St Peter's College, Auckland

The school aims to achieve a diverse, family-oriented, community and good exam results.[11]^[12]

The School

Roll and academics

St Peter's College provides secondary education, within the roll limit set by the Minister of Education, to Catholic boys from throughout the city. It does not have an enrolment scheme limiting enrolments by location of student residence.^[13] However, as it usually has several applicants for every place, the school is highly selective. The school prioritise Catholic boys but there are no feeder primary schools where boys are guaranteed a place. "[Boys] from 55 different primary schools were accepted into [the St Peter's] Year 7 intake for 2024."^[14] Then the choice is based on other factors such as "good at rugby, good at music, academic prowess — and supportive home environments."^[15]

The ethnic composition of students in 2016 was (generally): European/

In 2022, 94.7 per cent of all 171 St Peter's College leavers left having obtained University Entrance (the national average for all secondary schools was 38.9 per cent and the average for private schools was 76%). Also, relative to the college's EQI score, Pacific and European/Pākehā students left St Peter’s with an above-average proportion attaining UE.^[18]

Music, culture and sport

St. Peter's places great emphasis on music education and all year 7 and 8 students receive musical tuition and learn to play a musical instrument. There are many instrumental groups covering the gamut from Jazz to Classical music. The school continues a strong choral tradition.^[19]

The culturally diverse roll has contributed to the school being successful in the Pacific Islands cultural schools competition, ASB Polyfest, especially in the Samoan section which St Peter's first won in 2007. The college repeated that in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. St. Peter's finished second two years in a row 2012 and 2013 but won in 2014, 2015 and 2021. Success has also come with the Tongan group Kailao in 2021. In 2020, for the first time in the history of the college, the Kapa haka group qualified for Division One at ASB Polyfest.^{[citation needed]}

Sports played by St Peter's included: archery, athletics, badminton, backgammon, basketball, chess, cricket, cycling, distance running, european handball, football, golf, hockey, lawn bowls, martial arts, mountain biking, rowing (started 1941),^{[note m]} rugby union, snow sports, softball, squash, swimming, table tennis, tennis, touch football, triathlon, volleyball, water polo and weightlifting.^[20] In 2022 about 1000 St Peter’s College students participated in Winter sports in more than 60 teams.^[21]

Houses

The St Peter's College houses are the basis of organisation in the school by year. Each year level has six house classes and each house class is the unit of attendance, pastoral care, competitive activity and many daily activities. There are house leaders (students) and house leaders (staff) assigned to each.^[22]

The houses and their colours and eponyms are:

• Bodkin – red – Dominic Fursey Bodkin
• Lynch – yellow – John Barnabas Lynch
• Nolan – blue – Patrick Joseph Nolan
• O'Driscoll – grey – Francis Pius O'Driscoll
• Rice – black – Edmund Ignatius Rice
• Treacy – green – Patrick Ambrose Treacy

Brothers Fursey Bodkin, Barnabas Lynch, Joseph Nolan, and their leader, Patrick Ambrose Treacy were Christian Brothers who arrived from Ireland in Melbourne on 15 November 1868 to establish the religious institute in Australia. In 1875 Brother Treacy visited Bishop Patrick Moran, first Catholic Bishop of Dunedin, and promised him a community of Christian Brothers. In 1876 Brother Bodkin was the leader of the new Dunedin community, the first Christian Brothers community in New Zealand.^[23][24] Bodkin, Lynch, Nolan and Treacy Houses date from the 1940s. O'Driscoll and Rice Houses were set up in 2011. Edmund Ignatius Rice was the founder of the Christian Brothers and Brother O'Driscoll was the foundation headmaster of the college.^[22]

Ethos and service

In discussing the changes in the school over the years, Monsignor Paul Farmer who was a pupil from 1960 to 1965, chaplain in the 1970s and was the school chaplain in 2021, stated that apart from the changes in popular culture (like the Beatles hair styles in the early 1960s which the Brothers tried unsuccessfully to fight), in 2021, the boys were much easier to manage and were treated with much greater respect.^[25]

Farmer said that when he was a boy and during the 1970s, there was a much greater degree of uniformity. “It didn’t matter who you were or where you came from, whether you were intelligent or dumb, one shirt fitted everybody. It was very much a macho male culture. It was a shouting and noisy culture.” He said that all that had changed., “I think there is much more respect for the individual boy, for the differences in character, for the different places in which people learn. And the staff, I think, are much more respectful overall of the students than they were previously. I think that is why the students are so much more able to be managed and to be respectful. It is a much more respectful place. I think it is just the changes that have taken place in society that have brought this about.”^[25]

All St Peter’s students are required to complete service work ("any unpaid work that is not for relatives") as part of their life at the College.^[26]

Headmasters

The following individuals have served as

History

The original schools

Mr Powell's School (1841)

Auckland's first school was a Catholic school for boys,

Bishop Pompallier made an annual inspection of the school. On 16 December 1864 he visited the school along with some priests and many parents. The proceedings were commenced by an address "to the Right Reverend Dr Pompallier, Bishop of Auckland", delivered by a pupil, Laurence Lorigan, on behalf of all the pupil's.[36]

Earlier in 1864, St Peter's School gave an address to Bishop Pompallier on his

In the 1870s and 1880s, Mr B Hammill was a well-known teacher.[40]^[41] He was said to have a "first-class certificate from the Irish Board of Education" and to be "enthusiastically devoted to his profession".^[42] Mr Peter Leonard was another prominent teacher who went on to teach at other schools in Auckland.^[43] In 1874, a report of the annual public examination of the boys attending St Peter's, presided over by Bishop Croke, stated that there was a "regular and good" attendance of about 70 pupils at the school.^[41] In 1879 St Peter's had a roll of 43.^[44] In 1881, Mr Cronin (who had "high certificates from the Irish and Auckland Education Boards") was a teacher at St Peter's School which in an advertisement for pupils also offered night classes ("7-9pm") to prepare pupils for "mercantile pursuits, civil service and teacher's examinations".^[33] In about 1884, St Peter's started to use a larger adjacent building as the number of pupils was exceeding the capacity of the brick school.^[30] In October 1884, William Mahoney, who received all his early education under Mr Hammill at St Peter's, paid a visit to the school on his return to New Zealand as a priest. He was Auckland's first New-Zealand-born priest. St Peter's School continued (largely, by then a primary school^[45]) until the Marist Brothers established their own school on the site in 1885.^[30]

Troubled establishment

Nearly 40 years later, in 1923, Henry Cleary, the sixth Catholic Bishop of Auckland, issued an invitation to the Christian Brothers to found a school.^[49] The Marist Brothers, well established at Sacred Heart College (then located in Richmond Road, Ponsonby), objected strongly and Cleary wrote to the Provincial of the Christian Brothers, Brother Barron, changing his offer to a primary school.^[49] As a result, the Christian Brothers lost interest.^[49]

Shortly after he became seventh Catholic Bishop of Auckland in 1929,

The Christian Brothers arrived in Auckland from Australia and the

left: The construction of the Christian Brothers' House, St Peter's College, Auckland, 1938

The school was opened on Sunday, 29 January 1939 by Bishop Liston and in the presence of

After referring to the bequest of the Outhwaite family and making placatory remarks about the Marist Brothers, Liston welcomed the Christian Brothers. He said that they were "here at the invitation of the Bishop to take charge of St Peter's school and to have their part, along with the Marist Brothers and other religious communities, in our Catholic education system. They have their own traditions to give us, formed in the society's work of teaching since 1802, and the fruit of the experience gathered, to speak only of Australia and New Zealand, of over 500 Brothers teaching more than 20,000 boys". Liston added, " ... if I know the Brothers at all, the boys under their care will be put to hard work – an excellent thing – and teachers will not do for them what they should do for themselves. The thought of the years ahead and of the

The average size of the four classes in the first year of the college was thirty boys. But Form IV commenced with fourteen pupils. These had come from ten different schools. There had been no unity in the textbooks used in these schools, but also the boys had studied different subjects. By the end of the first term it was evident to the Brothers that there was quite a teaching problem and it was decided to start the second term of Form IV with Theorem One in Geometry and Lesson One in French, Latin, Algebra, etc. – all the start of Form III work. The object was to get through two complete years' work (Form III and Form IV – Years 9 and 10) in two terms (i.e. the second and third terms – from May to December). Many of the fourteen pupils transferred down to Form III. For the senior class, play or recreation time was cut in half. School was conducted on Saturday mornings, when the week's theoretical study of Chemistry was tested by practical experiments. "No text books were allowed on Saturdays, and woe betide any student who didn't know the properties and tests for various gases and metals and their respective weights". Brother O'Driscoll, a large man, vigorously thumped or pounded the blackboard to drive home important points. Several new blackboards had to be acquired. By the third term only four students were left – Bill Aitkin, Max Denize, Des and John Rosser. The following year (1940) Brother O'Driscoll allowed three to sit for Matriculation (University Entrance) and one for the Public Service Examination. All four passed. The first Dux of the college was Des Rosser in 1940. His twin brother John was dux in 1941. The brothers subsequently donated the Rosser Cup, presented each year for Dux of St Peter's College.^[57]: 13

Great walls and new buildings

The transformation of the grounds, the development of Reeves Road, the planting of lawns, garden plots and the erection of the front stone wall along Reeves Road continued over the next few years. The trees planted were mostly

In 1961, St Peter's had the largest roll of any Catholic school in New Zealand,[62] having 834 pupils. More building projects became necessary.

In the 1960s, the Brothers' residence was extended and a new science block consisting of science laboratories, classrooms and a demonstration room was built. This building was upgraded in the 1990s and is now called the Brother J. B. Lynch Science Laboratories. A large three-story set of classrooms (now called the Brother B E Ryan Building) plus assembly hall and squash courts were opened in the early 1970s.^[63]

Sport

St Peter's College has a strong and successful sporting tradition.

In the 1950s the athletics chant of the school (adapted by the Christian Brothers from their Australian schools) was urangabe, urangabe, urangabe uranga/Woolagalla, woolagalla, rumba/Flay them, beat them, yah mung do!/Christies, Christies, blue, gold, blue.

Amongst the college's Rugby highlights was winning by the First XV of the New Zealand Secondary School's Top Four Championship and the Auckland Secondary Schools Premiership in 1987. The latter feat was repeated in 1988. The college won the Auckland Championship and the New Zealand First XV Knock out competition undefeated in 2000. Most recently, St Peter's won the Auckland Secondary Schools Premiership[77] and the National First XV Championship final in 2018.^[78] The college has gained the Moascar Cup (national school 1st XV rugby honour) three times, in 1977, 2000 and 2018.^[79]

In 1980, Hugh McGahan, captain of the New Zealand National Rugby League side, "the Kiwis" from 1986 to 1990, also played for the college First XV, under similar pressure to that exerted on John Tamihere. However, McGahan stated that, in spite of the pressure, it "was a pleasure pulling on the school jersey" to represent the college.^[80] Although it made a significant contribution to the sport, St Peter's College did not field Rugby league teams. However, many students played Soccer. The 1st XI competed in the Auckland Premier grade and were third at the NZ Football Championships in 2019. Basketball and hockey teams also competed in the Auckland Premier Grade.

The Cage and the motorway

In 1959, Archbishop

Cooper used the episode in his argument for the transfer of the Mt Eden Prison quarries to Auckland Grammar for the creation of new sports fields for that school. He pointed out that the brewery site would have been very suitable for Grammar and that Grammar had been beaten to it by a "private school". The context of this was that the new Auckland Southern Motorway development was projected to take the main Grammar rugby field which lay between the two schools.^[89] Although St Peter's was to be less affected, Liston supported Auckland Grammar in its opposition to the motorway and the projected route. Auckland Grammar argued that the motorway was going to adversely affect "two great schools" and should either be abandoned or re-routed. However, one of Grammar's suggested alternative routes was to be "further down" Mountain Road, which would have taken the motorway either through St Peter's College or through the Catholic netball courts which were used by the college and are now part of it as the site of the sports complex. Either of these proposed alternative routes would also have taken out the newly acquired and developed rugby field.

Grammar lost its rugby field in 1964, but was compensated by the Mt Eden Prison quarries. St Peter's lost a small section of land on its south west extremity for the motorway on-ramp at Khyber Pass Rd and in return was sold Reeves Road and some prison houses at a concessional price. Reeves Rd disappeared as a street and much of the subsequent expansion of the school has taken place on its site.^[90] However, both Auckland Grammar and St Peter's have had to endure the adjacent motorway since 1965.^{[82][91][92][93]}

The railway station

For nearly fifty years St Peter's College had its own railway station, developed on the initiative of Brother T. A. Monagle in 1964, to cater for the large number of students from St Peter's College and Auckland Grammar School who arrived on the North or West train and had to alight at Mt Eden Station and walk to their schools. They had to cross busy roads and undertake an uncontrolled crossing of the railway line itself, to walk the ten minutes, under the walls of Mt Eden Prison, to their schools. Meanwhile the train had continued on its way following the same path to the north-west boundary of St Peter's. The railway station, at first just a metalled strip parallel to the tracks,^[94] was first known as the St Peter's College station and only the "school trains" stopped there. Later, the station became a full stop with all passenger trains stopping and was known as the Boston Rd Station.^[95]

Up to a third of the school's enrolment (i.e. 400 students) commutes to the college by train and uses the

This was a temporary pre-fabricated building located near the northern end of the quadrangle of the college (also known as the "Top Yard") until it was removed to allow the permanent school chapel to be constructed on the site and opened in 2020.

2020 chapel

"The Chapel of

The chapel is located adjacent to the school's top yard and it may be seen from Khyber Pass Road. The building was designed by Stevens Lawson Architects, the same firm that designed the inverted cross (which casts a shadow that is right side up during the day) at the college entrance. This inverted cross motif is also reproduced in the chapel. When sunlight pours through the chapel's skylight, an inverted cross shines through. The headmaster has said that the design for the chapel "presents a confident and identifiable cross to its most public face, not only to signify the building’s purpose and all that the cross stands for, but also to provide a public message of God’s love and our salvation". The main chapel houses two smaller chapels which are quiet places for reflection; one is a Blessed Sacrament chapel and the other a Reconciliation chapel. The chapel is designed to give the students the feeling of a sacred space as they walk into it.^[102]

Mass is celebrated in the chapel by the chaplain of the school or by visiting priests every Wednesday at lunchtime and all students are invited to attend. The chapel is open to all for prayer and guidance throughout the day. Large school liturgical events usually take place at city churches such as

James Liston

Archbishop Liston, the founder of the college in 1939, presided at all the school prize-giving ceremonies from the first until his retirement in 1970.

At the 1970 ceremony Brother B E Ryan, the headmaster of the college, said, in the final presence of Liston, that St Peter's College might not have been created without Liston's decision, for which he was criticised (see above).^[106]

Liston often expressed gratitude publicly to the

The Christian Brothers provided staff for St Peter's College from its opening in 1939 until 2007. However, the numbers of brothers teaching at St Peter's College gradually declined from the 1970s. In 1975 there were 15 brothers teaching. In 1982 this number had reduced to eight. In 1988 it was 7, 4 in 1991, 2 in 1993, and 1 from 1994.^[112] From 1994 until July 2007, Bro. Paul Robertson was the only Christian Brother teaching at St Peter's College. He was the associate principal of the college.^[113][114]

The integration of St Peter's College into the state education system also " ... caused a 'church/state' separation of the [Christian Brothers] community from the institution".^[115] This was demonstrated particularly in the formal splitting of authority in the school between the school board of trustees and the headmaster of the college, and the new role of the former in staffing matters. As the Christian Brothers did not own the school, they could not appoint their representatives on the board. The proprietor's representatives where instead appointed by the school's owner, the Bishop of Auckland.^[116] In 1992 the Christian Brothers shifted from the college to a new community house in Queen Mary Avenue, Epsom, acquired because it was near St Peter's College.^[117] Brother L. H. Wilkes wrote about what this meant for the Christian Brothers community. "For years the dread of leaving St Peter's house hung over the community at St Peter's. In 1991 it was down to months and in early 1992 it was down to weeks and to days. Nobody actually spoke definitely about leaving but everyone knew it was inevitable. I could just not imagine the community in an ordinary house in an ordinary street ...".^[118][119] Some Brothers teaching at St Peter's College in the late 1980s moved to another community house in Mangere which soon closed.^[120] Apart from Brother Paul Robertson, the last serving Christian Brother to retain regular involvement with St Peter's College was Brother V. N. Cusack. He worked in the St Peter's tuckshop until 1997, arriving at 7.30am every school day to heat the pies.^[121] Mr Peter Watt ("Watty"), who was an old boy of St Peter's, and a Christian Brother from 1966 to 1981, taught at the college as a Brother from 1969 to 1972 and in 1980.^[122] He ceased to be a Christian Brother in 1981. He returned to St Peter's to teach Mathematics and coach cricket from 1986, retiring in 2016. He remained closely associated with the college until his death on 20 June 2018, in the college's 80th year.^[123][124]

In his Annual principal's report for 1988, Brother Prendergast described the characteristics of a Christian Brothers school as: the encouragement given to pupils to strive for scholastic excellence; a religious dimension; the cultivation of a strong devotion to

Monsignor Paul Farmer (a pupil 1960–1965), the chaplain of the college at various times from the 1970s, and, as of 2021^[update], the current chaplain, had a family connection with St Peter's going back to its opening in 1939, when his father was a first day pupil. Farmer stated that, in praising the work of the Christian Brothers at St Peters:^[25]

The Brothers, I think, created an extraordinary spirit - they laid the foundation for the school. They were good men, practical men, and very generous men with their talents and their lives. There were only ever, in my early days here, one or two lay teachers as they were called then, and [the brothers] might have got only one free period a week. They had no car - I remember when I was here, the old boys and the PTA had a big fundraiser to buy the brothers a car. We can't imagine that today. They ran the place on the smell of an oily rag - remember, 1939 was the year World War II started. They were difficult times, and these guys put their hearts and soul into the place. Everything was done by them - a broken window was fixed, the lawns were mowed, everything.

— Monsignor Paul Farmer, 2021.

After 1989

After 50 years of leadership by Christian Brother headmasters, the school has been led by lay headmasters since 1989. In that time the roll increased significantly, for example, from 669 in 1989 to 1,344 students in 2015, and has remained around that level since.

St Peter's has continued to follow the objectives of the Christian Brothers' founder, 18th-century Irish merchant Blessed Edmund Rice,^[129] to encourage its members to serve the community in ways such as participation in Edmund Rice Camps and committing themselves to Rice's objective of bringing social justice. All St Peter’s students are required to complete service work ("any unpaid work that is not for relatives") as part of their life at the College.^[26]

Christian Brothers missions in Polynesia were supported, particularly Nukutere College in Rarotonga and regular trips to India were organised for senior students.^[129] In supporting students' sporting and cultural aspirations, music,^[138] football and softball academies were established.

The school has set and achieves high academic standards and has won numerous awards in musical engagement and achieved substantial sporting successes. Culturally, it benefited from a diverse, multicultural diverse roll and cultural activities, also gaining awards in areas such as religion and polyfest (Polynesian cultural competitions).^[139][140]

The school was led by its first non-Christian Brother headmaster, Kieran Fouhy, for 27 years from 1989 until 2015.^[27]

The second non-Christian Brother, and tenth, headmaster of the college, James Bentley, was appointed in 2016. Under his tenure the new chapel was completed and a structure called "Watty's Nets" was opened for cricket bowling practice. Other building projects were launched.^[141]

Old boys and former staff

• List of people educated at St Peter's College, Auckland
• List of former staff of St Peter's College, Auckland
• Congregation of Christian Brothers in New Zealand

Some individual experiences at St Peter's College (1940s–1970s):

• Mark Williams – writer
• Sam Hunt – poet
• David McGill – writer
• John Tamihere – politician
• Frank Nobilo – golfer
• Felix Donnelly^[142] – priest
• Cyril Eastlake – footballer
• Colin Jillings – horse trainer
• Jonathan Temm – lawyer

For other experiences see: Matt Elliott, On This Rock: 75 Years of St Peter's College, Mountain Road, St Peter's College, Auckland, 2015.

See also