REDWOOD, FRANCIS (1839-1935) was born at Lower Hanyard, Staffordshire, the son of Henry Redwood (1794-1873, q.v.), his mother being one of the Gilberts of Penkridge. In 1842 he came to Nelson in the George Fyfe with his parents and the rest of the family, who settled at Waimea West. As a pupil at Father Garin's school, he showed such promise that his parents were prevailed upon to give him a better education. He was taken with some others for a week to board in Nelson with Father Garin to prepare him for his first communion, and it was to this priest that Redwood owed his decision to become a priest. He was in fact the first New Zealand boy to elect for the Catholic priesthood. For more than three years he remained as a boarder with Father Garin, going home to Stafford Place, Waimea, once a month. While at school he was taught by another pupil to play the violin and it became his lifelong pastime and accomplishment. He gained a good mastery of Latin and French under Garin, his assistant (Moreau), and Brother Claude Bertrand, and in his holidays he worked in the harvest field and did other farm duties.

In 1854 Redwood sailed in the brig Mountain Maid for Sydney, and thence in the Lady Ann for London, Father Comte being a fellow passenger. He became a student in 1856 at St Mary's Marist College at St Chamond, in the department of Loire, where by hard work he found himself capable of holding a place about the middle of the class. At the end of his course (1860), he shared with another student most of the prizes and won the award in rhetoric for French discourses. He then entered the scholasticate of the Marist Fathers, at Montbel, near Toulon, where he formed friendships with John Ireland (later Archbishop of St Paul, Minnesota) and Thomas O'Gorman (later Bishop of Sioux Falls). Having made his year's novitiate at St Foy, near Lyons, Redwood was appointed professor of Latin and Greek at St Mary's College, Dundalk. He made his profession in the Society of St Mary on 6 Jan 1864; was ordained in 1865; and a short time afterwards raised to the priesthood at Maynooth, county Kildare. He then studied for the licentiate of theology and spent a winter in Rome for the sake of his health.

Returning to Ireland in 1869, he was appointed almost immediately professor of dogma to the Marist scholastics in Dublin. On the death of Bishop Viard (1872) a vacancy occurred in the bishopric of Wellington, and Redwood was called to the episcopate, the first New Zealand bishop (as he was later to be the first Marist archbishop). He was consecrated by Cardinal Manning at St Anne's, Spitalfields, London, on 17 Mar 1874 and in Nov took charge of a see which then extended from Wellington to New Plymouth and Wairoa in the north and to the Waitaki river in the south. At the time of his becoming Bishop there were 31 priests, of whom two were invalids and two were resting in Sydney; 56 churches and 34 schools.

Redwood threw himself with zeal and energy into the development of his diocese. The creation of the bishopric of Christchurch in 1887 synchronised with his own elevation to the status of Archbishop and Metropolitan of New Zealand. He was Archbishop for almost 50 years, and witnessed a great increase in the priesthood and institutions of the Church. One of his notable achievements was the establishment of St Patrick's College in Wellington; he watched over the establishment of many other institutions, including those of Mother Aubert; and took a warm interest in higher education outside the purely denominational sphere. He was a member of the senate of the University of New Zealand (1877-1903). At the celebration of the golden jubilee of his episcopate, in 1924, Redwood was created assistant at the Pontifical throne. He published in 1922 a small booklet of his Reminiscences of Early Days in New Zealand. He died on 3 Jan 1935.

Cycl. N.Z., i; Who's Who N.Z., 1908, 1924, 1932; Redwood, op. cit. (p); Archbp. Redwood's Diamond Jubilee (p); Evening Post, 26 Feb 1934, 4 Jan 1935 (p); The Dominion, 26 Jan; N.Z. Life, 10 Dec 1927 (p); The Month, Jan 1935 (p)

Reference: Volume 2, page 107

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