The Journey
Armidale
1889 - 1897
This country town is close to 375 kilometres north of Sydney, not far north of Tamworth, Australia's capital of country and western music.
 
Map

Click here to go to articles from Freeman's Journal on Armidale.
"The Maitland branch got broken up Christmas 1888 - The Brothers were invited to Armidale by Dr Torregiani the bishop to take up his parochial school and college which he laid the foundation of. Only two, Eugene Ryan and Ambrose Ryan left Maitland for Armidale. Brother Ambrose Ryan dies of typhoid a few weeks after his arrival in Armidale."

"At Armidale Brother Eugene Ryan never had more than one or tewo Brothers with him, and had no senior Brother to guide him, and being thus left practically on his own he gradually lost the spirit of his vocation."

The Armidale school was small. In 1892 there were twenty-four boarders and thirty-four day pupils and a small primary group.

The Brothers struggled in Armidale and were not able to meet all their bills. Brothers Ignatius Price and Thomas Hunt went ther in 1895 to pay off all the debts. They were able to do this in two years, after which the Brothers were withdrawn from Armidale. Again their seems to have been tension between the Brothers and the local Dean.