History of St Francis, Paddington
Paddington originally formed part of the Sacred Heart Parish, Darlinghurst, but it is recorded that Mass was occasionally celebrated in a cottage in Underwood Street. The district of Paddington, incorporated as a municipality in 1860, was centred on what was then the main highway to South Head. A parishioner, John McDonnall, writing under the pseudonym ‘Dunluce’ in a 1929 issue of The Catholic Press, indicated that the Catholic population of the area in the 1860s “began to be very numerous, for there were many Irish girls employed as domestic servants in the neighbourhood and in adjoining Woollahra. These experienced great difficulty in hearing Mass, on account of the distance of Darlinghurst or Waverley, so the residents decided to erect a school-church of their own”.
The school-church was erected in 1866 on the site of the present school building, built of Australian hardwood and measuring 75ft by 20ft. It was used as a school until 1929. On May 12th 1866, soon after the erection of the school-church, Paddington and Double Bay, which at that time included Woollahra (now Edgecliff), were separated from the Sacred Heart Parish, Darlinghurst, and formed into a separate district.
The Franciscans were entrusted with the pastoral care of Woollahra and Paddington in November 1879 and Fr Martin Augustine Holohan was the first friar to take charge of both districts. Fr Martin’s successor, Fr Leonard Dunne, OFM, was instrumental in securing a temporary church in Stewart Street, a property known as Glammis Hall. This building, made of galvanised iron, was originally a church in Scotland and re-erected in Australia as a Congregational church in Bourke Street, Surry Hills. Later on it was re- erected in Stewart Street, Paddington, and used for “dances and entertainments”. Fr Dunne paid £800 for Glammis Hall and it became known as St Leonard’s Church, in honour of the Franciscan Saint Leonard of Port Maurice, Fr Dunne’s patron saint. St Leonard’s was used as the Paddington church for five years and later sold for £1,000, ending its days as a produce store and fuel depot. The site is now owned by Telstra.
Paddington was established as a parish in its own right in 1887 and Fr Bernardine Lawler ofm, became the first parish priest. The number of parishioners continued to grow. By 1890 a quarter of Paddington’s residents were Catholic, and nine percent were Irish-born. Paddington’s 25 percent of population who were Catholic was exceeded only by the City (33 percent), Hunters Hill (38 percent), Redfern (28 percent) and Waterloo (27 percent). Paddington was more Irish and Catholic than most other metropolitan areas. It was obvious that St Leonard’s was too small. Fr Bernardine Lawler ofm began preparations for a larger church. The new church was to be named after St Francis of Assisi and built in Oxford Street adjacent to the old wooden school building. The original facade of this new church, described by some as Tuscan Gothic, incorporated coloured marble features and mosaics into the basic sandstone and red tuck-pointed brick structure. The Freeman’s Journal had this to say: “The main front will be enriched by being inlaid with various coloured marbles and Venetian glass mosaic. When completed with transepts and sanctuary the church will be one of the largest in or about Sydney.”
The foundation stone was blessed and laid on March 23rd 1889, a ceremony attended by about 1000 people. Cardinal Moran officially opened the new church on Sunday 22nd June 1890. The architect was John Barlow, and the contract price for the nave was £4,500. Only the nave of this church (the nave of our present church) was ever completed, and all of the mosaic ornamentation around the rose window facing Oxford Street has long since disappeared, the victim of time and pollution. Although considered a fairly large church when erected, St Francis soon became overcrowded, despite the celebration of five Masses each Sunday. {Canon Law at the time prohibited the celebration of Mass after Midday).
In 1915 Archbishop Kelly decided that, in spite of war conditions, the work of completing the church should continue. But it became obvious that even if the church were completed according to the original plan, it would still be too small for Paddington’s Catholic population. A new church was thus commissioned, designed by Bart Moriarty, but it was to be constructed in two phases. Phase 1 included the sanctuary, sacristies and transepts. Phase 2 would have required the demolition of the 1890 church to make way for the far grander nave of Moriarty’s design. The foundation stone was laid on the last Sunday of July 1917. However, the cost of completing the church immediately was prohibitive and it was decided to make use of the existing portion of the old church as a temporary nave of the new. The new building (the sanctuary, transepts and sacristies) was blessed and opened on Sunday June 16th 1918. When the cost of the new portion was paid off (it had cost £10,000) the whole of the new design was to have been completed. However, phase 2 never eventuated, so our present church consists of the nave of the 1890 church designed by John Barlow, and the transepts, sanctuary and sacristies of the 1919 church designed by Bart Moriarty.
It is now clear that Moriarty drew more than a little inspiration for his design from the Sacred Heart Basilica in Timaru, New Zealand. The parish priest of Timaru, Fr Tubman, had commissioned the noted Dunedin architect, Frank Petre, to draw up plans for a church based on photographs of the St Thomas Aquinas Cathedral in Reno, Nevada. Fr Tubman had a brother on the staff of the Reno Cathedral and was inspired by that building during a visit in 1907. When work commenced on the construction of the Sacred Heart Basilica, the name of the building surveyor was Bart Moriarty. The line of succession is thus, Reno’s St Thomas Aquinas Cathedral, Timaru’s Sacred Heart Basilica, and Paddington’s St Francis of Assisi Church.
Marble communion rails were installed in 1925, and sometime later a huge marble pulpit was erected, high against a pillar with a concave marble dome and curved back opening towards the church to throw the preacher’s voice far over the pews. The high altar was erected in 1928. A photograph of the interior of the church in the late 1920’s indicates that the stained glass windows high in the apse had not yet been installed. These windows, from left to right, depict the fundamental mysteries of the Christian faith: the birth of Christ, his death, his Resurrection, and Christ sitting in judgement.
Following the second Vatican Council, a number of changes were made to accommodate the requirements of the newly-revised liturgy. In the mid-1970’s a square timber platform was built in the crossing, in front of the old sanctuary, allowing seating in the two side chapels to be turned to face the altar platform. This created a closer contact between the celebrant and people during liturgical celebrations, but it also split the congregation into three blocks. Aesthetically, the square was at odds with the round arches, the dome and semi-circular apse.
The sanctuary area as you see it today is the result of renovations initiated by Fr Nick Lucas in consultation with architect John O’Brien. The renovations were completed early in 1990. John was insistent that the semi-circular terrazzo extension to the original sanctuary (replacing the timber platform) should pick up the shape of the arches, and this was achieved with a very pleasing effect. A new altar and lectern were built out of marble from the original pulpit and harmonized magnificently with the old high altar. The church was repainted and a new lighting system was installed. The new baptismal font of brass and iron has as its pedestal the old font – turned upside down. A new stained glass window depicting the baptism of Christ in the Jordan faces the newly-positioned font. The original pews, some made by the Christian Brothers in the woodwork room of the old Intermediate Technical School, have been stripped to original timber and re-coated, and many have been altered to create the in-the-round effect. The presidential chair is new, but its design was taken from a nineteenth century church furniture catalogue.
Alterations to the sanctuary and pews, the preparation and erection of the marble work, and the installation of new lighting cost approximately $60,000. Painting of the entire building and other much• needed structural repairs cost much more, but the cost was spread over many years. In April of 1999, a devastating hailstorm hit Sydney’s eastern suburbs. St Francis’ sustained severe damage – the roof to the older part of the church (the nave) had to be replaced, and many other areas of the church were severely damaged, including much of the stained glass. Repairs and refurbishment have been ongoing since then.
Apse: A semi-circular end to the chancel or sanctuary. Nave: The main body of the church in which the congregation assembles. The nave of St Francis is the older part of our church and is easy to identify because of the timber ceiling. Transept: One arm of the crossing in a cross-shaped church. Crossing: Area formed by the intersection of transepts, nave and chancel (or sanctuary).
