Relation to Fremantle

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The parish of Fremantle, with its Church (St. Patrick’s), its schools (St. Patrick’s Primary and Christian Brothers College Secondary) began over 150 years ago. The Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) and the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition (SJA) began the work and the Christian Brothers joined later.

South Fremantle had a large predominantly Irish population many of whom worked in the thriving port as dockers and labourers. A need for relatively cheap and durable building materials led to the opening of several limestone quarries, one of which was in Beaconsfield. The labourers in the quarry were again predominantly of Irish extraction and they lived in shanty huts nearby.

It was these labourers who asked the Sisters of Joseph the Apparition, in Fremantle, to open and staff a school for their children. In 1903 the Sisters agreed and the owners of the quarry donated land for a two-roomed wooden school to be built.

The school, staffed by Sisters who walked every morning from St. Patrick’s and home again in the evening, continued to grow, and eventually an OMI priest from St. Patrick’s started coming every Sunday to offer Mass of the Sacrament to the labourers and their families.

By the early 1930s numbers made it necessary to build a Church for the growing population of the Beaconsfield area. Christ the King Church was blessed and opened by Archbishop Prendiville of Perth on 18th August 1936.

See the Christ the King School information page.