St Paul's School Camden

Melbourne Private Schools introduces St Paul's School Camden in Camden, for all your education and learning needs.

The Parish of Camden was established in 1859 while Archbishop Polding was still in office as the Archbishop of Sydney. John Macarthur provided a building and a Catholic teacher to teach the children of the employees that worked on his estate. In 1840 the Macarthur’s donated the present day site for St. Paul’s Catholic Church.

Fr. Sheridan arrived in 1879 and began the task of finding suitable teachers for the school. He wrote to Mother Mary MacKillop and the Sisters of St. Joseph requesting them to establish a properly run school similar to St. Anthony’s at Picton.  Finally, in the third week of January in 1883 two nuns arrived and began classes in the Old Church which is at present the school library.

The first principal was Sr. Brigid and there were 56 students. In 1900, it became clear that the school wasn’t large enough and a new school was begun. The children helped to clean the bricks for re-use. The school was opened on 3rd March, 1901.

The school continued to expand and saw further additions of four classrooms, the canteen, the staffroom and a community room. In 1981-82 Fr John Whitty added three new classrooms plus the administration block. The old convent was demolished and replaced by our new Church.

The school has come a long way since the Sisters of St. Joseph and is now a part of one of the largest parishes in the region. We owe many thanks to the pioneers of our Parish that had the vision to create the wonderful school that now exists today. Information taken from “Along the Way” -The Historical, Invitation and Publicity Committee