Archbishop Polding 1842

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. As a bishop-assistant, Archbishop Polding was required to wear particular vesture whilst resident in Rome (but only whilst in Rome); regardless of the fact that he usually wore the black choir dress of Benedictine bishops, the vesture of members of the Papal Chapel was to be purple in colour.

During this particular visit to Rome, a pen-and-ink portrait of Archbishop Polding was prepared by a local artist Signor Fidanza and depicts him wearing the vesture of a prelate of the Papal Chapel.  This portrait depicts the Archbishop as young and optimistic in appearance and with a full head of hair!  At the time, he was 47 years of age.  The illustration accompanying this post is a digital enhancement of Fidanza's 1842 portrait.

The illustration includes a reproduction of Archbishop Polding's signature : + J.B. Polding Sydnein. being an abbreviation of the Latin Sydneyensis, indicating his office of Archbishop of Sydney.

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.  Archbishop Polding is shewn in this illustration in choir dress which is more violet in colour.

2.  This digital illustration was prepared by the Saint Bede Studio and is under its copyright. 

Sydney 1849

This lovely watercolour of the city of Sydney in 1849 was painted by the colonial artist George Edwards Peacock from Woolloomooloo approximately on the site of Macleay Street.

On the left, we find William Street running west towards Hyde Park.  To the left of the centre of the painting is depicted old Saint Mary's Cathedral, shewing its apse rather than principal facade.  Adjoining the northern transept of the Cathedral is the Chapel of Saint Felician, built for the private use of the Benedictine Community.  Further to the right of old Saint Mary's is found the building now known as the Chapter House, and beyond this, the campanile designed by AWN Pugin and built to house Sydney's first peel of bells.  Along the skyline can be made out the Hyde Park barracks, as well as those buildings running along Macquarie Street which comprise the Mint Building, the Sydney Hospital and Houses of Parliament.  The spire of Saint James' Anglican church can also be clearly seen.

Dense bush is illustrated in that area which is now the Domain and the Botanical Gardens.

An enlarged section of Peacock's painting is also included here, which demonstrates the detail in which the artist captured the city buildings.

Click on the images for an enlarged view.

AMDG.

NOTES

George Peacock's watercolour is in the Collection of the State Library of NSW.

Lent 2020 with Archbishop Polding

During the forthcoming Season of Lent, we will regularly be publishing extracts from the Lenten Letters of Archbishop Polding, which were written over the forty years of his ministry in Australia.

"Each time he [Archbishop Polding] wrote he tried to draw his audience closer to God, to encourage upright human conduct and to counter evil, sin and the false ideologies which challenged God’s presence in Australia.  His letters present a consistently based view of the state of religion and of private and public morals in Australia throughout the crucial years of the nineteenth century."

From The Eye of Faith, the collected pastoral letters of Archbishop Polding.

NOTES

The Eye of Faith was printed by the Lowden Publishing Co., Kilmore Victoria in 1977.  The editors were Gregory Haines, Sister Mary Gregory Foster and Frank Brophy.  Special contribution to the volume were made by Professor Timothy Suttor and James Cardinal Freeman.

The engraving of Archbishop Polding was published by the newspaper The Sydney Mail in the late 1860s, based on a contemporary photograph.  The engraving has been digitally enhanced by the Saint Bede Studio.

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.