A Long History

Beginnings

The St Vincent de Paul Society’s first Tasmanian Conference was formed in Launceston’s Church of the Apostles on 28 May 1899. During June of that year, it focused on raising some funds before commencing “active operations” on 1 July.

Founded in Paris only six decades earlier in 1833 by a student named Frédéric Ozanam, by the end of that century the Society had spread throughout the world. Based on local groups called “Conferences”, which assisted the poor in their communities, the Society had already been established in every mainland colony when the Tasmanian Conference was formed.

During its first year, the Launceston Conference mostly met fortnightly at St Finn Barr’s Church, before seeing to the needs of those in the community. The Conference grew in that year to 71 members, about half of whom attended any given meeting.

Gathering money to help the needy was one of the Society’s main tasks. Conference members contributed directly out of their own pockets, and during their first year they raised over £12 through such personal donations. Almost the same amount was also received through poor boxes installed in Churches by the Society. Fundraising events and other donations further added to the balance, with the result that the Society gathered £37, 13 shillings, and 7 and a half pence in its first year in Launceston.

Such money went to the support of locals in need. At first about six people were supported weekly, and Conference members attended to approximately 30 requests for assistance during that founding year. Mostly support was given in the form of groceries, bread, and meat, as well as some wood for heating and cooking. Boots and clothes were also provided where needed, prompting the Conference to start seeking donations of these items. In some cases, rents were also paid. Over the coming years the volume of assistance dramatically increased from dozens to hundreds of visits as more and more Tasmanians turned to the Society for assistance. In an era well before provision of government benefits, poverty in the colonial towns could cut very deep. Even a few pennies here and there could be the difference between life and death.

After observing the success of the Society in the north, another Conference was established in Hobart in March 1905. This too started with a membership of about 70 men. At this stage the Society was exclusively a male one, although it worked very closely with the Ladies of Charity, which was a Catholic women’s society, also established in Hobart that year, with about 50 members of its own. Besides food and clothing, the Hobart Conference was also able to distribute packets to tea to bring a little cheer to those enduring hardship thanks to an early corporate donation.

During the first decade of the twentieth century the Society’s work in Tasmania was increasingly recognised as benefiting Tasmania, even while its activities remain relatively shrouded in under-documented humility. At one public meeting in Launceston, the then future Prime Minister Joseph Lyons spoke of how “There could be no greater work than the uplifting of a fellow creature”, adding that “he had seen letters of thanks sent to that society which had brought tears to his eyes, and made his heart thankful that they had such an organisation in the city.” It was possible the prominent politician was an active member. At the very least he moved in the same circles and supported the Society’s mission when he could. Over the decades that followed, many prominent Tasmanians were members of the Society, including at least one Premier, Sir Richard Cosgrove.

The full complement of Tasmania’s founding members remains obscured by time and reticence to draw attention to themselves. People’s connection with the Society was mainly documented only when they had official roles, or sometimes much later when they died and their obituaries made passing mention of years of charitable service. As such, a detailed picture of the early days of the Society is hard to glean, but it clearly cut across numerous professions and classes of person. Launceston’s first President, for instance, was a journalist named James Vincent Sullivan who during a long career worked for the Catholic and secular press, including the Examiner. What all evidently shared, however, was a commitment to putting their faith into action for the good of the whole community.

Expansion

A few years more and the Society was poised for expansion into Tasmania’s country districts. The Commonwealth Old Age Pension, introduced in mid-1909, helped alleviate some economic distress in Tasmania, but unemployment and under-employment remained rife. Invited by the Archbishop of Hobart to visit Tasmania, the President of the Society’s Superior Council in Australia toured the island in 1911 to help establish regional Conferences. By late 1911, rural Conferences were at New Norfolk, Franklin, and Cygnet, while the Hobart Conference was divided into two – one for St Mary’s Cathedral, another for St Joseph’s Church. This burst of activity facilitated the forming of Tasmania’s first Particular Council for the Southern Conferences. With this came effective independence from mainland oversight. Before the year was out, the travelling President also saw the formation of Conferences in Devonport, Latrobe, Deloraine, Wynyard, and Westbury. As with Hobart, the Launceston Conference was split in two and a Particular Council for Northern Tasmania was established.

Further conferences were established in the years that followed, including Burnie in 1914 and South Launceston in 1920. Each Conference history has its own twists and turns, with some gradually slipping into abeyance and sometimes re-emerging some years later, mainly in response to wider social and economic conditions. Where feasible, inter-town gatherings were fostered to help build as sense of confraternity within the Society across Tasmania.

The first major challenge to the Society’s Tasmanian fortunes flowed directly from events in Europe. The outbreak of the First World War saw meeting attendances slide as men enlisted for service abroad. Still, the Society continued to operate. In fact, it became actively involved in several wartime fundraising initiatives, often partnering with other charitable organisations. A few decades later another war again saw Conference numbers become temporarily depleted again even as the Society once more involved itself in special wartime works.

Between the wars, the Society tended to a wounded Tasmania only to then face the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression. Not all was doom and gloom, however. In 1927 Hobart hosted the Society’s national Congress, stepping onto the national stage in the first of several such major national events that marked the Society’s history in Tasmania.

In the post-war era the Society became a more visible part of the Tasmanian human landscape through the establishment of permanent shops and Special Works initiatives. Facilitating employment and accommodation for particular groups of people in the Tasmanian community, as well raising money for charitable work while contributing to the recycling of goods through its shopfronts, the Society put Catholic Social Teaching into action by focusing on both human need and dignity.

In this period the Society also evolved and adapted to the Second Vatican Council’s vision of an open and outward-looking faith. Administratively, the Society experienced a process of professionalisation to aid the effective delivery of its programs and projects. Culturally, first through the establishment of Women’s Conferences and then with the integration of both women and men into the one Conference structure, the Society came more fully to reflect the calling of the entire People of God to serve the world.

Reflection

In this, its 125th year in Tasmania, the Society is embarking on a reflective celebration of its contribution to the people of this island. Conference Members, Volunteers, Staff, and Beneficiaries are invited to contribute their stories to help preserve and commemorate the Society’s century and a quarter of Good Works.

To find out how to get involved, click here.