Catherine Brosnaham Coffey (1805 – 31 August 1894) was an Irish-born Australian pioneer in the Port Phillip District who was the first Catholic school teacher in Melbourne and the first sacristan of the first Catholic church in Victoria, St Francis.[1] She taught catechism classes to children in colonial Melbourne prior to the arrival of the colony's first Catholic priest in 1839. Coffey’s contribution to Catholic education was celebrated in a St Patrick’s Day pageant at the Melbourne Town Hall in 1930 and she was singled out by Archbishop Justin Simonds in 1939 in a requiem for pioneers as “an outstanding Catholic personality”.
Catherine Coffey | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1805 County Kerry, Ireland |
| Died | 31 August 1894 (aged 88) Creswick, Victoria |
| Other names | Catherine Coffee |
| Occupation(s) | Catechist School teacher |
Early life and work
editIn 1838, Coffey travelled from Ireland to the Port Phillip District (now in Victoria), via Tasmania, with her husband Jeremiah and their infant child.[2] They were early pioneers to the area, the first settlement on the banks of the Yarra River having taken place in 1835. The first Catholic priest, Patrick Geoghegan, a Franciscan friar, didn’t arrive in the colony until 1839, and Coffey taught Roman Catholic catechesis to children during the period when no Catholic priest was available.[3][4] Roman Catholic canon law gives the responsibility of teaching children the catechism to pastors, bishops, clerics and members of religious societies.[5] Coffey was the first lay person and the first woman reported to have taught the Catholic catechism to children in Victoria, and is referred to as the first teacher at a Catholic school in Melbourne.[1][2][6][7] When Geoghegan arrived in 1839, he praised Coffey for her initiative and for her “care and zeal” in establishing and conducting the first school in Melbourne.[2] Coffey’s contribution to Catholic education was celebrated in a St Patrick’s Day pageant at the Melbourne Town Hall in 1930.[8] She was singled out by Archbishop Justin Simonds as “an outstanding Catholic personality” in a requiem for pioneers in 1939.[9] Geoghegan used a small travelling wooden box that belonged to Coffey, covered with a linen cloth, as the altar for the first mass held in the Port Phillip District.[10] This box is held by the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne at the Goold Catholic Museum.[3]
Family life and death
editAfter leaving the Port Phillip District the Coffey family spent about 10 years on a property on the Great Dividing Range, before settling in Spring Hill, Creswick on some of the earliest land purchased in Victoria. They later moved to Ballarat.[11] Catherine and Jeremiah Coffey had many children, six of whom pre-deceased them; they were survived only by their youngest child.[11] An obituary published on 3 September 1894 noted: "Mrs Coffey was the mother of a fine family whose members were well known and highly respected in the district".[11] Both Catherine and Jeremiah are buried in the Catholic section of the Creswick New Cemetery in regional Victoria.[12]
References
edit- ^ a b "Some Presentations to Corpus Christi College". Advocate. 9 April 1936. Retrieved 16 June 2022.
- ^ a b c "More About a. Pioneer Priest". Advocate. 30 March 1922. Retrieved 16 June 2022.
- ^ a b "Diocesan Archivist Rachel Naughton celebrates 25 years of service". Melbourne Catholic. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
- ^ "Melbourne's first Catholic Schools". MACS - Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
- ^ "Code of Canon Law - Book III - The teaching function of the Church (Cann. 756-780)". www.vatican.va. Retrieved 16 June 2022.
- ^ "Mass celebration marks bicentenary of Catholic education in Australia". MACS - Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
- ^ Fogarty, Ronald (1959). Catholic Education in Australia 1806 - 1950. Melbourne University Press. p. 39. OCLC 1075111711.
- ^ "St. Patrick's Night Pageant". Advocate. 9 March 1939. Retrieved 16 June 2022.
- ^ "Solemn Requiem for Catholic Pioneers". Advocate. 9 November 1939. Retrieved 16 June 2022.
- ^ "Daughter of First Catholic School Teacher". Advocate. 21 May 1931. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
- ^ a b c "Ballarat Star". Ballarat Star. 3 September 1894. p. 2. Retrieved 13 June 2022 – via Trove.
- ^ "Jeremiah Coffey 1805 - 1885 BillionGraves Record". BillionGraves. Retrieved 13 June 2022.