Francis Redwood

Francis William Mary Redwood SM (8 April 1839 – 3 January 1935), was the first Roman Catholic Archbishop of Wellington, Metropolitan of New Zealand.

He became Bishop of Wellington in 1874; he was created Archbishop of Wellington in 1887.

Life Redwood was born on 8 April 1839 on the Tixall estate, Staffordshire, England, a known historical Catholic centre. His parents were Henry Redwood and his wife Mary (née Gilbert). In 1842, he sailed to New Zealand with his parents, siblings (including his brother Henry and his brother in law Joseph Ward) on the George Fyfe.

His father had bought land from the New Zealand Company, and the family settled in Waimea West in the Nelson district. The locality became known as Appleby and his parents had Stafford Place built in 1866. The house is registered as a Category I heritage building by Heritage New Zealand, with registration number 1678.

Redwood was educated at the Nelson school of Fr Antoine Garin, SM. In December 1854 he went to study at St Mary's College at St Chamond, near Lyon, France, and in 1860 he entered the scholasticate of the Society of Mary (Marists) at Montbel, near Toulon. He entered the Marist novitiate at Sainte-Foy. He was ordained priest at Maynooth in 1865 and gained his baccalaureate in theology at Dublin.

Redwood attached great importance to personal visitation. He established numerous churches, hospitals, and orphanages, was a founder of St Patrick's College, Wellington in 1885, and lived to open the new St Patrick's College, Silverstream in 1931 in the Hutt Valley. He expanded and completed St Mary's Cathedral and, after it was destroyed, replaced it with a basilican church which eventually became Sacred Heart Cathedral. He was succeeded by Archbishop Thomas O'Shea SM, Coadjutor-Archbishop since 1913.

List of honours