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Students by the Grotto, 1928
Source: San Clemente Archives
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"San Clemente, Mayfield, founded in 1916* with three religious and a school of thirty**, has grown in 1927 to a community of ten with three hundred pupils. A new property was purchased in 1919, the school is registered to Intermediate standard, the boarding school accommodation is scarcely adequate to the growing demand and the influence of the school in the midst of a vast industrial centre promises to be great indeed. The work of the Sisters in this busy neighbourhood has been singularly blessed in conversions and in vocations. Two postulants have gone from this school to the novitiate at Maitland, and others, both boys and girls, have answered the Divine Call to other fields of labour.
"The distinction of San Clemente is that within close call of a pulsing industrial centre it preserves the most monastic calm, raised by its height above the smoke and din, secured by its extensive grounds from the onrush of advancing industrialism."
(Diamond Jubilee 1867-1927. Dominican Sisters: Maitland, 1927)
*Bishop Dwyer granted the option of taking up a new convent at Mayfield on the 9th November, 1916. The property in Kerr St. was purchased in 1917.
** The Golden Jubilee Book 1867-1917, St. Mary's Maitland, NSW, 1917. states that the school opened with fifty pupils.
