Hyde Park Sydney 1870

This photograph of 1870 was taken from the bell tower of Old Saint Mary's Cathedral, looking south along College Street, Sydney.

The great open expanse of Hyde Park dominates this photograph, planted here and there with trees.  The building on the left is the Sydney Museum.  In the distance - in the centre - is a group of buildings known as Lyons' Terraces, running along Liverpool Street, which had been completed in 1841 and were demolished early in the 20th century.

AMDG

NOTES

This photograph is in the Collection of the State Library of NSW.

Portrait of Archbishop Polding

This lovely portrait of Archbishop Polding is housed in Saint Mary's Cathedral Presbytery, Sydney.  It was painted by Sydney artist Paul Newton as a commission to coincide with the visit of Pope Benedict to Sydney for World Youth Day in 2008.

The portrait depicts the Archbishop vested in Pontifical Mass vestments and as he would have appeared in 1842, the year he was created Metropolitan Archbishop of Sydney.  The face of the Archbishop is based on a sketch of him made in Rome in 1842.  The vestments depicted in the portrait are a set made by The Saint Bede Studio from silk damask and ornamented with Puginesque braid.

In the preparation of this portrait, the artist consulted the Saint Bede Studio in order to depict the vesture of the Archbishop as accurately as possible.

The Archbishop is wearing a linen albe, ornamented with embroideries, and over this he wears the Episcopal dalmatic and the chasuble.  The white woollen pallium - distinctive of a Metropolitan Archbishop - is also depicted, together with the ornamented Episcopal gloves.

The mitre depicted is kept in the treasury of Saint Mary's Cathedral and was the property of Archbishop Polding's successor, +Roger Bede Vaughan OSB.  Archbishop Vaughan obtained this Gothic Revival mitre in England.  Archbishop Polding himself owned a few mitres in the Gothic Revival style - not dissimilar from the mitre depicted - which have, unfortunately, not survived.

Lastly, the crosier - or bishop's staff - is based on the crosier owned by the first Bishop of Hobarton (Tasmania), +Robert William Willson, which was designed for him by the famed luminary of the Gothic Revival AWN Pugin.

AMDG.

Saint Mary's Cathedral circa 1913

This wonderful colour-tinted postcard was produced circa 1913.  The photographer was looking down along Prince Albert Road towards Saint Mary's Cathedral.

No motor cars can be seen, but inside horse and cart and a tram trundling down the road.  In the right foreground is the famous statue of Queen Victoria, set in that place in 1888.

On the left can be seen the newly-completed structure of the NSW Registrar General's Office.  It was designed in a modified form of Victorian Gothic in order to harmonise with the adjacent Gothic Revival mass of Saint Mary's Cathedral.

At this time, the Cathedral was only half completed, having been built in stages from 1868 : chancel and sacristies; transepts; two bays of the nave and finally, the Crossing Tower.  These were all built exactly to the designs of the architect William Wardell.

To the right of the Cathedral is the historic remnant of old Saint Mary's Cathedral, in particular those extensions designed by AWN Pugin, which were being built throughout the 1850s and 1860s before the old church was gutted by fire in 1865.  This facade of the old building was preserved for 50 years, before being demolished to make way for the completion of the nave of the present Cathedral.

AMDG

Looking from the Other Direction : Sydney 1834

Saint Mary's Road, a watercolour of 1834.Image : National Library of Australia.

Standing on what is now Saint Mary's Road, an artist painted this watercolour in July 1834, looking towards what we know as the site of the ANZAC Memorial in the southern precinct of Hyde Park. It is the opposite view to that shewn in our previous post.

In the centre of this painting is Saint Mary's Catholic Chapel, whose exterior walls of light-coloured stone had only been completed in the previous year.  A year later, it would become the Cathedral Church of the newly-arrived Bishop Polding.  The proportions of Saint Mary's are not quite accurately portrayed in this painting : it was of a much more "squat" appearance.

Away on a hill in the distance is the same building - possibly a private residence or an inn - that was shewn in the foreground in our previous post of an 1837 painting by Robert Russell.

The focus of these paintings is a collection of buildings which were constructed in stages during the 1820s and included a temporary chapel, a schoolroom and the residence for the various pioneering priests.  In a further post, we will discuss these buildings in more detail.

AMDG

Woolloomooloo 1837

Looking north from Woolloomooloo towards the city of Sydney circa 1837.

This watercolour by the artist Robert Russell was painted around 1837 looking northward to what was part of Woolloomooloo and the city of Sydney.  We would identify the spot today as approximately the site of the ANZAC Memorial in the southern precinct of Hyde Park, looking north.

In the middle ground on the right is depicted the southern side of old Saint Mary's Cathedral.  The old Cathedral faced westward into the bare expanse of what became Hyde Park.  

Beyond old Saint Mary's is the red brick structure of the Convict Barracks (now known as The Hyde Park Barracks), where Bishop Polding, Father Therry and other pioneering Catholic priests frequently ministered to the confined inmates.

To the left is seen the graceful spire of Saint James' Anglican church, King Street.

AMDG

NOTES

This image is part of the collection of the National Library of Australia.

Darlinghurst Hill 1835

Looking across to old Saint Mary's Cathedral in 1835.

When Bishop John Bede Polding arrived in Sydney in September 1835, the landscape of the city was very different indeed and yet, a number of building remain intact after almost 200 years.

This watercolour by Frederick Garling was painted looking north-west from Darlinghurst Hill in 1835.  

In the middle ground is shewn old Saint Mary's Cathedral (indicated by a star) and the small group of buildings associated with the Church.  This view of the old Cathedral is from its east end and illustrates the small apse where the High altar was situated.  Old Saint Mary's was destroyed by fire in 1865.

Above Saint Mary's can be seen the spire of Saint James's church in King Street; over to the right, the Hyde Park Barracks and the buildings of the Hospital and Parliament House.  These buildings are all still much as they were today as they were in the year 1835.

AMDG

NOTES

This watercolour is in the Collection of the State Library of NSW.

Bishop Charles Henry Davis OSB

Digital enhancement of an engraving in the State Library of NSW.

Charles Henry Davis OSB was Bishop of Maitland and Coadjutor to Archbishop Polding from 1848 until his untimely death in 1854.  The Bishop was renowned for his sanctity, scholarship and capability.  He was a talented musician, who took charge of the Saint Mary's Cathedral choir and played the organ during High Mass !  He was also amongst the founding fathers of the University of Sydney.  Read more about his life at this post.

AMDG

Choir Dress of the Sydney Benedictine Bishops

What might be described as the "formal wear" of prelates of the Catholic Church consists of a cassock with a sash around the waist, both covered by a special form of surplice called a rochet.  Over these two robes is worn an elbow-length cape called a mozzetta. Along with many other things in the years following the Second Vatican Council, the formal dress of prelates of the Catholic Church was simplified and made more uniform (so to speak).

In the centuries before 1968, however, the formal or choir dress of prelates was more elaborate and varied greatly. A comprehensive description of this is not the subject of this post, except as it applies directly to our Australian Catholic history.  In particular, we wish to describe the choir dress of Benedictine monks who were made bishops. In the Archdiocese of Sydney, there were three such bishops : John Bede Polding OSB; Charles Henry Davis OSB and Roger Bede Vaughan OSB.


The adjacent image depicts a German bishop of the early 20th century dressed in formal or choir dress. Although bishops in our age wear very similar robes, it will be immediately noticed that the colour of this bishop's robes is a rather dark purple, rather than the brighter purple now universally seen, which is referred to as Roman purple.

Those Benedictine monks who were consecrated bishops did not, however, wear robes of this purple colour, but rather black in colour.  They wore a black cassock with black buttons and a black sash, a black mozzetta with black buttons, a black zucchetto (or skull cap) and used a black biretta.  Archbishops Polding and Vaughan both wore this black choir dress, as did Bishop Davis. In the case of Archbishop Polding, however, the colour of the choir dress he used was not quite so straightforward.

The Most Rev'd John Bede Polding OSB

in his robes as a Bishop-Assistant at the Papal Throne.

This photograph was most likely taken during the Archbishop's

visit to Rome and Europe 1866 - 67.

In 1842, during the visit to Rome when he was appointed Archbishop of Sydney, John Bede Polding was accorded the rare distinction by Pope Gregory XV, of being made a Bishop-Assistant at the Pontifical Throne and a Count of the Papal Court. Although purely ceremonial in character, this appointment required Archbishop Polding to adopt the vesture of the members of the Papal Chapel. Over his choir cassock and rochet, he was required to wear the mantaletta (a sleeveless cloak whose use was largely discontinued for bishops from 1968) and over this, the usual mozzetta of greater prelates. There are two important points here, namely that as a bishop-assistant, Archbishop Polding was required to wear this vesture whilst living in Rome (but only whilst living in Rome); and that regardless of the fact he usually wore the black choir dress of Benedictine bishops, this vesture was to be Roman purple in colour.

At least three photographs exist of Archbishop Polding wearing the vesture described above, which points to those photographs being taken during one of his visits to Rome. One of those photographs is shewn above.  This same photograph was subsequently used to make a lithograph of Archbishop Polding widely distributed during his life and after his death. In turn, the lithograph was used to prepare a painting of him (not painted as a life-study), which is kept at the Convent of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, Glebe (Sydney). 

Archbishop Polding wearing the

choir dress of a Benedictine bishop.
Circa 1870.

Here we may draw the reader's attention to three portraits of Archbishop Polding known to have been painted during his life and most likely from "sittings".  One of these portraits was painted in 1835, before Polding left Downside Abbey (UK) for Australia. The other two portraits were painted in Sydney in the early 1860s and are kept at the University of Sydney and the Sancta Sophia College, Glebe, respectively.  Each of these portraits shew the Archbishop wearing the black choir dress of a Benedictine bishop. Two of the portraits depict the Archbishop wearing another item of a bishop's choir dress, used only on the most solemn occasions by the bishop of a Diocese.  This is the cappa magna : the great cloak.

Most Rev'd Roger Bede Vaughan OSB

in the Benedictine prelatical dress as 

Coadjutor Archbishop of Sydney

circa 1874.

Each of these three portraits (and some others which have come to our attention) will be the subject of individual posts on this blog, when we have obtained good-quality images of them.

AMDG

NOTES:

1.  The shade of Roman Purple which is now familiar

for the colour of the vesture of bishops is similar to the colour fuchsia. This colour, however, was only stipulated by the Holy See in 1930s as the particular shade of purple approved to be worn by bishops and other prelates. In centuries previous, various shades of the colour violaceus were worn by Catholic bishops, some being more blue in tone than red. All these varieties were considered acceptable. But the brighter purple or fuchsia now familiar to us was hardly known before the 20th century.

2.  A zucchetto or skull-cap which belonged to Archbishop Vaughan was preserved in the Collections of Saint Patrick's College, Manly.  The colour of this zucchetto was neither black, nor Roman purple, but violet.

Archdiocesan Presbyterate circa 1872 : 1

Clergy of the Archdiocese of Sydney with Archbishop Polding circa 1872.

Writing from Sydney on 11th July, 1873 to Dom Henry Gregory OSB at Downside Abbey, Archbishop Polding remarked : 

I send you a photograph of most of the priests of the Archdiocese; you will recognise many old friends — old in more senses than one.

The photograph appears above.  Except that it is not one photograph, but a montage of individual portraits of the priests, arranged to give the impression that they were all gathered together with the Archbishop. It would appear that the montage was assembled in 1872, or even slightly earlier.  It is a clever piece of work.

A close examination of the image reveals that the priests are disproportionate to each other and often looking in different directions.  The background of the image and the floor covering are obviously created by drawing, not photography.  The quality of lens available in these earlier years of photography would not permit such a wide-angle view to be captured.  Once the montage - probably quite large - was completed, it was then photographed and smaller prints were made available for distribution.  Probably at one time many copies of the photograph existed.  One is on display in the crypt of Saint Mary's Cathedral, Sydney.

The extract from the letter of Archbishop Polding puts paid to a foolish inaccuracy which pops-up from time to time, namely that this image was taken at the Plenary Council of Australia held at Saint Mary's in 1844.  Photography had not arrived in Sydney in 1844 and many of those who appear in the group were not in Sydney in 1844.  So, let us read no more of such silly claims.

A further post will provide some closer-views of the image, and identify each of the forty-five priests depicted with the Archbishop. 

A framed copy of the clergy group on display in the Crypt of Saint Mary's Cathedral.
Also on display are the mitre and crosier of Archbishop Polding used by him
after the devastating second Cathedral fire of 1869.

AMDG