Cresp, Mary; Tranter, Janice Entanglements were part of Julian Edmund Tenison Woods' life from the time of his birth in London on 15 November 1832. His mother, Henrietta Tenison, daughter of a Church of Ireland rector, had several relatives in the Anglican clergy, including Thomas Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Edmund Tenison, Bishop of Ossory. Julian's father, James Dominic, was the son of a Cork businessman and studied law in Ireland. He was Catholic, but not practising during his working years. (...) James and Henrietta married in London, raising their family there. James joined 'The Times' as parliamentary reporter; their home was a centre for Irish writers, newspaper men and those in the medical and legal professions. His brother, Nicholas, following duty as surgeon with the East India Company Civil Service, joined the Woods household with his two daughters after his wife's death. Stories of India and his uncle's collections of 'curiosities of various kinds' fascinated Julian and 'served to form [his] taste for natural history'. (shrink)

The year 2019 saw the 130th anniversary of the death of Julian Tenison Woods, Founder of the Sisters of St Joseph and Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. He died in Sydney on 7 October 1889, aged fifty-six. In the anniversary year the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart invited the Lochinvar Sisters of St Joseph to join them in raising his profile and recognising him as Founder. The founding of the sisters in South Australia and the life of Mary (...) MacKillop have been well publicised and St Mary is widely recognised. Still, though Woods is portrayed and acclaimed in the writing of many, his relatively short and varied life, his remarkable gifts, his impact in the Australian church and the world of science is little known. Woods, the man, the priest, the founder, the scientist, the man of God, a man for our time awaits wider recognition. (shrink)