Mick & Joan Darmody & Archbishop Guilford YoungPrint Page

The bas relief of St Augustine of Hippo commemorates Mick and Joan Darmody, and Archbishop Guilford Young.

Archbishop Guilford Clyde Young was a shearer’s son born in Queensland.  He was awarded a bursary to study in Rockhampton, he applied to become a priest of that diocese when aged 16. He studied for the priesthood at St Columba’s College in Springwood, New South Wales, before being sent to Rome by St Columba’s rector, Dr Justin Simmonds. Archbishop Young was ordained in Rome in 1939 and was awarded a Doctorate in Divinity from the Pontifical Urban University of Propaganda Fide in 1940.

After returning to Australia, Archbishop Young was for a short period attached to the Cathedral at Rockhampton.  He was appointed secretary to the Apostolic Delegation of Australasia in Sydney in 1941, taught theology at Pius XII Seminary in Brisbane from 1944, and was ordained auxiliary bishop of Canberra-Goulburn in 1948, aged 31, making him the youngest Catholic bishop in the world at the time.

 In 1954 he was transferred to the Archdiocese of Hobart as coadjutor archbishop and succeeded Archbishop Tweedy in 1955. Within Tasmania he opened 28 new Catholic schools, significantly extended 22 others, oversaw the establishment of the University of Tasmania’s St John Fisher College, established the Catholic Education Office and the Schools Provident Fund. In 1994 Guilford Young College was founded in honour of Archbishop Young, continuing the tradition of Catholic education for which he laboured.

During his episcopate he founded as the Catholic Family Welfare and Marriage Guidance Bureau, now CatholicCare Tasmania, and the Willson Training Centre for assisting the unemployed.

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