9. Peter L'Estrange SJ AO

Peter L’Estrange SJ AO

(WIKIPEDIA)

Peter L’Estrange was educated at St Aloysius’ College, Sydney.  In 1966, he was both school captain and dux, the title conferred on the student achieving the highest marks in public examinations.  From 1981 to 1983, he was the Roman Catholic chaplain to the University of Queensland. 

He undertook graduate study at Campion Hall, Oxford and in 1991 was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) for his thesis, The nineteenth-century British Jesuits, with special reference to their relations with the vicars apostolic and the bishops.

From 1991 until 2006, he was Rector of Newman College, University of Melbourne.  He was Master of Campion Hall, Oxford 2006-2008 and then worked at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., before returning to Australia in 2013, taking up residence in Canberra.

He was also an Honorary Fellow of Mannix College, Monash University.

Brenda Niall, Josephine Dunin, Frances O’Neill, Newman College, A History 1918-2018, Newman College, Parkville, 2018, pp.208-9

John McEncroe, a medical student at Newman from 1958 to 1963 believed Peter L’Estrange’s great contribution was to bring Newman out into the university and to establish links with the other colleges:

‘Peter was certainly a terrific rector around the Crescent and with the other colleges and with the university.  He engaged with the university probably much more than any rector before him I think.  He raised the profile of not only of Newman, but also the residential colleges and all the university level. ‘