Celebrating 150 Years

This year marks 200 years of Catholic education in Australia. For 150 of those years, Parade College has been providing quality education to generations of young men—from its original site in East Melbourne to its current home in Bundoora.

The school held its 2021 Opening Mass and inaugural event of their sesquicentennial year on Friday 29 January.

College Principal Andy Kuppe, himself a graduate of the College, expressed his delight at marking the occasion: ‘What a blessing that the day selected [for this gathering] is 150 years to the day that the first Bishop (Archbishop James Alipius Goold) opened Parade College with Mass on 29 January 1871.’

Andy Kuppe is the College’s first lay principal, following 148 years of leadership by the Congregation of Christian Brothers, beginning with Br Ambrose Treacy and concluding with the retirement of Br Denis Moore in 2019.

The Christian Brothers arrived in Melbourne in 1868 at the invitation of Archbishop Goold. They began teaching in a small primary school at the rear of St Francis’ Church on Lonsdale Street.

These days, the Edmund Rice Campus of Parade College in Bundoora is proud to educate more than 1,800 students and a combined staff of almost 300 personnel. The College also offers Certificates II and III in Building and Construction through its Trade Training Centre, a facility that is open to students from all local schools and has expanded its trade training options comprehensively over the past decade.

As part of the College's 150th-anniversary celebrations, Archbishop Comensoli was presented with a reproduction of the painting Mater Amabilis ("Mother most loving"). This depiction of Mary originally hung in the parlour of the Christian Brothers School monastery in Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland.

The outdoor sculpture (pictured above) of Br Ambrose and his companions commemorates their arrival in Melbourne 150 years ago the 50th anniversary of Parade College East Melbourne relocation to its present site at Bundoora.