Francis Redwood
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Francis William Mary Redwood SM (6 April 1839 – 3 January 1935), was the first Roman Catholic Archbishop of Wellington,
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of New Zealand.


Life

Redwood was born on 8 April 1839 on the
Tixall Tixall is a small village and civil parish in the Stafford district, in the English county of Staffordshire lying on the western side of the Trent valley between Rugeley and Stone, Staffordshire and roughly 4 miles east of Stafford. The populati ...
estate,
Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation ''Staffs''.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, ...
, England, a known historical Catholic centre. His parents were Henry Redwood and his wife Mary (née Gilbert). In 1842, he sailed to New Zealand with his parents, siblings (including his brother
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and his brother in law
Joseph Ward Sir Joseph George Ward, 1st Baronet, (26 April 1856 – 8 July 1930) was a New Zealand politician who served as the 17th prime minister of New Zealand from 1906 to 1912 and from 1928 to 1930. He was a dominant figure in the New Zealand Liber ...
) on the ''George Fyfe''. His father had bought land from the
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, and the family settled in Waimea West in the
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district. The locality became known as Appleby and his parents had Stafford Place built in 1866. The house is registered as a Category I heritage building by
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, with registration number 1678. Redwood was educated at the Nelson school of Fr Antoine Garin, SM. In December 1854 he went to study at St Mary's College at St Chamond, near
Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...
, France, and in 1860 he entered the scholasticate of the
Society of Mary (Marists) The Society of Mary (), better known as the Marists, is a Catholic religious congregation of pontifical right. Founded in Cerdon, France, by Jean-Claude Colin, the Society of Mary was recognized by an apostolic brief on April 29, 1836, and is ...
at Montbel, near
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. He entered the Marist novitiate at Sainte-Foy. He was ordained priest at Maynooth in 1865 and gained his baccalaureate in theology at
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. After three years of teaching at Catholic University School, Redwood suffered a near fatal bout of
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in 1867 and went to Lyon to convalesce. There he met
Philippe Viard Philippe Joseph Viard SM (11 October 1809 – 2 June 1872) was a French priest and the first bishop of the Catholic diocese of Wellington, New Zealand. Early life Born to Claude and Pierrette Charlotte (née Rolland) Viard in Lyon, he attend ...
, Bishop of Wellington, who was going to Rome to discuss his diocese and later to attend the
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. Viard was impressed and even perhaps thought of Redwood as his
coadjutor The term "coadjutor" (literally "co-assister" in Latin) is a title qualifier indicating that the holder shares the office with another person, with powers equal to the other in all but formal order of precedence. These include: * Coadjutor bishop ...
. However, before any appointment could be made, Viard died. There was a long delay before Redwood was appointed his successor in January 1874. Redwood was consecrated by Henry Edward Cardinal Manning at St Anne's,
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, London, on 17 March 1874. Redwood spent his time appealing for funds in France and personnel in Ireland before returning to New Zealand in November 1874. When consecrated second Bishop of Wellington, Redwood was the youngest Roman Catholic bishop in the world. At his death, aged 95, he was said to be the oldest. The overwhelming size of the Wellington diocese led to the decision to create a new diocese comprising
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and Westland. At the same time a metropolitan archdiocese was created. Redwood favoured the appointment of his fellow Marist John Grimes, who was English-born, as Bishop of Christchurch, but in 1885 the first
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of Australasian bishops recommended that the appointment go to a diocesan priest and that
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be the new archdiocese. This would have strengthened the largely Irish diocesan clergy at the expense of the Marists, who successfully petitioned Rome to overturn both recommendations. In 1887, Grimes became bishop of Christchurch and Redwood archbishop of Wellington and metropolitan of New Zealand. Redwood was created archbishop by a papal brief dated 13 May 1887.O'Meeghan, p. 101 Redwood attached great importance to personal visitation. He established numerous churches, hospitals, and orphanages, was a founder of
St Patrick's College, Wellington St Patrick's College is a Roman Catholic boys' secondary school in Wellington, New Zealand. History Founded by Archbishop Francis Redwood Society of Mary (Marists), SM, St Patrick's opened on 1 June 1885 with nine day pupil, day-boys and twe ...
in 1885, and lived to open the new
St Patrick's College, Silverstream St Patrick's College is a state-integrated Catholic boys' day and boarding secondary school located in Silverstream, Upper Hutt, New Zealand. It was established in 1931 when the original St Patrick's College, Wellington that had been establi ...
in 1931 in the Hutt Valley. He expanded and completed St Mary's Cathedral and, after it was destroyed, replaced it with a
basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek Eas ...
n church which eventually became Sacred Heart Cathedral. During his episcopate, Redwood invited many religious orders into New Zealand, notable among these being the Sisters of Mercy, the Marist Brothers, the Little Company of Mary, the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, the Sisters of St Brigid, the Sisters of the Mission, and the Sisters of St Joseph. He also encouraged the foundation of the New Zealand order, the Sisters of Compassion. Redwood was also Provincial of the New Zealand Marists. He founded the Seminary in
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and lent his support to the foundation of Holy Cross College, Mosgiel. For 26 years (1877–1903), he served on the Senate of the
University of New Zealand A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...
where he played an active part in its proceedings. He became the first life member of the Early Settlers' and Historical Society, Wellington. Redwood's concerns extended to all aspects of life. He agreed that alcohol was one of the evils of the day, but advocated temperance rather than
prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...
. He resolutely resisted pressure to support prohibition, and a pastoral letter of 1911 urging Catholics to vote against prohibition was widely believed to have been responsible for the defeat of the measure in that year. At the Diocesan Synod, in 1878, Redwood framed the practical
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for the New Zealand Church. His Statutes provided a pattern later followed by the Auckland and Dunedin dioceses. He convened and presided over the first Provincial (Ecclesiastical) Council of Wellington (1899), and played a prominent role in the first Plenary Council of Sydney (1885). Archbishop Redwood died at Wellington on 3 January 1935, aged 95. He was succeeded by Archbishop Thomas O'Shea SM, Coadjutor-Archbishop since 1913.


List of honours

*
Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...
(France) – 1934


Notes


References

* Ernest Richard Simmons, ''Brief history of the Catholic Church in New Zealand'', Catholic Publications Centre, Auckland, 1978. * Michael King, ''God's farthest outpost : a history of Catholics in New Zealand'', Viking, Auckland 1997. * Michael O'Meeghan S.M., ''Steadfast in hope : the story of the Catholic Archdiocese of Wellington 1850–2000'', Dunmore press, Palmerston North, 2003.
''Archbishop Francis Mary Redwood SM'', Catholic Hierarchy website
(retrieved 12 February 2011)


External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Redwood, Francis 1839 births 1935 deaths 19th-century English Roman Catholic priests 19th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in New Zealand 20th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in New Zealand People from the Borough of Stafford Religious leaders from Wellington City Roman Catholic bishops of Wellington Roman Catholic archbishops of Wellington New Zealand recipients of the Legion of Honour English Roman Catholic archbishops British expatriate archbishops New Zealand Roman Catholic archbishops