St Brigid's Church, Stuart

St Brigid's Church is a heritage-listed Roman Catholic church at 523 Stuart Drive, Stuart, City of Townsville, Queensland, Australia. It was built in 1904. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.HistorySt Brigid's Church at Stewart's Creek was constructed in 1904 by Townsville builders Doig & Ritchie, who also supplied 8 timber pews. Messrs Rooney and Co of Townsville supplied the pine altar and other furnishings.Title to the initially 50 acre site was acquired by Fr William Mason Walsh, the parish priest at Townsville, in 1885, but it took nearly 20 years before a church was erected and furnished, at a cost of about £225 - illustrating the relative poverty of the local Catholic community. The building was opened on 2 October 1904 by the Right Rev. Dr Murray, Vicar Apostolic of Cooktown, who had journeyed from Cairns to Townsville especially for the purpose.In 1904, Stewart's Creek was under the administration of St Joseph's on The Strand, which still lay within the Diocese of Rockhampton. Later it came under the jurisdiction of the parishes of West End and then Mundingburra, before Stewart's Creek was established as a separate parish in 1945. Father TA Kelly was appointed the first pastor of Stewart's Creek, and a presbytery was erected adjacent to the church in 1946, at a cost of £1,680.