Early History – St. Francis' Church

Designed by Samuel Jackson (1807-1876) and built between 1841 and 1845, St Francis’ is the oldest Catholic church in Victoria and the first cathedral church of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne.

When the Irish Franciscan Fr Patrick Geoghegan (1805-1864) laid the foundation stone on 4 October 1841, he named the church in honour of St Francis of Assisi, the founder of his order. A small timber chapel (1839) was located on the site while the present church was being built.

The nave was ready for the first Mass to be celebrated on 22 May 1842, and the completed church was blessed and opened on 23 October 1845.

St Francis’ R.C. Church, Melbourne, 1854.

St Francis’ has a close historical and religious association with St Mary of the Cross MacKillop (1842–1909), who was baptised at St Francis’ Church in 1842. She later made her first Holy Communion at St Francis’ and also received the Sacrament of Confirmation in this church.

In 1848, when Bishop James Alipius Goold (1812-1886) arrived in Melbourne, St Francis’became a cathedral. After work began on Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in December 1858, St Francis’ became a temporary or ‘pro-cathedral’ before finally losing its cathedral status when the nave of the partially built St Patrick’s Cathedral opened for worship in the late 1860s.

St Francis’ Church is built on the original block of land granted to the Catholic Church after the arrival of Fr Geoghegan in 1839. This land has also been the historic location of the first Catholic seminary in Victoria (1850-1855), the first Australian conference of the Society ofSt Vincent de Paul (1854), a pioneer school of the Sisters of Mercy (1873-1933), and the first school of the Christian Brothers in Australia (1869-1909).

At different times in the past, two Catholic newspapers were located on the St Francis’ site,as well as numerous organisations and societies including the Catholic Missions Office, the Catholic Welfare Organisation, the Young Christian Workers and the Catholic Women’s Social Guild.

Notable among the changes made to St Francis’ Church over the years, the beautiful ‘Ladye Chapel’ on the western side of the building was constructed in the mid 1850s and blessed on 31 May 1858.

A classical style semi-circular sanctuary was built as an extension to the church in the late1870s, designed by the leading architectural firm of Reed and Barnes.