ROCHE, NICHOLAS E. (1866-1932)

ROCHE, NICHOLAS E., Catholic priest of the Basilian congregation, and first superior of St Thomas College, 1910-11; b. Co. Cork, Ireland, 7 Feb 1866; ordained 1897; d. Owen Sound, Ont., 16 May 1932.

Nicholas E. Roche came to Canada as a boy and grew up in the Toronto area. After spending a period of time in the workforce he completed his education at St Michael's College. He entered the Basilian novitiate in 1893 and was later trained for the priesthood at Assumption College in Windsor, Ont., and St Basil's Seminary in Toronto. After his ordination in 1897 he taught at St Michael's and was later founding superior of St Thomas High School in Houston, Texas. In 1907 he was appointed superior of St Michael's.

Roche left his position in Toronto in 1910 to serve as the first superior of St Thomas College in Chatham, the conduct of which was entrusted to the Basilians by Bishop Thomas F. Barry. St Thomas was the successor, after a thirty-year hiatus, of St Michael's Commercial College, which was conducted by the Christian Brothers of Montreal between 1876 and 1880, and of its predecessor, St Michael's male academy, which was founded by Bishop James Rogers in 1861. At the beginning the college was really a junior-senior high school, admitting boys who had finished grade six. It was both a day and residential school, with sixty students from Chatham and thirteen boarders in 1910-11.

Roche remained in Chatham for only one year. In 1911 he was recalled to Toronto to fill the position of provincial of the congregation. He was later master of novices in Toronto and taught again at St Michael's College. In 1925 he became the parish priest in Owen Sound, Ont., and he was still the priest there when his death occurred seven years later.