SACRED HEART FOUNDER

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 977, 21 May 1930, Page 12

SACRED HEART FOUNDER

JUBILEE CELEBRATED VARIED CHURCH CAREER The Rev. Brother Basil, founder of the Sacred Heart College in Richmond Road, is celebrating today the fiftieth anniversary of his ordi nation. Pontifical High Mass was celebrated this morning by Bishop Brodie. of Christchurch, an old pupil of Brother Basil, at Hunter’s Plill in Sydney. About 35 brothers from the Auckland dioocese, and a large number of the clergy and laity attended a jubilee breakfast that took place afterward. Brother Basil was born in Ireland in 1853. Coming to New Zealand as a young man, he taught in Westland and Otago for some years. In

1 879 he joined the Marist Order in Sydney, and after taking the'training course he was appointed to the staff of St. Joseph’s College at Hunter’s Hill. It was mainly due to his efforts that the college became one of the leading secondary schools in Sydney in the first decade of its existence. In 1890 Brother Basil came to New Zealand on a health tour* and he was afterward associated with the Marist Brothers in Timaru, Christchurch, and Greymouth. He .was appointed the first director of the Marist Brothers’ school in Bendigo, and in 1894 he went back to Hunter’s Hill as director.

After a t to Europe he came to New Zealand, and took charge of the brothers’ school in Pitt Street, Auckland. Five years later Brother Basil founded the Sacred Heart College. He is a member of the Marist Brothers’ Trust Board, which controls the work of the brothers in New Zealand, Fiji, and Samoa.