Marist College Eastwood

Marist College Eastwood is an independent, Catholic male-only high school in Eastwood, New South Wales, Australia.MCE HistorySaint Marcellin Champagnat was a priest who commenced his ministry in Lavalla, a tiny Hamlet in France. He had a special love for the poor and underprivileged, and so in 1817 he founded the Little Brothers of Mary, later to become known as the Institute of the Marist Brothers of Schools.The first Marist School in Australia, St Patrick's, was established in 1872 by four Marist Brothers (Brothers Ludovic Laboureyras, Jarlath Finand, Augustinus MacDonald and Peter Tennyson), at The Rocks in Sydney.On 2 February 1937, Brother Leopold Smith and three other Marist brothers (Brothers Ervan McDonough, Loyola Sullivan and Kenneth Harris) came to Eastwood and opened St Kevin's Boys' School, with 100 students. The school was established on the site of Eastwood House, the home built by William Rutledge and purchased by Edward Terry in 1863. Terry became the first mayor of Eastwood and later a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, and Eastwood House, with its extensive gardens, orchards and sporting grounds, was the location of many hunts. The house, built in 1840 and extended in 1863, forms the central administration block for the College today.In the 1960s the school was known as Marist Brothers' High School, Eastwood, and on 2 April 1993 the name of the school was changed to Marist College Eastwood.In April 1999, teacher and student representatives of the school, were sent to Rome, to join with other teachers and students from Marist Schools around the world, to celebrate the canonisation of Marcellin Champagnat.