ARCHDEACON HOLBROOK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19720, 20 August 1927, Page 12

ARCHDEACON HOLBROOK.

ORDINATION ANNIVERSARY. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' SERVICE. The twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood will be celebrated by Archdeacon Holbrook, priest in charge of St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, Grey Lynn, on September 8. Archdeacon Holbrook was bora in Wex ford, Ireland, on November 29, 1879, and was educated at the Christian Brothers' Schools there. He had the distinction ol being the first priest for the foreign missions to complete his philosophical and theological studies at St. Peter's Seminary, Wexford, where he was ordained by the Bishop of Ferns on September 8, 1902. He left Iresland almost immediately and arrived in Auckland in the following November. Archdeacon Holbrook was appointed to St. Patrick's Cathedral as assistant to the late Father Patterson, whom he succeeded as Administrator in 1905. The cathedral was completed in 1908, during the archdeacon's charge. In 1904, in conjunction with the late Brother George, he founded the Marist Brothers' Old Boys* Association. Archdeacon Holbrook left on an extended visit to Ireland, Rome and the Holy Land in 1913, "and on his return in the following year he was appointed first parish priest of Grey Lynn. The parish has made rapid progress under his care. A property was purchased for £4OOO, and the old church in Tennyson Street, opened in 1885 by Cardinal Moran, was moved to the new site In 1915 the Convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph was transferred to the present site, and the brick school erected in the following year at a cost of £3500. The old convent was destroyed by fire in 1921 and was replaced by a handsome new building costing £12.000. Archdeacon Holbrook has been a manager of the Diocesan Orphan-ages since 1905. Preparations are beiner made for fitting celebrations of the jubilee on September 8. A special service will be conducted in the church in the morning, the school children will entertain the archdeacon in the afternoon, and a conversazione will be held in the Grey Lynn Library Hall in the evening.