Can you help to celebrate the history of St Brigid’s Parish Hall and St Brigid’s School, West Perth?
The hope to add to the rich visual history of St Brigid’s School, West Perth, has seen the collaboration between Catholic disability support agency, Identitywa, and The Institute of Sisters of Mercy of Australia and Papua New Guinea Archives.
In early 2017, Identitywa will move from its current location in Kensington to its new corporate base in the Catholic Archdiocese-owned old St Brigid’s School in Northbridge.
Funded by a Lotterywest grant, a $1.6m refurbishment is currently underway which will create office space, meeting rooms and a state-of-the-art training facility in the heritage-listed property.
For Identitywa CEO, Marina Re and architect Eamon Broderick, a critical element of the refurbishment of the Federation Arts and Crafts style two-storey building is embracing its rich history; hence the ‘call out’ to former students and their family members to share any photos they may have tucked away in their cupboards at home.
“The inclusion of photographs depicting the rich history of the school which was established by the Sisters of Mercy in July 1888 is so important to the authenticity of this once in a life time opportunity,” Mrs Re explained.
“Eamon’s late father, Michael Broderick and I are former students of the school, as were many members of my family, so we are especially keen to ensure that we can share the history of the parish hall and the school through photographs people have.
“We are therefore encouraging people to contact the Institutes’ archivist, Annie Medley, so we can compile a visual history of not only a very special part of the Church’s history, but of Western Australia’s too,” she said.
Please contact Cultural Collections Curator Annie Medley on 9328 6991 or email archivesperth@ismapng.org.au.