Australian Dictionary of Biography entry:
Joseph Benedict Serra (1810–1886)
by E. Perez

This article was published in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 6, 1976, online in 2006.

Joseph Benedict Serra (1810-1886), Catholic bishop, was born on 11 May 1810 at Mataró, Spain, youngest son of Joseph Serra Fuster, merchant, and his wife Teresa Julia. Orphaned at 11, he was educated at Barcelona and at 16 became a Benedictine monk in the monastery of St Martin of Compostela, taking the name of Benedict. Completing his education at the Benedictine colleges, Irache in Navarre, and St Vincent in Oviedo, Spain, he was ordained priest in May 1835. A few months later, when the first Spanish Republic declared religious life in common illegal, Serra left Spain and entered the abbey of La Cava near Naples. In 1844 with R. Salvado he offered himself for work in foreign missions. Both were accepted and were intended originally for New South Wales, but were later appointed to Bishop Brady's missionary party bound for Western Australia where they arrived in the Elizabeth on 8 January 1846.

After initial difficulties Serra, as superior of a community of four Benedictine monks, began missionary work among the nomadic Aboriginals of Victoria Plains where the foundation stone of the monastery of New Norcia was laid on 1 March 1847. Next year, after the first diocesan synod, he left for Europe to raise funds and recruits for the mission. In Rome he was consecrated first bishop of Port Victoria but representations from Brady changed his appointment to coadjutor of Perth. With ample funds from Italy, mainly from his many influential friends in Spain, he returned in December 1849 with forty religious and artisans for New Norcia. Sharp differences arose with Brady, who refused to accept him as coadjutor of Perth and tried to obtain control of his funds. The conflict was only resolved by legal action and the disciplinary visit of Archbishop Polding in 1852.

During his administration of Perth diocese in 1850-62 Serra enlarged the existing church and collected money for the erection of a new one; he also built churches in Fremantle, Guildford, Toodyay, York, Dardanup, Albany and Bunbury. He built a magnificent residence for the bishop and his priests in Perth, and provided schools and teachers for Perth and Fremantle. He also showed great interest in the welfare of prisoners at Rottnest Island and newly arrived convicts. His impetuous zeal in these and other controversial issues did not increase his popularity among many local residents.

In 1853-55 Serra visited Europe for his health and returned with more missionaries and four sisters of the French community of St Joseph. In the mid-1850s he took a firm stand against Governor Kennedy on the question of education and the rights of independent schools. He left it to Salvado to smooth the difficulties created but Serra's individualistic character and attitude caused dissension between them. Salvado resented his disregard for their common foundation of New Norcia and his concentration of attention and missionaries on the monastery he had founded at Subiaco, three miles from Perth. Salvado was dedicated to the Aboriginals at New Norcia, but Serra stressed the immediate and future needs of the diocese of Perth, of which he was now the undisputed administrator.

The monastery of New Norcia was given autonomy on 1 April 1859. Serra returned to Europe expecting that the decision would be reversed; he wanted to carry out his ambitions for Subiaco and to build a new cathedral for Perth, for which he sent a Carrara marble altar. As no change was made by 1862, he resigned from 'all the titles which bound me to the Church of Perth'. He returned via England to Spain, where he founded the Oblates of the Most Holy Redeemer, a community of nuns devoted to the care of lapsed and destitute girls and based on female social work he had observed in London; it spread rapidly through South America as well as Spain and in recent years has extended its work to Boston and New York in the United States of America.

Serra died on 8 September 1886 in a rest home in Guadalajara, Spain, and was buried at the mother house of his foundation at Ciempozuelos, Madrid. The suburb of Subiaco in Perth takes its name from his monastery.

Select Bibliography

P. F. Moran, History of the Catholic Church in Australia (Syd, 1895)
J. T. Reilly, Reminiscences of Fifty Years' Residence in Western Australia (Perth, 1903)
H. N. Birt, Benedictine Pioneers in Australia, vol 2 (Lond, 1911)
Centenary of the Catholic Church in Western Australia (Perth, 1946)
Serra letters and papers (New Norcia Archives and Roman Catholic Archdiocesan Archives, Perth).

Citation details
E. Perez, 'Serra, Joseph Benedict (1810–1886)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/serra-joseph-benedict-4560/text7481, published first in hardcopy 1976, accessed online 3 July 2025.

This article was published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 6, (Melbourne University Press), 1976.

Reproduced by permission of Australian Dictionary of Biography. Original biography: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/serra-joseph-benedict-4560.

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Shipping Intelligence, The Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and News, 4 January 1850, p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3171201:

Arrived.—On the 29th ult. the Spanish man-of-war La Ferrolana, 30 guns, Capt. Don José Maria de Quesada, from Cadiz 6th October. Passengers—Right Rev. Bp. Serra, Revds. D. Salvadore Marino and D. M. Urquhart, and 36 Spanish and Italian lay-brethren and artizans. [...]

The announcement of the arrival of a Spanish man-of-war in our port on Saturday last, caused no little excitement in our generally, unexcitable community, more particularly as until the evening no further intelligence, as to the cause of her visit, could be obtained. She is a fine frigate of 32 guns with a complement of 220 men. On coming to an anchor she saluted with 18 guns, which compliment, however, it was not in the power of the authorities at Fremantle to return, until Monday morning; but in order to explain this apparent discourtesy the Resident R. M'B, Broun, Esq., immediately went off to her, and informed Capt. Quesada of our meagre possessions in the way of ordnance—that what he saw on the Gaol hill was not a fort, but merely three or four old guns, only one of which was fit for service, and, we verily believe, he might have added there was not sufficient powder at hand, even if there were a sufficiency of cannon, to return his courtesy. La Ferrolana, such is the name of the frigate, she left Cadiz on the 6th October, for a voyage round the world; she has touched at no port, and made a good passage of 84 days, including several days calm; she brings us a large accession to our population, in the shape of thirty-nine ecclesiastics and artizans, headed by Bishop Serra, who, it may be remembered left this for Europe, in the Merope, in February, 1848, on a mission for the furtherance of the interests of the Roman Catholic Church in this province, in which he has been so far successful as to return, not only with an increase of dignity to himself, but also with ample means for carrying on the Roman Catholic mission for the conversion of the aborigines. Bishop Serra was originally consecrated to preside over the mission in North Australia, but, from representations made, we believe by Dr. Brady, his destination was changed for this province, as coadjutor Bishop, and in his place Father Rosendo Salvado has been consecrated for N. Australia; we hear, however, it is not at all improbable that, in consequence of that settlement having been abandoned by the British Government, Bishop Salvado will likewise be stationed in this province, at Albany. The two native boys taken to Europe by Bishop Salvado, have been placed in the school for the children for the nobility at Naples, previous to which they were created noblemen (!) by the title it is said, of Earl, (probably Count, or Marquis.) The thanks of the Colony are justly due to Bishop Serra, although, of course, his first object was the promotion of the welfare of his Church, still in doing so, he has also furthered in no slight degree the interests of his adopted country, by introducing into it so large an accession of population, some of whom, coming from countries pre-eminently famed for the growth of the vine and olive, are doubtless well acquainted, with their cultivation, and will do much towards the development here; we understand that all have been selected with care for their aptitude at the different professions they exercise. The immediate cause of the arrival of this body of settlers in a man-of-war, was through the intercession of the Papal Nuncio at the Court of Madrid, by whose interest they were generously granted a free passage by the Spanish Government.