Remembering 1954

On Wednesday, 26 February, a group of some 70 former Marist students and spouses gathered in St Joseph’s Church, Subiaco, to commemorate the Blessing and Opening of the Brothers’ school alongside the Church in 1954. Mass was celebrated by old boy priests. 

The founding Director of St Joseph’s was Br Lucian Gerber and Br Victor Chalmers and Br Ernest (Terence) Gleeson made up the community. In the ten years from its foundation, the school grew rapidly from 120 students to 572 on 1.5 acres of land. By that time, the Director, Br Gordon Heinrich, realised that the site had reached its capacity. Fortuitously, a 20 acre site had been purchased by the Brothers in Churchlands in 1962, under the Provincialship of Br Donald Grogan, and a second campus was built to cater for the secondary students who moved there in 1965 under the name of Marist College. Eventually, the Subiaco site was sold to the Government of the day to become the WA School of Printing and a new primary school was built on a further 12 acres of land granted by the State Government adjacent to the Churchlands campus. The then Director, Br Justin Guthrie, worked with the architect to create a state-of-the-art primary school which opened at the start of 1977.