Marcellin College, Auckland

Story

Marcellin College is an Catholic, integrated, co-educational college in Hillsborough, Auckland, New Zealand for students in Year 7 to Year 13. The college was founded by the Marist Brothers in 1958 as a school for boys only. The school is located on spacious and beautiful grounds which had been part of the Pah estate. It has an extensive woodland on its southern and western boundaries. Most of the former Pah estate contiguous with Marcellin College is now owned by the Auckland Council and is maintained as a park known as "Monte Cecilia Park." The Auckland Franciscan Friary and Retreat Centre is just across Monte Cecilia Park from the college. A Discalced Carmelite Monastery (under the patronage of the Holy Family and St Thomas, Apostle) is directly opposite the college on Mt Albert Rd.OriginsThe college was established in 1958, for boys, by the Marist Brothers as a normal school for the training of Brothers as teachers in intermediate classes. Until 1958 the site of the college had been occupied by the Marist Brothers scholasticate. From the scholasticate, which was established in 1943, the young teachers had to travel to the Marist school in Vermont St, Ponsonby. This was expensive and inconvenient. In 1957 the scholasticate was removed to new buildings erected on land (called Monte Cecelia) purchased from the Sisters of Mercy behind and adjacent to the college site. A new building called Marcellin Hall was built for the training of Marist Brothers. This opened in 1961. In 1979 Marcellin Hall became a Pastoral Centre for personal renewal, theological reflection and apostolic effectiveness with residential courses, seminars and retreats there conducted by a community of nuns, priests and brothers. This building was later demolished.