Part 1 - Establishing Nudgee
Part 2 "Continuing a history of Nudgee's building programs" click here to review
 St. Joseph's Nudgee College, was established in 1891 to serve the needs of rural Catholic boys. It was the first purpose-built boarding college erected in Queensland for the Christian Brothers, who were the first Catholic order to provide secondary education for boys in Queensland, decades before the Marists or the Jesuits. Offering affordable Catholic education through to senior and university entrance, St Joseph's Nudgee College has been important in fostering Catholic upward mobility (social, cultural, economic and political) in Queensland.
During the 20th century St Joseph's Nudgee College developed into a large educational complex. Most of the major structures were designed by prominent Queensland architects and illustrate the evolution of Catholic educational architecture in Queensland. The College remains a boys-only school and the property of the Christian Brothers.
The former Main Building, containing the oldest structures on the site, remains the core of the college. From here radiate 20th century developments constructed in response to school growth. The College has rarely had the luxury of building in anticipation of growth. A policy of keeping fees affordable has meant that funds for extensions have seldom been easy to raise.
The Christian Brothers, a teaching order founded in Ireland by Edmund Ignatius Rice in the early 19th century, were invited to Queensland by Bishop O'Quinn of Brisbane, to assist in the development of Catholic secondary education in the colony. The Order had established a permanent presence in Australia when Brothers Treacy, Lynch and Bodkin immigrated to Melbourne in 1868. When Bishop O'Quinn wrote of the urgent need for a teaching order of men in Queensland, Brother Patrick Ambrose Treacy, considered the founder of the Christian Brothers in Australia, responded by establishing a Christian Brothers school in Brisbane in 1875. The Brothers chose land on Gregory Terrace as the site for their school but while awaiting its construction, commenced teaching in 1875 at St Stephen's Catholic Church in Elizabeth Street. The St Stephen's school was moved to Gregory Terrace after the school there opened in 1880.
Although Roman Catholics comprised approximately 23.5% of the Queensland population in 1891 when St Joseph's College at Nudgee was opened, government policy disadvantaged Catholic schools. The Grammar Schools Act of 1860 provided government support to Grammar Schools, but not to denominational schools. Although the Education Act of 1860, which established a system of primary schools in Queensland, provided some assistance to non-vested schools, The Education Act (1875) halted government aid to denominational primary schools. Committed to providing access to a Catholic education for all Roman Catholic children in Queensland, the Catholic Church responded by accelerating the development of a network of parochial schools from the mid-1870s.
St Joseph's College on Gregory Terrace functioned initially as a day school, but Bishop O'Quinn successfully pressured the Christian Brothers to admit boarders to Gregory Terrace. Archbishop Dunne, who succeeded O'Quinn in 1881, continued to press the Brothers to increase accommodation for boarders. The establishment of Catholic boarding schools was not traditional in Ireland, where boarding schools were seen as the province of the elite.
In Queensland, O'Quinn and Dunne promoted boarding schools as a solution to the vastness of the colony, which had a small population scattered over huge areas far distant from principal urban centres. Boarding schools were a logical choice for rural Catholic boys but southern boarding schools (as in Sydney) were expensive and O'Quinn and Dunne wanted to reach the poorer rural Catholics who comprised the bulk of the Catholic congregation. It was essential that Catholic boarding schools with moderate fees be established in Queensland. Despite the construction of a new dormitory wing at the Gregory Terrace school in 1888, accommodation proved inadequate for the increasing number of boarders.
In response, Brother Treacy decided to establish a second school specifically to accommodate St Joseph's boarders, on land at Nudgee owned by the Order. The site comprised 258 acres situated between Nundah Creek and Cabbage Tree Creek, about 9 miles from the Brisbane central business district, accessed via Sandgate Road and the Sandgate Railway. In addition to this, Treacy purchased 50 acres of adjacent land from Reverend Holme, a Presbyterian minister, obtaining title in May 1890. This included ~e 'Nudgee Mound', which became the site of the Main Building at St Joseph's College. In the late 1880s Nudgee was a rural district, convenient to the city but sufficiently isolated and removed from the distractions of town. Proximity to the city had been one of the perceived problems with Gregory Terrace.
 The oldest structure in the school is the southern half of the Main Building facing Sandgate Road. Construction commenced in 1890 and the first pupils occupied the building in February 1891.
Stombuco and Son were engaged as architects.
Andrea Stombuco was a flamboyant Italian sculptor, monumental mason, builder and architect who had travelled extensively as a youth before settling in the Cape Colony, where he owned and operated a stone quarry. He joined briefly in the Victorian gold rush in 1851 before practising as a sculptor, contractor and architect in that colony.
The Catholic Church became his principal patron. In 1869 he was appointed Diocesan Architect for Goulburn in New South Wales, then in 1875 moved to Queensland, possibly at the invitation of Bishop O'Quinn. His commissions for the Catholic Church in Queensland included St Joseph's Christian Brothers College on Gregory Terrace, Spring Hill (1875-76 with additions by Stombuco and Son in 1886-87); St Mary's Roman Catholic Presbytery, Ipswich (1876) ; churches at Laidley (1878), Pine Mountain (1878), Goodna (1880-81) and Sandgate (1880-81); All Hallows' Convent School, Petrie Bight (1880-82) ; St Patrick's Church, Fortitude Valley (1880- 82) ; and St Vincent's Convent and Church, Nudgee (1883-84).
In 1886, he entered into partnership with his eldest son, Giovanni. Churches at Wooloowin (1886) and Kangaroo Point (1887-88) and a number of prominent private residences were among the buildings designed by the father and son partnership. St Joseph's College, Nudgee (1889-90) was amongst the last of their work in Brisbane. In 1891, experiencing financial difficulty, Andrea Stombuco moved to Perth, where he died in poverty in 1907. His family remained in Queensland. On Andrea's departure for Western Australia, Giovanni Stombuco took up farming at Kuraby, South of Brisbane.
 Initially, only part of the building designed by Stombuco and Son, the Tower and a section of the South Wing, were constructed. The ground floor contained a classroom and the upper two floors held a chapel and dormitories. A temporary galvanised iron building containing four classrooms was erected close to the Main Building, but was removed in 1904.
The front grounds appear to have been laid out early in the history of the college. By 1897, and probably much earlier, the heart shaped lawn with its surrounding carriage way and statue of St Joseph had been established, ornamental trees had been planted and a picket fence had been erected along the Sandgate Road boundary in front of the Main Building.
The school accepted its first pupils - 41 junior school boarders relocated from Gregory Terrace - in February 1891. The first Principal was Brother Bodkin who had come to Australia with Brother Treacy in 1868. Archbishop Dunne was overseas at the time, but after his return he officially opened the College on the 8th May 1891. By this time £12,776 had been spent on constructing and setting up the school.
In 1892 the remaining Gregory Terrace boarders were moved to Nudgee. Enrolments grew rapidly and between 1895 and 1900 the school population almost doubled. To accommodate increasing enrolments a two-storey building was constructed behind the Main Building in 1900. This was aligned east-west behind the South Wing of the Main Building and was eventually joined to the South Wing in 1937. The new building provided dormitory accommodation, which then enabled an upper dormitory in the South Wing to be converted into a chapel.
By 1902 Treacy believed that Nudgee was the largest boarding institution of its kind in the Commonwealth", evidence of a sizeable Catholic rural population that set Queensland apart from other Australian states.
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