Catholic Parish of Blayney
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CHURCH OF ST. JAMES, BLAYNEY

Extract from The Kings Colonials – G Reynolds 1982 – Pages 64 and 65.

 “The second largest religious group are those of the Catholic faith. From 1847, the Centre of Catholic life in the Mid West was the Kings Plains Mission in the hands of Father Macgrath."

"St Mary’s Church, Carcoar, was built in 1870 and the adjacent convent in 1874 and the presbytery in 1877, the year the foundation stone of St James’ Church, Blayney, was laid. Four years later parishioners no longer needed to walk or ride to the Kings Plains Church, for mass was now celebrated in the completed Blayney church.

An excerpt from the Church paper, ‘The Record’, at the time (1881) revealed a great deal of activity by the Catholic community. “This beautiful church has been completed at the cost of £1500. The debt before last Sunday was £800 and this debt would have been at the present time wiped off only that other works of a pressing nature had to be undertaken in the  meantime. For example, a convent has been  erected in the last year at a cost of nearly £1,000 and both convent and school have been furnished with every requisite and moreover, these are entirely out of debt.

We must bear in mind that the district to which the Blayney Church property belongs is by no means an extensive one. This will be evident when it is pointed out that Blayney is surrounded on all sides by Catholic Churches. There is one in Carcoar, 10 miles, another at Brown’s Creek (6 miles); one at Vittoria (12 miles); and one at Teapot Swamp, 7 miles from Blayney. The people attached to these churches were engaged either in creating them or enlarging them, or in founding convents and schools for the education of their children, at the very time Blayney was engaged at its Church and convent, and hence material aid, could not be expected from the people of these districts.”

With amalgamation later churches at Neville, [St X, 18xx to xxxx] Lyndhurst [St X, xxxx to xxxx] Mandurama [St Lawrence’s, 18xx to present), Millthorpe [St. Canice’s, xxxx to present] and Newbridge [St. x xxxx to 196x] were added to the Blayney parish. At the same time the Sisters of St Joseph spread their teaching skills to Catholic schools constructed early in the Century at Forest Reefs [18xx to 19xx – Sisters of St Joseph from 1882 to 1963], Millthorpe [xxxx to xxxx - Sisters of St Joseph from 1922 to 1969], and Newbridge [xxxx to xxxx - Sisters of St Joseph from 1898 to 1964].

But as with centralisation tendencies of the Council and NSW Education Department, some outlying churches and schools were closed such that the St Joseph’s School, Blayney [18xx to present – Sisters of St Joseph 1880 to 2000], was the only one remaining by the 1980’s.”

In another place within the same publication, we find some history concerning the building being sued as the current Church. It was the original Town Hall. "After the amalgamation of local Councils in 1935 the Town Hall was put up to tender for operation as a picture theatre. Vincent (Joe) O'Neill, who operated the Universal theatre which has been established in 1912, and used to show silent movies and provide boxing contests, was one applicant. . . . However, the successful tenderer was a Mr. Donnelly who, on securing the 45 years lease spent £3,000 on the Hall to convert it to a cinema. 

'The Town Hall has been opened very successfully as the Theatre Blayney on 16th August and that it had been destroyed by fire and explosion on 11 September."

On Page 89 of 'Women of The Vale Perthville Josephites 1872 - 1972', Marie Crowley provides some further details about the coming of the Sisters of St Joseph to Blayney. "While many of the foundations were short-lived, that of Blayney, where Father Woods preached the homily on the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone in 1880, closed as recently as 2000, although there is still a Josephite presence in the town."

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