treasures

The Chapel

The central feature of St John's College is the chapel which is unusually located on the first floor according to the original designs of William Wilkinson Wardell (1823-1899). He designated that the chapel be situated on "the principal floor and there shall be no rooms above it" which in this case was the first floor or 'piano nobile' level, containing the Dining Hall, Library and Brennan Hall. It was completed in 1863 as part of the northern wing and longitudinal arm of the college by Edmund Blacket (1817-1883) the colonial architect appointed to supervise the construction of St John's College.

The fine interior decoration and craftsmanship of the chapel was achieved over many years.

Most of the sanctuary furnishings were designed by Edmund Blacket in the 1860's.The Blessed Sacrament Shrine is made of Bondi gold sandstone with a Paddington grey tabernacle and was carved in Australia. The pillars supporting the altar are English marble with English stone capitals. The elaborately carved oak Sanctuary lamp is very ornate with acorn and vine leaf laurelling about the pedestal. The original cedar choir stalls and pews are located in the chapel and surrounding areas.

The chapel wrought iron gates and grilles were designed by Wardell and Denning and installed between 1915 -1921. The completed design features of the gates include the motif of an eagle, the symbol of the evangelist and the college motto 'Nisi Dominus Frustra'. They were presented to the college by Mrs N. A. Daley.

The beautiful stained glass window designs were commissioned from John Hardman and Co of Birmingham in 1918 and were paid for by donations of generous benefactors. Hardman designed a scheme for the 10 side windows of the chapel but only 3 on the northern(left) side were completed. The designs were based on the writings of St Bonaventure as quoted by Cardinal Newman in "Discourses of the scope and nature of University Education" and were conceived as an intellectual journey through the four kinds of light that comprise the Divine light. In the first window Christ is presented as the Light of the World. In the second and third, the knowledge of material things is signified by St Virgilius reflecting on the possibility of a great southern land and the Abbot Mendel studying in his garden.

The eastern window was also made of glass manufactured by John Hardman & Co. and was presented to the College by Countess Freehill in memory of her husband Francis Freehill. It was cleaned and restored in 1987.

The Thomas More window was donated to the College by Mr Justice Nagle in memory of his brother Valentine Flood Nagle. It was designed by Martin Vandertoorn and production was supervised by the Crafts Council of NSW.

The Sanctuary mosaic was part of a gift made to the college by Countess Freehill. It was laid by Peter the elder Melocco in 1916-17. With the completion of the Freehill Memorial Tower in 1938 a second mosaic floor was laid by Melocco Bros. in the Lady's Chapel to commemorate Dr. M. O'Reilly. The Chapel itself was built in the memory of Archbishop Michael Sheehan.

The Sanctuary oak panelling features carved statues of Our Lady and St John made in Munich in the late 1920's.They were also presented to the college by Countess Freehill.

The carved oak Lectern was brought to the college from the old Kincoppal Convent and was donated by the Sacre Coeur nuns.

The walls of keyed sandstone were originally covered in plasterwork with Pugin type decoration and new stencil work added in 1933. The crumbling plaster was completely removed in 1963 to reveal the original sandstone.

St. Bede Junior

Within the chapel of St John's College there is a carved Gothic style reliquary box , containing the skull of St. Bede the Lesser, a Benedictine Monk who died over 1000 years ago. This had been preserved in a reliquary in the church of St. Benignus at Genoa, served by the Benedictine Monks of Monte Casino until the early 1800s.

The relic was transported to Sydney by the Most Rev. Martial Mary, a Missionary Priest, and presented to the Most Rev Roger Bede Vaughan in April 1878, when he became the second Roman Catholic Bishop of Sydney following the death of Archbishop Polding in 1877. He had taken the Benedictine habit as Brother Bede in 1853. He brought the relic to St John's College where he had become Rector in 1874, as it was then both the official residence of the Bishop (also known as the episcopal palace) and a university college.

The Portrait of Archbishop Polding by Eugene Montagu Scott, 1866

Archbishop John Bede Polding (1794-1877) the founder of St John's College was Australia's first Roman Catholic Archbishop. He was born in Liverpool and became a priest in 1819 with the Benedictine order. In 1834 he was appointed Bishop of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land and travelled widely in Australia actively promoting the Catholic Church and Catholic schooling. After becoming Archbishop of Sydney in 1842, he established St Mary's as a monastic cathedral and founded St Mary's Benedictine College for boys, at Lyndhurst, Glebe in 1852 (closed in 1877). He also began an active campaign to establish St John's College, issuing a Pastoral Letter on 21 June 1857 detailing the benefits and influence a lay Catholic university college would provide and urging donations to add to a generous state endowment. Polding died in 1877 and was buried in Petersham cemetery and his remains were transferred to St Mary's Cathedral in 1901.

Eugene Montagu Scott (1835-1909) was an English-born painter, illustrator, cartoonist and professional photographer who relocated to Sydney in 1866 to take up a position as chief cartoonist for the 'Sydney Punch'. Soon thereafter he was commissioned to paint the large portrait of Archbishop Polding for St Mary's Cathedral which was later transferred to St John's College. Scott was praised for the fine detail of his subject which he had traced in pencil from an enlarged projected shadow of a photographic portrait.

The restored portrait depicts Archbishop Polding in the magnificent cope and metropolitan cross destroyed in the second St Mary's Cathedral fire of 6 January 1869 that consumed the temporary wooden pro-cathedral. The Powell and Brown cloth of gold cope, the hood ornamented with precious stones and jewels was a gift of the Countess of Shrewsbury. The cope is fastened by an enamelled morse and an orphrey with a central Marian braid and blue and gold edging designed by A. W. N. Pugin. The metropolitan cross is of historic interest as it was manufactured according to a Pugin design with silver plating to cross proper, the beads and sides gilt.