EARLY HISTORY

Mercedes College traces its origins back to 1846, the early days of the Swan River Colony, when a community of six Sisters of Mercy arrived from Ireland on the barque Elizabeth. The Congregation of Sisters of Mercy had been founded barely fifteen years earlier in 1831 by Catherine McAuley, a wealthy heiress. In faith, Catherine had devoted herself and all her resources to bringing hope to the lives of the poor and destitute in her country through education. A chance to extend this work came when Bishop John Brady, visiting Dublin to recruit missionaries for the fledgling colony, requested Catherine to send a group of Sisters to assist him in his work there. Thus it happened that after a long and arduous journey by sea, the small band of Sisters under the leadership of Mother Ursula Frayne, arrived in the Swan River Colony on 8 January, 1846.

After initial difficulties in finding accommodation, Ursula and her community moved into a small cottage on what is now St. George’s Terrace, near Victoria Avenue. On February 2 of that same year, the Sisters opened their first school with one student! However by the end of that historic day five more students had joined them. Undaunted, the Sisters went out into the community and canvassed for pupils. By the end of 1846 there were one hundred children in the school, which had by that time moved up to the present Victoria Square site.

Those early years were a time of great struggle as well as sadness for the Sisters as one of their original community had died six months after their arrival in the Colony. Her grave is situated among those of other pioneer Sisters in the garden below the Chapel on the Convent property.

In the period that followed the founding of the first school, the diocese found itself in severe financial difficulty with Bishop Brady unable to provide any real support for the school as well as the Sisters’ other works of mercy among the poor and sick. In order to see them through these early financial troubles, the Sisters were forced to use money sent from Dublin which had originally been set aside for them to return home, together with two hundred pounds given by the father of one of them on her profession. This money was used to build the first Convent of Mercy in Australia. The building now known as Holy Cross , with its Foundation Stone dating from 1847, is still in use today and stands as a testimony to those dedicated pioneers whose love and faith in God inspired them to continue God’s work. Two years later, in 1849, the Sisters began what was the first secondary school in Western Australia – the school now proudly known as Mercedes College. The name Mercedes is Spanish for Mercy.

Mother Ursula Frayne died in 1885. She is remembered as an outstanding educator of great vision and a warm, caring Sister of Mercy. Her work and that of those early pioneers has had a profound and lasting effect on the history of Catholic Education in this State. Today we take pride in our history and we continue to commit ourselves to that same sense of vision that inspired Catherine.