Page 22 - Bulletin 13 2009

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There were between 15 and 20 nuns at the convent, and although the recreational
facility was important it gradually gave way to the educational requirements. These

requirements made significant inroads into the convent almost from the day the building
was completed. In less than four years the convent only housed nun teachers and school

boarders. The recuperation by the sea for weary sisters from the dry wastelands of the

north ceased and by 1914 Star of the Sea was a fully-fledged convent school from
kindergarten to standard five.

The Convent School

The educational aspect of the convent was never initially planned by Fr. Duignam or

Bishop Rooney. It simply occurred once the facility of a convent was available. Fr.

Duignam’s drawings of 1906 did not provide for any facilities for classrooms and, when
the small white private school of ten children opened in 1908, the dining room was used

for morning classes. Fr. Duignam never conceived the idea of anything larger. The

result was that, as the convent’s purpose changed from convalescence to education, and
as the number of school-going children increased, especially with regard to boarders, so

considerable improvisation and adjustments had to be made.

After the Anglo-Boer War ended in 1902 there was a great influx of families desirous of
settling in St. James. This can be gauged by the large increase in the number of houses

built along this seaside coast. Train services improved and more and more businessmen

were able to live at St. James and commute daily to work ‘up the line’ to Wynberg and
Cape Town. The cost of a holiday home at the sea was no longer necessary: one could

both live here and get to work from here. This resulted in a great increase in the number
of school-going children living in St. James. Petition after petition reached Fr. Duignam

from the Catholic community requesting to have their children educated in Catholic
religious doctrine and a sound primary education.

Fr. Duignam duly approached Mother Pius McLaughlin at Springfield after his initial
approach to the Holy Cross Sisters had failed, and a happy and long relationship with