Moruya, Brisbane Water, NSW

T.W. Campbell, The Priests of the Diocese of Armidale: A Necrology, Braddon ACT, 2005:
Johnson, William Xavier

Date and place of birth unknown [England 1805). Details of education unknown. He entered a Cistercian monastery where he was professed (date unknown), and was a member of the first community of monks to take up residence at Mount Melleray, Ireland. He came to New South Wales in 1848 as part of a group to establish a monastery at Brisbane Water, but the monastery was never built. He decided to remain in the colony and was ordained two years later in Sydney as a secular priest, date of ordination unknown. He was sent after ordination to Moruya and Wollongong. In 1863 he was transferred from Wollongong to Grafton where he established a base, travelling to Casino, Lismore and Tabulam. He commenced construction of the first church at Grafton, its foundation stone laid by Dean J T Lynch on 8 September 1866. In August 1867 the coastal territory was divided, the Richmond and Tweed areas forming a new mission district placed in the charge of John Francis O'Neill. The new Grafton church was officially opened on 22 December 1867. He was responsible for starting the first Catholic school in Grafton (November 1868). Not long after the establishment of the Diocese of Armidale (1869) he retired to Manly, where he lived for two years. He suffered a stroke in 1871, recovered, proposed returning permanently to England in 1872, moved temporarily to Woolloomooloo, and died on 23 January 1872, aged 67. He was buried in the Petersham cemetery.
(Source: FJ 27 Jan 1872 p 7, 6 May 1937 p 36, MDHC A-Z J11).

(Reproduced by permission of Tom Campbell.)