Lourdes Hill College

Lourdes Hill College is a Good Samaritan Education secondary day school for girls, located in the inner-eastern Brisbane suburb of Hawthorne, Queensland, Australia. The college also operated as a boarding school until its boarding facilities were closed in 2011. The college was named after Lourdes in France, where Mary is said to have appeared to a young girl named Bernadette Soubirous. It was founded in 1916 by the Sisters of the Good Samaritan of the Order of Saint Benedict, and as of 2023 caters for approximately 1200 students from Years 7 to 12 (11 to 18 years of age). Lourdes Hill is one of a network of 10 schools under the care of Good Samaritan Education, a church entity set up to take over the educational mission of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan. The college was incorporated by the Sisters of the Good Samaritan in 1986 as a Company Limited by Guarantee. It is affiliated with the Queensland Catholic Education Commission, the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia (AHISA), and the Brisbane Schoolgirls Sporting Association (BSGSA). The school was previously affiliated with the Australian Boarding Schools' Association (ABSA). History Lourdes Hill College traces its origins to 1915, when the Archbishop of Brisbane, James Duhig, invited the Sisters of the Good Samaritan to establish schools in Brisbane. Subsequently, that same year, thirteen Sisters travelled from Sydney opening convents at Bulimba and Coorparoo. Archbishop Duhig offered the sisters one of the choicest sites in Brisbane for a convent and a secondary girls' school. Lourdes Hill College was established in January 1916, with Mother Berchmans and thirteen sisters sailing up the river on the ship "Osterley" and docking at the site.