Robert William Willson

St Mary’s Cathedral was the vision of the first Bishop
of Hobart Town, Robert William Willson. Bishop Willson chose the design and spent years raising the funds. He was particularly inspired by his friend Augustus Welby Pugin, designer of the entire interiors of the British Houses of Parliament and father of the modern English Gothic Revival movement.

Robert William Willson was a man of huge significance in the history of the Catholic Church in Tasmania. Here is an assessment of the man by one of his contemporaries, Archbishop William Bernard Ullathorne OSB, a key figure in the early Australian Church and later Archbishop of Birmingham:

Among the distinguished ecclesiastics whom England has produced in recent times, there is one whose name is held in benediction at both extremities of the world and whose memory ought not to be left in the shadows of a vanishing tradition. Robert William Willson, a man of singular humanity and benevolence, was the founder of the Catholic church in Nottingham, the episcopal founder of the Church in Tasmania, the effectual reformer of the management of deported criminals in our penal settlements, a most influential reformer of lunatic asylums and their management, as well in England as in Australia, and a man who, through his influence with the imperial and colonial Governments, caused the breaking up of the most horrible penal settlement of Norfolk Island.

Born in Lincoln, England, in 1794, and ordained in 1824.  He worked in Nottingham for 18 years and in 1842 was consecrated the first bishop of the newly created diocese of Hobart Town.  Arriving in the colony in 1844, his chief concern was his mission to the convict population. He was also a leader in advocating reforms in penal discipline and a more humane treatment of insane persons.  After the cessation of transportation in 1853, his principal work became the building up of the Church in parishes for the free community.  He returned to England in ill-health in 1865 and died in Nottingham on 30th June, 1866.
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Daniel Murphy

Born in Co. Cork, Ireland, on 15th June, 1815.  He was ordained priest at Maynooth in 1838 and worked in India for some years.  He was consecrated Bishop of Hyderabad in 1846 and translated to Hobart Town where he arrived in May 1866.  One of his first duties was the blessing and opening of St. Mary’s Cathedral, and he lived to see it reconstructed and completed in its present form.  He was created Archbishop in 1 888 when he celebrated the golden jubilee of his ordination, and the title has continued to his successors.  Following the withdrawal of state aid to church schools he set up the system of Catholic education against overwhelming difficulties.  He died at George Town on 29th December, 1907.
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Patrick Delany

Born at Tonacar, Co Galway, Ireland, on 1st February 1853.  After studies at All Hallows, Dublin, and St. Sulpice, Paris, he was ordained priest in 1879.  In 1885 he was appointed secretary to Bishop Moore of Ballarat, and in December 1893 was consecrated Coadjutor to the See of Hobart.  On Archbishop Murphy’s death in 1907 he succeeded to the See.  He was a scholarly man, proficient in history and languages. The development of Catholic education was one of his chief concerns.  He died on 7th May, 1926.
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William Barry

Born in Middleton, Co. Cork, Ireland in 1872, of a family from which four other brothers also became priests.  He studied at All Hallows, Dublin, and St. Colman’s College, Fermoy, and was ordained in 1898.  Arriving in Australia later that year he was appointed to the staff of St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, where he remained for 12 years.  He was consecrated Coadjutor to the See of Hobart on 31st August, 1919, and succeeded Archbishop Delany in 1926.  During this short term of office he visited all parts of Tasmania to give missions and plan expansion of the Church into the more remote areas.  He died on 13th June, 1929.
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William Hayden

Born at Bishop’s Lough, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland in 1868, and studied at St. Kieran’s College, Kilkenny, and Propaganda College, Rome.  He was ordained in 1891 and arrived in Sydney the following year.  Consecrated Bishop of Wilcannia-Forbes on 8th September 1918, he quickly became known as the travelling Bishop as he ceaselessly moved about his extensive diocese.  He was translated to the See of Hobart and created Archbishop on 11th February, 1930.  He was an accomplished musician and took great interest in the music of his Cathedral, and the development of sacred music throughout the Archdiocese.  Much of his time as Archbishop was marked by illness, and he died on 2nd October, 1936.
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Justin Daniel Simonds

Born at Glen Innes, NSW in 1890.  He was ordained priest in 1912 and taught at the seminaries at Manly and Springwood before further study in Belgium at the University of  Louvain.  He was Rector of St. Columba’s College, Springwood, for three years prior to his consecration as Archbishop of Hobart, in St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney on 6th May, 1937.  He greatly advanced the spiritual and intellectual life of the Church in Tasmania, and brought about the establishment of Calvary Hospital in Hobart, and Nazareth House for the elderly in Launceston.  As one of the most respected prelates to lead the Church in Tasmania, all sections of the community were dismayed at his appointment as Coadjutor Archbishop of Melbourne in September 1942.  He succeeded Daniel Mannix as Archbishop of Melbourne in 1963.  Failing eyesight troubled his later years, and he resigned in May 1967, shortly before his death in November of the same year.
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Ernest Victor Tweedy

Born at Newcastle, NSW in 1900.  He studied for the priesthood in Sydney and in Rome, and was ordained in Rome on 20th December, 1925.  He was Administrator of St. John’s Pro-Cathedral, Maitland at the time of his consecration as Archbishop of Hobart on 7th March, 1943.  He was loved and respected as a true father by his priests and people.  The pastoral development of the diocese and the expansion of its churches, schools, and numbers of religious orders was the notable characteristic of his term of office.  Amid great regret he resigned due to ill-health in September 1955.  He  died in Melbourne on 27th September, 1965.
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Guilford Clyde Young

Born at Sandgate, Queensland on 10th November, 1916.  He was ordained priest in Rome on 3rd June, 1939, after a brilliant academic career at Propaganda Fide College.  Returning to Australia he was appointed secretary to the Apostolic Delegation for a short time until he was consecrated Auxiliary Bishop of Archbishop McGuire of Canberra-Goulburn in St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, on 8th September, 1948.  He was translated to Hobart as Coadjutor in November 1954, and succeeded to the See on the resignation of Archbishop Tweedy in September the following year.  Archbishop Young’s years in Hobart were distinguished by his leadership in the implementation of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, and his contribution to the liturgical renewal of the Church both at the local level and through his appointment in Rome first to the Concilium for the implementation of the Council’s reforms, and later to the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship.  He died on 16th March, 1988.
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Eric D’Arcy

Born in Melbourne, Victoria in 1924.  He was educated at De La Salle College, Malvern, studied for the priesthood at Corpus Christi College, Werribee, and was ordained a priest in 1949.  He took an Honours Degree in Arts at Melbourne University, winning the Exhibition in Philosophy.  He went on to receive the Master’s Degree, with First Class Honours.  In Rome he received his Ph.D. from the Gregorian University.  In Oxford he was the first Australian born Philosopher ever to receive the Oxford Doctorate.  For 20 years Dr. D’Arcy was a member of the academic staff of Melbourne University, which appointed him Reader in recognition of the international standing achieved by his publications.  In 1981 he became Bishop of Sale (Vic.) and also a Member of the Vatican’s Secretariat for Non-Believers, on which he served continuously.  In 1988 he became Archbishop of Hobart, and was also appointed a Member of the Vatican’s Congregation for Education.  He resigned in 1999 and moved to Melbourne to live in retirement.

Emeritus Archbishop D’Arcy died in Melbourne on 12 December 2005 and was buried at St Mary’s Cathedral, Hobart, on 19 December 2005 following a Mass of Christian Burial attended by hundreds of Tasmanians and more than fifty Archbishops, Bishops and Priests from around Australia.

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