Mercedes College is a private

Private school

Private schools, also known as independent schools or nonstate schools, are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students' tuition, rather than relying on mandatory...

, all girls' high school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

 located in the CBD

Central business district

A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...

 of Perth, Western Australia

Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

.

The school was founded in 1846 by the Sisters of Mercy

Sisters of Mercy

The Religious Order of the Sisters of Mercy is an order of Catholic women founded by Catherine McAuley in Dublin, Ireland, in 1831. , the order has about 10,000 members worldwide, organized into a number of independent congregations....

, thus making it the oldest independent Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

 girls' school in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, and the oldest existing secondary school in Perth.
There are currently 800 students attending the college and the current principal is Sheena Barber.

The name Mercedes comes from the Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 word for mercy

Mercy

Mercy is broad term that refers to benevolence, forgiveness and kindness in a variety of ethical, religious, social and legal contexts.The concept of a "Merciful God" appears in various religions from Christianity to...

.

History

The school has its beginnings in the landing at the Swan River Colony

Swan River Colony

The Swan River Colony was a British settlement established in 1829 on the Swan River, in Western Australia. The name was a pars pro toto for Western Australia. In 1832, the colony was officially renamed Western Australia, when the colony's founding Lieutenant-Governor, Captain James Stirling,...

 of Irish Sisters of Mercy. Led by Sister Ursula Frayne, they founded the first Catholic school in the colony on 2 February 1846
beginning their teaching with just one pupil. Classes were conducted in a rented St Georges Terrace cottage, near Victoria Avenue. By the end of the first day's teaching, the numbers had swelled to six students. Enrolment grew to 100 by the end of 1846, by which time the school had moved to permanent accommodation at Victoria Square.

The first Mercy Convent in Australia was constructed in 1847 on the Victoria Square site, and remains in use today, known as "Holy Cross Convent".
Two separate schools were run from the Victoria Square site. The original was known as St Joseph's School, and was a free, co-educational school. The other school run from the site was Ladies' College, opened opened in 1896, which did charge for tuition. It was later renamed "Our Lady's College". The two schools amalgamated in 1967 to form Mercedes College. The last of the school's boarding students left in 1981.

Over the years, the number of Sisters of Mercy at the site has dwindled, with the last Mercy Sister Principal of Mercedes, Sister Assisium Wright, retiring in 1996.