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lay couple Mary and Michael Burke began the story established the first school funded entirely by money collected from local catholic settlers.
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the settlement had its its first permanent church since st Stephens all most ten years on since Stevens was proclaimed a cathedral.
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Bishop James Quinn five priests and six Irish sisters of mercy made their way to Brisbane aboard the yarra era. the bishop was surprised by the poverty of the largely Irish population and committed to raising the economic and social status of Catholics through education mother Vincent witty and the sisters of mercy established our first secondary school.
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in 1868 this school for boys was established staffed entirely by lay teachers it was a unique model with both religious and lay students and teachers receiving training before and after school and working in classes apprentices during the day it would be almost 100 years until a dedicated teachers training college was established Macaulay college at the all hollows campus
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it was a time of growth on the back of the divide between the Irish catholic and the English protestants came a push to keep church and state separate laws were passed to provide free compulsory and secular education to children.
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in 1919 Archbishop James Chui a visionary with an entrepreneurial spirit could see the growing need for catholic schooling. He invested in large tracks around Brisbane and by 1930 had established 28 new schools.
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This period 19 new catholic schools were opened despite the bleak outlook concerns about ongoing funding big class sizes demands on infrastructure and the quality of religious education dominated the conversation of the Australian archbishops and the time change was on the horizon Brisbane Catholic education began as a suitcase on a veranda of repressed Batory and became the Brisbane Catholic Education Office we know today father Bermard O'Shea was appointed as diocesan inspector.