Mary Immaculate and St Charles Borromeo
Catholic Church
Victoria Street, Waverley
George Fincham & Sons
1979 (2/23 mechanical)
History of Mary Immaculate Church
Mary Immaculate Church at Waverley in NSW is the mother-church in
Australia of the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor. It also fulfils the
function of parish church in the Catholic parish of Saint Charles
Borromeo in the archdiocese of Sydney. It is the fourth physical
building to serve as the Catholic pastoral centre of Waverley.
The first of these, a small wooden chapel-cum-schoolroom dating from
1854 in Carrington Road, was served as a chapel of ease by the
Benedictine priests from Sacred Heart Church in Darlinghurst. The
population growth in what formerly had been a sparsely settled area was
such that in 1865 Waverley was constituted a parish with Saint Charles
Borromeo as patron and the Cistercian Fr Norbert Woolfrey as first
parish priest.
In 1866 the wooden building was replaced within the same site by a much
larger stone church in an elegant gothic style. Fr Woolfrey was
succeeded as pastor in 1871 by a French Marist priest, Fr Joseph
M.Garavel, who had previously ministered in Auckland, New Zealand.
In 1879 by a covenant with Sydney Archbishop Roger Bede Vaughan osb, the
Franciscans of the Ireland Saint Patrick Province established a
canonical foundation at Waverley and assumed the pastoral care of all
that territory from Watsons Bay at the Harbour entrance down south to
Botany Bay and west as far as Paddington. In effect this territory
covered the entire present Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. Although
previously to this a number of Franciscan friars, including Fr
Bonaventure Patrick Geoghegan the founder of the Catholic Church in the
State of Victoria, had ministered as individual missionaries in
Australia, this was the first canonically established community of
friars within this country. This covenant carried with it the
traditional right to build a Friary church. On Sunday,7 June 1879, in
the persons of Frs Peter (James) Hanrahan and Augustine (Martin) Holohan
the Franciscan friars were formally inducted into the pastoral care of
Waverley by Archbishop Vaughan.
The need for an ever larger church kept growing. In January 1903 the
existing gothic structure and the newly built more commodious red brick
school built beside it and opened in the previous August switched
purposes. The school became Saint Charles church-hall and the church,
with structural adaptions, became the parish school.
But the inexorable population march continued. On 31 August 1913
Archbishop Michael Kelly dedicated the present, and fourth, Catholic
church in Waverley. Since there was now insufficient building room on
the original church site in Carrington Road, the opportunity was taken
to build the Friary church which had been part of the Franciscan vision
since the friars' arrival in 1879. It rose, a stone's throw away,
alongside the Friary in Victoria Street one of the three intersecting
roads which gives Charing Cross its name.
As the Friary church, its patron is Mary Immaculate patroness of the
Franciscan Order, but that of the parish would appear still to be Saint
Charles. At least there is no available evidence that there was ever any
approved change made regarding the parochial patron.
In style Mary Immaculate church is a Romanesque Renaissance single-naved
basilica with east and west transepts. Very early in the history of the
Franciscan Order this became in Europe a traditional architecture for
its churches because of its direct sight lines to both altar and pulpit.
At Mary Immaculate's 1913 opening it was still without its designed
facade of twin towers, narthex and pillared portico, all of which were
added in 1929-1930. Internally the church's most striking feature is the
seven great paintings depicting the Franciscan Crown (or Rosary) of the
Seven Joys of Our Lady Mary. These, the work of Italian artist and art
Professor Cesare Vagarini, fill the three arched bays of the nave and
the blind rear wall of the sanctuary.
Mary Immaculate possesses a particularly fine organ installed in 1979 to
commemorate the centenary of the Franciscan Friars in Waverley.
John E.Keane OFM
29 April 1997
From SOJ August/September 1979, February/March 1983, June/July 1988,
August/September 1992
The first organ was by an unknown builder but thought to be the W.G.
Rendell organ bought from Pitt St Congregational Church (sold after the
church replaced it with the Hill & Son organ in 1910). It was installed
by Charles Richardson and later enlarged by S.T. Noad in 1930. With
tubular-pneumatic action, it had two manuals, 18 speaking stops and 6
couplers. It was removed in 1979 when the George Fincham & Sons organ
was installed. This organ was one of the first to be built by Knud
Smenge who first worked for George Fincham when he came to Australia
before setting up his own company. It is very much in the neo-classical
style but speaks into a very generous acoustic.
George Fincham & Sons
1979 (2/23 mechanical)
I
Principal
Rohrflöte
Octav
Traversflöte
Flachflöte
Cornet
Mixtur
Trompette
II (enclosed)
Gedeckt
Spitzgambe
Principal
Rohrflöte
Nasat
Octav
Scharf
Schalmey
Tremulant
Pedal
Sub Bass
Principal
Gedeckt
Italian Principal
Rauschquint
Bassuin
Trompette
Couplers
II/I
II/Ped
I/Ped
|
8
8
4
4
2
III
V-VI
8
8
8
4
4
1-1/3
2
III-IV
8
16
8
8
4
IV
16
8
|
|
Compass 56/30
