Catherine Coffey

Catherine Brosnaham Coffey (1805 – 31 August 1894) was an Irish-born Australian pioneer in the Port Phillip District who was the first Catholic school teacher in Melbourne and the first sacristan of the first Catholic church in Victoria, St Francis. Roman Catholic canon law gives the responsibility of teaching children the catechism to pastors, bishops, clerics and members of religious societies. Coffey was the first lay person and the first woman reported to have taught the Catholic catechism to children in Victoria, and is referred to as the first teacher at a Catholic school in Melbourne. When Geoghegan arrived in 1839, he praised Coffey for her initiative and for her “care and zeal” in establishing and conducting the first school in Melbourne. She was singled out by Archbishop Justin Simonds as “an outstanding Catholic personality” in a requiem for pioneers in 1939. Geoghegan used a small travelling wooden box that belonged to Coffey, covered with a linen cloth, as the altar for the first mass held in the Port Phillip District. This box is held by the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne at the Goold Catholic Museum.

Catherine and Jeremiah Coffey had a large family of ten children. In total, seven of their children predeceased them. The first died as an infant, and six died in their twenties. They were survived by their youngest three children, a son and two daughters who both became religious sisters and joined the Convent of the Good Shepherd in Bendigo.

An obituary published on 3 September 1894 noted: "Mrs Coffey was the mother of a fine family whose members were well known and highly respected in the district".