Welcome to the website of the Biographical Dictionary of Australian Catholic Educators (BDACE), a resource detailing the lives and work of those who have made a significant contribution to Australian Catholic education since the time of colonial settlement. 

Catholic educators have played a major role in the development of Australia – and not just within the strict confines of education. The BDACE captures the contribution and stories of our forebears, paying tribute to those who struggled, often against the odds, to provide Catholic schooling in the past. It also serves to inspire today’s teachers, students, parents, administrators and clergy to emulate the courage and commitment of their predecessors in shaping Catholic education now and into the future. 

The BDACE aims to keep the stories of these predecessors alive to inspire current and future teachers and leaders in Catholic schools and to provide a distinctive research tool.

About

The chronicling of the lives of selected Catholic educators protects an important legacy for the contemporary and future church and society, as well as providing tools for further study and understanding. Subjects in the Biographical Dictionary of Australian Catholic Educators will include lay and religious women and men, clergy and bishops beginning with the days of Australia’s colonial settlement and continuing forward.

The BDACE is designed to protect this legacy and to resource future scholarship by honouring the women and men who made Australian Catholic education what it is today, and in so doing to become a custodian of the crucial national and ecclesiastical legacy which is Australian Catholic education.

Not Forgotten

The BDACE repository contains:

  • Online biographies (the major work of the project)
  • Video interviews with living Catholic educators (Living Legends). The Living Legends project is designed to capture information, perspectives and memories of Catholic educators still living. They will become a resource for research and for biographies only after the death of their subjects or before their death with their consent.
  • Links to biographies in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB)
  • Links to biographies in congregational and diocesan archives
  • Obituaries
  • Historical photographs
  • Essays, books, media articles and resources of relevance to the BDACE

News and events

Contact us

Would you like to learn more about the Biographical Dictionary of Australian Catholic Educators? Do you have suggestions for improvement or additional knowledge to share?

We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions. We appreciate being advised of any errors of fact in entries in the BDACE, and we will address those if you provide primary source evidence that supports the correction or addendum.

You can contact us at bdace@acu.edu.au.

Have a question?

We're available 9am–5pm AEDT,
Monday to Friday

If you’ve got a question, our AskACU team has you covered. You can search FAQs, text us, email, live chat, call – whatever works for you.

Live chat with us now

Chat to our team for real-time
answers to your questions.

Launch live chat

Visit our FAQs page

Find answers to some commonly
asked questions.

See our FAQs