The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Polding, Most Rev. John Bede
Polding, Most Rev. John Bede, D.D., first Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, N.S.W., and Metropolitan of Australia and Tasmania, was born in Liverpool, England, on Nov. 18th, 1794, and educated at St. Gregory's College, Downside. In July 1810 he took the habit of the Benedictine order, made his religious profession a year later, and was ordained priest in March 1819. Up to 1834 Australia—so far as the Roman Catholic Church was concerned—was under the episcopal supervision of the Bishop of Mauritius, who appointed the late Dr. Ullathorne his Vicar-General. In that year it was decided to create a separate organisation for the administration of the Antipodean Church, and at its head it was concluded to place Father Polding, who was made Bishop of Hiero-Cæsarea in partibus, with the local title of Vicar Apostolic of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land. This was carried out by a bull of Pope Gregory XVI., issued in May. In June Dr. Polding was consecrated, and in Sept. 1835 he arrived in Sydney, where he was soon busily engaged in laying the basis of the ecclesiastical organisation which has since so marvellously developed. In 1841 he visited Rome, and, it having been decided to create an archiepiscopal see in Sydney, Dr. Polding was appointed the first Archbishop on April 10th, 1842. He was also created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire and a Bishop assistant to the Papal throne. The assumption of the title of Archbishop by Dr. Polding created vast excitement in Anglican circles in Sydney, and was made the subject of a solemn public protest by Bishop Broughton, who, in happy ignorance of the dictum soon to be pronounced by the Privy Council as to the invalidity of all territorial titles granted by the Crown to colonial dignitaries subsequent to 1843, formally denounced the assumption of the title without the royal authority. Like the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill agitation in England, later on, the hubbub in the colony soon died away, leaving to each sect the untrammelled but entirely unofficial choice of the titular designations of its hierarchy. On three subsequent occasions Archbishop Polding revisited Europe; and in 1871 he again set forth to attend the Œcumenical Council of the Vatican, summoned to consider the question of Papal infallibility. He did not, however, get further than Aden, whence his debilitated health compelled him to return to Sydney. The Archbishop (who obtained the assistance of the late Archbishop Vaughan as coadjutor in 1873) died at the Sacred Heart Presbytery, Darlinghurst, Sydney, on March 16th, 1877, his remains being honoured with a public funeral.