and bedroom facilities. In 1921 the chapel, in the other wing, was almost tripled in size, removing the apsidal chancel and extending the whole wing toward the Ann Street perimeter of the school, and adding a transept toward the south-west. This extension, designed by local architects, Hall and Prentice was not designed to emulate the earlier Victorian building, rather a stripped classical architecture was employed. The chapel was re-furbished in 1968 in line with the recently produced guidelines for changes of Roman Catholic services determined by Vatican II Council. The centrally facing dark stained timber pews were replaced with light pine seating facing the new, more centrally located altar.
Within the garden to the south of the chapel a small brick building was constructed in 1915 to designs of prominent local architect George Henry Male Addison, to house a life size sculpture of Jesus' crucifixion. This was erected by builder, J. Bowen whose tender price was . A grotto, located on the northern side of the convent, and a statue of Our Lady on the circular driveway, in the front of the convent were on the grounds by the early 1930s.
The Wall, Lodge and Gate
The environment on Duncan's Hill gradually changed as what was formerly named High Road was renamed Ann Street, and this was cut down by in 1865. From that time the convent at All Hallows' began to be perceived as situated at the top of a cliff-face rather than, as previously, at the apex of a gentle hill. Ann Street was subject to three more cuts, in 1876, 1886 and finally in 1927, when it took its present form.