Australia: New Norcia

The monastery and town of New Norcia, 130 kilometres north of Perth, were established in 1847 by Bishops Rosendo Salvado and Joseph Serra, both of whom had been fellow monks at the monastery of St Martin in Compostela, Spain. Today the monastery is home to eight monks under the current and seventh abbot, Fr John Herbert.

In its early years, the monastery and the community existed to look after the local indigenous population which resulted in the construction of two orphanages for native boys and girls. They continued as both orphanages and schools well into the 1970s when changes in local demographics brought about their closure. Two large schools for the sons and daughters of local farmers, businessmen etc. were built under the second abbot, Fulgentius Torres, in 1908 and 1913 and these continued until the early 1990s. Since the closure of these schools, the monastery has become a centre for tourism with some 70,000 visitors annually.

The Archives was established in the 1970s after Fr Eugene Perez brought together the huge quantities of documents and photographs that the monks had been zealously guarding since the establishment of the monastery.

Today, the Archives occupies five adjoining rooms, one of which is a dedicated strongroom which has been fireproofed and climate controlled. Various grants and awards, over the years has seen the modernisation of the archives, from microfilming through to databases and digitisation, and the appointment of a full time qualified archivist. The Community's collection of approximately 20,000 items of correspondence from the Salvado years (1847–1900) has been catalogued and summarised and a scanning programme is now in progress. Similarly the Archives' collection of some 60,000 photographs dating from the 1870s onwards is being scanned with about 8,000 having been completed so far. In addition to the valuable correspondence collection, and the John Howard Prayerbook, there is a priceless collection of diaries, written by the monks and predominantly from Salvado's era.

The Abbot and the Community are keen to encourage continuing research into the Archives and further information about New Norcia and its collections may be found at: https://www.newnorcia.wa.edu.au

The Archivist can be contacted on archives@newnorcia.wa.edu.au