Mary MacKillop College

Our story

Mary MacKillop lived and worked at Kensington for many years and opened the first Josephite school there in 1872. The college itself began in 1944, during the Second World War, when the Sisters of St Joseph brought together the secondary girls from their parish schools in Queen Street, Norwood. About 100 students enrolled in that first year, in a school called St Joseph’s Higher Primary.

It moved to Bridge Street, Kensington, in 1950 and, as St Joseph’s High School, to Phillips Street in 1963 with 200 students. In 1970, the last year of its long-serving principal Sister Oliver, it was renamed Mary MacKillop College. Today it is a Catholic girls’ college for Years 7 to 12, still beside the chapel and convent grounds where Mary MacKillop lived.