History of Perth College Boarding House
The Boarding House is located on Lawley Crescent opposite the Chapel, but previously had been situated within the school itself, accommodating the Boarders in large dormitories above the classrooms. Built in 1991/2, there are three houses within one building, and each one is named after the founding Sisters of the school. Girls from Year 7 to Year 12 reside in each house and there are facilities such as laundries, kitchenettes and Common Rooms within. Each is looked after by a staff member entitled the Head of House who is the main pastoral contact for those girls in her house. In addition, other staff members supervise those girls when the Head of House is not on duty and will take charge of that house for the duration of their shift.
Rosalie House
Named after Sister Rosalie CSC who died aged 92 in 1958, she served her God at Peth College for 57 years. At the time of her death, Archbishop Moline of Perth wrote “She won the admiration and affection of generations of girls who came under her spell at Perth College. Loved by all who knew her, highly respected by those with whom she had business dealings and honoured by the Crown, she will be remembered as one of the great women of her time whose personal charm and deep spirituality were combined with outstanding gifts of heart and mind. She was a member of the advance Guard of the Sisters’ expedition to Western Australia in 1902 and she alone survived to participate in the Perth College Jubilee in 1952.
Karina House
This house was named after Sister Karina, who was born in 1900, and spent most of her professional life in the Australian Schools of the Community. This includes fourteen years at St Michael’s Collegiate in Hobart and eight years at St Michael’s College, Melbourne. She was the Sister Superior of Perth College from 1952-1968. Throughout her life, Sister Karina had a particular ministry to people on the fringes of society, especially to the lonely and the lost. Many of these people maintained contact with her for years, seeking help and advice. Students at PC remember her kindly manner and benign countenance disguised an inner strength and iron will. To Sister Karina, the last Sister Superior at Perth College, fell the difficult and sad task of planning the final departure of the Sisters and the handing over of the School to the Anglican Church.
Emily House
The Sisters of the Church had a remarkable woman as their founder. Emily Ayckbowm (1836-1900) was born in Chester, the daughter of an English clergyman, and by the age of twenty she was waging war on poverty and misery by visiting the sick and organising schools to teach the children of the slums. The schools provided sticky buns and hot tea to hungry children prior to the beginning of their lessons. Within a few years there were many schools and thousands of pupils. Emily was also concerned about the plight of orphans condemned to workhouses and began orphanages where children would be happy and taught to read. Over the next decades, more than 70,000 children passed through the London orphanages.
In 1870, Emily became the first novice of the new Order of the Community of the Church, a sisterhood of nuns who would “labour for the relief of human suffering and for the spread of the knowledge of the true faith”. The ‘Sunday Tea’ the sisters served on the docks became as famous as their earlier Bun Schools and these teas led to the establishment of Labour Schools for unemployed men.
After 1891, the work of Mother Emily and her Sisters spread overseas, and schools and welfare work was begun in India, Burma, Africa, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Prior to her death Emily began to plan for Sisters to travel to Western Australia to begin a school there. Two years after her death the school she planned – Perth College- was opened.
It is fitting that one of the three Boarding Houses at Perth College should honour this extraordinary woman.
