John Bede Polding

John Bede Polding, OSB (18 October 1794 in Liverpool, England – 16 March 1877 in Sydney, Australia) was the first Roman Catholic Bishop and then Archbishop of Sydney, Australia.

Polding was born in Liverpool, England in 1794. His father was of Dutch descent and his mother came from the Brewer family, recusants since the sixteenth century. His family name was also spelled Poulden or Polten. His parents died and at age 8 he was placed in the care of his uncle, Father Bede Brewer, president-general of the English Benedictine Congregation. Polding was first taught by the Benedictine nuns of the Convent of Our Lady of Consolation of Cambray, who as refugees from revolutionary France were located at Much Woolton, near Liverpool. At 11, he was sent to St Gregory's Benedictine College, at Acton Burnell, near Shrewsbury, Shropshire. On 15 July 1810 Polding was admitted to the religious community, taking the name of Bede. He received minor orders in 1813 from Bishop Milner at Wolverhampton, was ordained priest by Bishop Poynter at Old Hall College on 4 March 1819.

Polding and party arrived first in Hobart on 6 August 1835 leaving a priest and a student there and arrived in Sydney on 13 September 1835. Polding travelled widely throughout Australia and was regarded as hard-working; a letter in the Weekly Orthodox Journal (1839) quoted a letter from Sydney: "His labors are incessant, his zeal unbounded, Protestants as well as Catholics revere him as a saint". Polding travelled to Europe in November 1840, during his absence Francis Murphy was appointed vicar-general of the diocese.

Polding was appointed the first bishop of Sydney on 5 April 1842, and Archbishop on 22 April 1842. Despite his many successes as a founding bishop, Polding experienced a degree of resistance from his largely Irish Catholic church in Australia. Even after the English Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, the Irish understood any English leadership (even English Catholic bishops) in sectarian terms.

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