Sisters of Our Lady of the Mission Convent (1884-1973)

The three-storey convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions once dominated the skyline of New Plymouth.

Overwhelmingly Protestant in the 1840s with less than 2% of the population being Catholic, the town’s religious makeup changed with the Taranaki Wars and the arrival of many Catholic Imperial troops. The first resident priest, Father Maurice Tresallet, arrived in 1860 and established St Joseph’s Church between Devon and Powderham streets in 1862. In 1875, a new St Joseph’s was built, replaced by a third in 1894.

To further serve the Catholics of Taranaki, the founder of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions, an order of French nuns, visited New Plymouth in 1883 to make arrangements for the building of a convent school.

The foundation stone for the convent, known as the Monastery of the Presentation, was laid on 13 January 1884 by Bishop Francis Redwood. Fundraising solicited enough donations to cover the £3000 cost, and the nuns and their pupils (not all of them Catholic) moved into the "large and handsome building" on 1 September of that year. The curriculum provided by the school included “German, French, and Italian languages, instruction in instrumental and vocal music, painting, drawing, plain and fancy needlework, and all the accomplishments necessary for a young lady to possess”.  

In 1960 the school moved across town and was renamed Sacred Heart Girls’ College. The land the convent stood on was sold in 1973 and the convent demolished, but the fourth St Joseph’s Church, opened in 1969, still stands next door. A stone grotto located between the Worley building at 167 Powderham Street and the back of the Salvation Army community centre is all that remains of the imposing convent that overlooked the western end of town for nearly one hundred years.