New Norcia - Pre-history
Next to the famous Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia was the Benedictine monastery of San Martín Pinario. There, two young men had made their monastic profession, promising to live a fully monastic and obedient life. Following closure of the monasteries by the anti-clerical government in Spain in 1835 one of these men, Dom José Benito Serra, went to the renowned Abbey of the Most Holy Trinity of Cava, near Salerno in Italy. After a few years of waiting in vain for his own monastery to re-open, Dom Rosendo Salvado followed Serra to Cava.
In 1844, and fired by missionary zeal, the two monks applied to the authorities in Rome to be missionaries and were assigned to the newly appointed first Bishop of Perth, Rt Rev John Brady. Brady led a large missionary party to Australia, reaching Perth in January 1846. Brady divided the WA Mission into three districts and it was to the Central District that the two Spanish Benedictines, a French Benedictine novice, Dom Leander Fonteinne and an Irish catechist, John Gorman departed.
The group set out in February 1846, travelling by way of Toodyay and Bolgart. From there, accompanied now by two Aborigines and two servants of Irish settler John Scully of Bolgart, they proceeded north-west and made camp in this district. The initial months were difficult. Gorman was accidentally shot dead (by Fonteinne) in June that year, and Fonteinne, distraught following the accident, abandoned the mission and returned to France. So it was the two Spaniards who were responsible for the foundation of the mission that grew into the New Norcia of today. Although, as its inaugural superior, Serra had responsibility for the mission, his appointment in 1849 as Co-adjutor Bishop of Perth diverted his missionary energy. After ten very active, but fairly troubled years, he left for Europe in 1859, never to return. So the first period of New Norcia’s history is usually known as the Salvado Era.