St Anne's, Belgravia
(Pictured below: The Old Church Building)
The First Mass
in Johannesburg was celebrated in Ferreira's Mining Camp in a hut beside the bakery owned by Mr. and Mrs.
Whelan by Rev. Fr. Trabaud O.M.I. on Sunday 20th February 1887; other masses are recorded inter alia, in the
Blacksmith shop of Mr. Kennedy. Later the first permanent
church was built on the corner of Smal and Fox Streets (the site of the Carlton Hotel) and blessed (21st
August 1887) by the Prefect Apostolic Fr.. Monginoux O.M.I. dedicated to Our Lady and St Joachim . The next
parish established after this was that of Mayfair and then came that of Belgravia.
It is a tradition of the
Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (O.M.I.) fathers, that the first parish of an area is dedicated to Our
Lady and after that to St Joseph (Mayfair) and so it was that St Anne’s got its name. The nave was blessed
and opened in 1906 by The Rt. Revd. +William Miller O.M.I.
The parish which was first served by Fr. Serriere, then by Fr. Kempf, Fr. Wilks;
and Fr. Soye; who died in June
1922. It was after him whom The Fr. Soye Memorial Hall was named, it is he who built the presbytery – upgrading the one room adjoining the church in which the clergy lived until that
point.
After this there was an
interchange between Frs.. Roux of Yeoville and Delport of Belgravia and the respective parishes, in order
followed Frs. Carroll and Docherty until 1967 when the parish was occupied by Fr. P. McCluskey O.M.I. who after
noticing that the façade was breaking away from the building, and was pronounced unsafe and was marked for
demolition.
So it was that the in the tenure of Fr. P. McCluskey O.M.I. that The New Church of St Anne’s Belgravia was built, designed by B.G. Hillen of F.M. Gunnell and Assoc. – ARCHITECTS. The Rt. Revd. +Hugh Boyle Bishop of Johannesburg blessed and opened by on 18th of November 1972
© 2002 St Anne's Parish, Belgravia, © 2002 (Images) Oblates of Mary Immaculate - Transvaal
Province
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Created for the Thirtieth Anniversary of the New Church, with love Marius