Construction of Seminary and School
ST JOSEPH'S SEMINARY
This imposing building was built in 1898 by a wealthy business man, Mr Harry Smith, who named it after one of his wife's relations, Lord Curzon of Kedleston (Viceroy of India 1899 to 1905). He was renowned as an able politician and the most blatant snob in England and in 1900 that really meant something. He was apparently planning to visit Curzon Hall after his stint in India but resigned his post after an unseemly row with Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, Commander in Chief of the Army, and returned to England.
Had he come to Australia I doubt he would have met many of the locals and share a glass of vino and a few jokes in a tin shed off Balaclava Road. More's the pity, it was quite good stuff once you fished out the twigs. In the twenties and thirties Marsfield was predominantly an Italian area of market gardens, orchards and a few small cottages. As St. Joseph's Seminary had its own chapel, the Parish Priest of Epping requested the Vincentians to allow the local Catholics to attend Mass at the chapel. They also attended Benediction and a children's catechism class was also held.
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