St Paul's College history

The Marist Brothers arrived in Auckland in 1885 and began operations on the site of previous schools in Pitt St in central Auckland.

James Solomon Russell, who was born enslaved, became an Episcopal priest and founded the school in 1888.

He became the first principal of the institution, which in 1890 was incorporated as the Saint Paul’s Normal and Industrial School by the Virginia Assembly.

The school, Sacred Heart College, was opened on 21 June 1903.

The college was renamed as St Paul’s Cathedral Mission College in 1914.From a mere strength of 193 students and 6 teachers, the college now has a strength of over 1500 students and as many as 11 Honours Courses, and some general ones.

In 1916, the Oblate Fathers started work to establish the first English language Catholic high school in Manitoba.

That dream became a reality in 1926 when St Paul’s College opened in a building on Selkirk Avenue in Winnipeg with a staff of six and a student body of one hundred.

Russell remained principal of Saint Paul’s Normal until his retirement forty years later in 1928.

The school, which was on the National Register of Historic Places, was founded as Saint Paul Normal and Industrial School and then became Saint Paul’s Polytechnic Institute in 1941.

The first bachelor’s degrees were awarded in 1944.

One brother later observed, perhaps sardonically, that the Marist Brothers had been paying for the land for over forty years and had effected great improvements. It was only on 4 September 1946 that the Marist Brothers had acquired the freehold of the St Paul's College Richmond Rd site.

By 1957 the institution adopted its present name, Saint Paul’s College of Virginia, to reflect its liberal arts and teacher education curricula.

In the fall of 1958, the basic buildings and administrative offices containing classrooms, library, cafeteria, faculty offices, and the chapel were ready for the first students.

In 1962, the Science Wing was added, containing well-furnished laboratories, more classrooms and faculty offices.

The student cafeteria was extended in 1964 and the Residence of the Jesuit Fathers was added.

Since 1970, the corporation's relations with the University of Manitoba have been governed by a formal agreement whereby the funding and operation of the College has been closely integrated with that of a publicly funded provincial university.

1972 saw the construction of our beautiful library, a theatre to seat 200 and the addition of further classroom and faculty office space.

Approved by the Board of Directors: March 5, 1986.

Revised by the Board of Directors: October 3, 1994.

Teya Whitehead, who graduated from Saint Paul’s College in 1998, was devastated when she first heard that the school was closing.

As of September 2009 it had an enrollment of 681 students.

Conversations about how to keep the college’s memory alive began in 2012, the year before the school shut its doors.

The Department of English has begun its Post-Graduate Section, since November 2013, the first to do so in the College.

St Paul’s Cathedral Mission College has witnessed phenomenal growth in the field of intellectual advancement and has celebrated it Sesquicentenary (150 years) in 2014-15.

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