Story: Catholic Church

This 1847 engraving shows a religious procession outside the first Catholic chapel in Wellington. It was opened in 1843 and headed by Father Jeremiah O'Reily, an Irishman who had arrived in Wellington that year with the New Zealand Company. Built on what became Boulcott Street, this chapel was replaced in 1874 by the church of St Mary of the Angels. The church was destroyed by fire in 1918 and the present St Mary of the Angels opened on the same site in 1922.