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 Coromandel in 1865  St Mary's, Upper Town  St Colman's, Lower Town  St Colman's Church and Presbytery |
Bishop Pompallier first visited Coromandel in 1841. He was accompanied by Father Viard, who later became the first Bishop of Wellington. In 1861 Bishop Pompallier was given half an acre of land by Samuel Brown of
Auckland. From 15th to 17th of June 1863, Bishop Pompallier visited
Coromandel. The first parish priest was appointed in 1865, and the earliest parish record is a baptism on Christmas Eve of that year. This was about the time that the gold digging really started, although gold was first discovered in 1852. The first church was a "temporary Catholic chapel" in Upper Town - then called Driving Creek. In 1899, another church, St Mary's, was built in Upper Town. This was closed and sold around 1920. A new church was built in Lower Town (now Coromandel proper) and on 24th June, 1871, Bishop Croke blessed it and named it St Colman's after his old parish in Ireland. A belfry was added in 1885. St Colman's, the present church, was rebuilt and reopened on 5th September 1954.  Inside the original St Colman's |
| In
1873, St George's School for Boys was opened. Father O'Reilly, the parish
priest, was the school master. He was assisted by Miss Smith, a relative
of Sir George Grey. In 1882, the Convent School of the Holy Name of Mary began classes. Three Sisters - Gabriel Leary, Barbara Comerford and Alphonsus Bolger - were the teachers. In 1884, the school building on loan to the church, was sold by mistake! In 1897, new school buildings were opened by Bishop Lenihan. By 1941, the population had dwindled and the schools were closed. |  St George's School |
 The Convent |
A convent was built in 1879. Archbishop Steins inspected it the following year, but no sisters arrived until 1882. The convent was closed in 1941 and sold in 1945. |
Coromandel Government Hospital
 Mother Mary Gonzaga |
In
1873 a committee including Fr Patrick O'Reilly, the parish priest, met to
set up a hospital. A "temporary" building was used until 1898. In 1896, typhoid broke out in Coromandel. The Sisters of Mercy were appealed to for help as nurses and they agreed. The hospital had twenty beds and an infectious block. Mother Mary Gonzaga Leahy was the matron, assisted by Sister Mary Agnes. Soon the Sisters ran the entire hospital. The Sisters left the Hospital in 1902, but it can almost be said that it was the beginning of Auckland's Mercy Hospital. The Coromandel Hospital was closed in 1994 and is now a community resource centre. |
Father Felix Vaggioli OSB was the parish priest in Coromandel from 1885 until 1887. He was an Italian Benedictine. Upon his return to Europe he wrote a book called History of New Zealand and its Inhabitants. It attacked the British settlers for stripping Maori of their land. The British Government had the book banned and most copies were destroyed. Several copies survived however, and it has recently been translated into English. |
 Dom Felix Vaggioli |
Parish Priests of Coromandel
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1865-67 B. Fitzpatrick 1871-78 Patrick O'Reilly 1878-80 James Mahony OSF 1880-81 James Cassidy 1882-83 Anselm Fox OSB 1884-85 Donatus Naboa OSB 1885-87 Felix Vaggioli OSB 1887-88 Raphael Wissel OSB 1888-89 Daniel Murphy 1889-90 D.W. Fahy 1890-91 Thomas Doyle 1891-94 John Golden 1894-03 Michael Egan 1903-06 John Broomfield MHM 1904-07 T.P. Lynch 1907-08 James Molloy |
1908-09 John
Broomfield MHM 1909-14 Aloysismus Bowen MHM 1914-18 Vacant 1918-21 M. Curly 1921-22 G. Colgan 1922-25 E. Lyons 1925-27 J. Downey 1927-29 R. Ryan 1929-30 D. Deen 1930-33 W. O'Meara 1933-34 J. McCarthy 1934-36 P. Fitzpatrick 1936-40 J. Fitzgibbon 1940-42 J. Ryan 1942-45 W. Flynn 1945-49 P. Fahy |
1949-52
C.
Gormley 1952-58 H. Jillings 1958-60 D. Angland 1960-63 D. Fagan 1963-67 J. Bergin 1967-74 P. McCabe 1974-81 B. Doherty 1981-91 Theo Van Lieshout 1992-93 Bruce Bolland 1987-88 Chris Hamblin 1993-94 P. Handforth 1994-97 Jack Agnew 1995-97 Robert Lee SM 1997-99 James Ross SM 1999- Marist Team |
 James Mahony  Donatus Naboa  James Molloy |
 Anselm Fox  Raphael Wissel  James Ross |