St Virgil's College is an independent Catholic primary and secondary day school for boys, located over two campuses in Austins Ferry and Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Established in 1911 by the Congregation of Christian Brothers, the College has a non-selective enrolment policy and caters for approximately 680 students, from Kindergarten to Year 12, with 120 at the junior campus and 480 at the senior campus.
St Virgil's is affiliated with the Junior School Heads Association of Australia (JSHAA), the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia (AHISA), and is a member of the Sports Association of Tasmanian Independent Schools (SATIS). Oversight of the school is administered by the Archdiocese of Hobart, Tasmanian Catholic Education Office, and the school is a member of Edmund Rice Education Australia.
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History
St Virgil's College was formally opened on 22 January 1911 by The Christian Brothers. Leo Doyle was the first student admitted to the college. At is foundation the college was a boarding school for boys located in Barrack Street, Hobart. The boarding section of the college was closed in 1970 and since then St Virgil's College has been a day school only.
In 1962, another campus was opened in Austins Ferry, offering junior secondary grades (Grades 7–9) on a riverside property of 30 hectares. In 1991, three Grade 10 streams were also added. 2012 marks the 50 year celebrations for the campus.
The Barrack Street campus then expanded for students from Grades 7–12 until 1994 when, under the Southern Secondary Schools Restructuring Plan, the campus no longer accepted enrolments for Grade 7. At the end of 1994, Grades 8, 11 and 12 ceased to run at the Barrack Street campus, and all secondary grades were moved to the Austins Ferry campus. This allowed Guilford Young College (Grades 11 and 12) to be established on the Barrack Street site. Grades 9 and 10 still ran in 1995, and only Grade 10 was offered in 1996.
After 1996, St Virgil's College ceased to operate any of its classes on the Barrack Street campus. From then on, Grades 7–10 were all taught at the Austins Ferry campus, and because of the discontinuation of Grades 11–12, many students moved on to the newly formed Guilford Young College for their pre-tertiary years.
In August 1995, permission was granted for St Peter's School to become the St Virgil's College Junior School from 1996 onwards. The Junior School now accommodates boys from Grades 3–6 and operates on the old St Peter's School site in Patrick Street.
The current principal of St Virgil's College is John Franzin, who was appointed in 2022. Damian Messer left the college in 2021 to carry out other goals and explore different paths. In 2009, Christopher D. Smith left the college to carry out higher duties. Franzin is now the full-time principal, with Daniel Lapolla as the vice-principal teacher of the college, who replaced Heidi Senior in 2021.
In 2019, it was announced that St Virgil's College would expand from a Year 3–10 school to a kindergarten to Year 12 school. Since 2023, the college has catered for Year 11 and 12 students, with the first cohort of Year 12s graduating in 2024.
House system
As with most Australian schools, St Virgil's utilises a house system. The school houses are:
Doyle – Blue
Dwyer – Green
Hessian (formerly Virgilian House) – Red
Joyce (formerly College House) – Yellow
Notable alumni
An alumnus of St Virgil's College is known as an 'Old Virgilian' and may elect to join the school's alumni association, the Old Virgilians' Association. The Association was established in 1916 as a way for Old Virgilians to meet regularly and keep in touch with news about the college. Some notable Old Virgilians include:
Entertainment, media and the arts
Anthony Ackroyd – comedian and writer
Geoff "Jeff" Hook – cartoonist
Tom Lewis – author, military historian and naval officer
Toby Leonard Moore – actor
Don Sharp – film director
Peter Damian Williams – author and military historian
Jeff Coombes – Distinguished Professor of Clinical Exercise Physiology
Military
Major General Michael Crane – Commander of all Australian Forces in the Middle East area of operations (Iraq)
Politics, public service and the law
Henry Cosgrove – Judge of the Supreme Court of Tasmania
William Cox – Governor of Tasmania
Anthony Fletcher – former member of the Legislative Council
Peter Heerey – Justice of the Federal Court of Australia
Pierre Hutton – diplomat