St Peter’s Catholic School, Halifax

1927 – PRESENT

St Peter’s Catholic School was originally called St Theresa’s Convent School, and was first opened by the Sisters of Mercy in 1927. In its early days, boys boarded in the large convent adjacent to the school. On 8 June 1969 the existing school building was blessed and opened by Bishop Leonard Anthony Faulkner. The building was erected on the original site of St Peter’s Church which, in the early days, served as church and school. The school became St Peter’s School in 1969, and the Sisters of Mercy left the parish in 1976.

1930 Bishop Terence McGuire

1930 – 1938

First Bishop of Townsville

Terence McGuire, born in Moree, New South Wales spent his early life at Gladstone in the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales. He studied for the priesthood at St Patrick’s College, Manly, New South Wales and in Rome, where he was ordained on 19 March 1904. Initially he was appointed a professor at St Patrick’s College, Manly. He then served as a priest and later as a Monsignor in a number of parishes in the Lismore Diocese until his consecration as the First Bishop of Townsville on 25 May 1930. Bishop McGuire was a scholar and as such strongly believed in the education of Catholic children. While he was dedicated to all the education institutions in the Diocese one of his major achievements was the establishment of St Teresa’s Agricultural College for boys at Abergowrie on 22 July 1933. He believed in the need to foster vocations through the education of boys in their Catholic faith and to prepare boys to work on the land. Bishop McGuire left Townsville to become the Bishop of the Canberra Goulburn Dioceses on 18 September 1938. He died on 4 July 1957 in Sydney.