EARLY SCHOOL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 162, 10 July 1940, Page 5

EARLY SCHOOL.

OLD ST. PETER'S

PITT STREET LANDMARK.

FIRST FOR CATHOLIC BOYS. There must be thousands of Aucklanders who retain happy memories of the old brick schoolhouse adjoining the premises formerly occupied by an advertising firm in Pitt Street, near the corner of Wellington Street. Here in this woodcn-porched building there was opened in the year, 1857—St. Peter's School, the first school for Catholic boys in the history of the young town. A start had been made with Catholic education before that, however. A school had been opened in Shortland Street by Father Petit jean, as priest and teacher, and, with the coming of the Sisters of Mercy in 1850, it was taken over by them. This school, however, catered for both girls and boys. ' It was Bishop Pompallier who was responsible for the erection of the brick portion of old St. Peter's in April, 1857, and. so ably did it fulfil its functions as a centre of learning that the need for more space became urgent. It was left for the well-known American missioner, Father Henneberry, to conduct a strenuous financial campaign when he visited the Dominion in the late *70's, and the "wooden portion adjoining was added in 1870. The teaching work in the school "Was carried on by lay teachers until the diarist Brothers arrived in Auckland in 1885, when St. Peter's became their special charge, and the Brothers became the teachers of young Auckland Catholics. Was Boarding School. At its height the school catered for some 200 pupils, who learned the "three &V' that were the preliminary to many important positions in the great world. Fart of the wooden building was used as a boarding school and supplied accommodation for "out of town" pupils.

In those days St. Peter's was commonly referred to <is "the Pitt Street School." It was a landmark in that part of the town, and when directing visitors around the place, people used such phrases as '•'After you pass the Pitt Street School." The boarding section of the school was transferred to Sacred Heart College, Richmond Road, about IUO4, but St. Peter's continued as a day-school until about 20 years ago, when the Vermont Uoad school took its place. Since those days it has been used by. the adjoining business as part of the premises. The two classrooms, so well-known to old pupils, have disappeared in the interests of the space demanded by modern business and at various times it has been let for a variety of purposes. The land on which it stands, together with the wooden castle that was once its "living-in" section, constitute an educational 0 grant for the Catholic Church. The removal of some hoardings outside old St. Peter's reveals its familiar outlines to the public once more and the memories of many ill "the city must go back to the days when tliey spent scholastic hours beneath the high, gabled roof surmounted by the Cross that is the symbol of its origin in a religious faith.