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A lay couple, Mary and Micheal Burke established a school funded entirely by money collected by local catholic settlers. This school had only 2 teachers and 56 students, and was very close to where st Stephens is today. There were less than 1000 settlers and only a quarter of these were catholic.
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The first permanent church, st Stephens, was opened. It is also called the Pugin Chapel, because it was designed by a man called A W Pugin. It took one year to build and was built by Alexander Goold and Andrew Petrie.
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The First catholic secondary school, All Hallows, was established by Mother Vincent Witty and the sisters of mercy.
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St James was established, staffed fully by lay teachers. At first, it only had 12 students and it is now the oldest Roman Catholic boys' school in Queensland.
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The Divide between the Irish catholic and the English Protestants made a push to keep church and state separate.
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at the end of the decade, there were 35 schools, funded entirely by their community.
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Archbishop James Duhig, the longest-serving bishop in the Catholic Church (50 years), invested in large tracks of land and established twenty-eight new schools.
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During these hard times, catholic schools persevered and waved their fees so that families could pay when they could. Despite the war, nineteen new schools were opened.
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The numbers within religious orders began to decline throughout the post war boom, so the employment of lay staff began. Lay staff still helped despite the budget restrictions and 26 new schools were opened.
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Catholic schools continued to struggle with costs as compulsory year 10 schooling.
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John Cullinane called a meeting of catholic parents who voted to strike, causing around one thousand students enrolling at state schools. Within twelve months, the government provided money to the catholic schools, which was the first time in almost a century that they had received government funds. It took twenty years to move from a community funding model to a government funding model.
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The decade ended with 43,000 students, and 113 schools.
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Kevin Rudd promised for 1-to-1 technology for all catholic schools.
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BCE has grown to 139 schools, 72,000 students and 11,000 employees.The schools are funded mostly by the commonwealth, and the rest is by parents and state.
