Robert Spence (bishop)
Robert William Spence (13 January 1860 – 5 November 1934) was an Irish-born Australian Dominican priest who became the third Roman Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide.
He was born in Cork, Ireland, and educated by the Christian Brothers and Vincentian Fathers. He joined the Dominican Order, professed in 1878, and studied for the priesthood at the College of Corpo Santo in Lisbon. He was ordained on 23 December 1882 and celebrated the first Dominican high Mass in Portugal since 1833 two days later.
Spence worked in Cork and Newry, Ireland, and became a popular and forceful preacher. In 1892 he was named prior of the Black Abbey in Kilkenny, a post he held for six years. In 1898 he moved to Adelaide, Australia, as the first Dominican friars’ house in the country and served there as prior until 1901. He built a priory at St Laurence’s Church in North Adelaide and led religious retreats.
He founded the Adelaide Catholic Club in 1899 and remained active in Catholic groups, serving as president of the state branch of the Australian Catholic Federation and reviving the North Adelaide branch of the Hibernian Australasian Catholic Benefit Society.
From 1908 he helped run the Archdiocese and advised Archbishop John O’Reily. In 1914 he was appointed coadjutor archbishop, despite some objections, and was consecrated on 16 August. When O’Reily died on 6 July 1915, Spence became Archbishop of Adelaide. He often wore the simple Dominican habit rather than the usual archbishop’s robe.
As archbishop, he reduced the diocese’s debt and, after a visit to Rome in 1921, raised funds to complete St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral, which opened in 1926. In 1920 a speech he gave in Newry praising the Irish flag led to controversy in Australia.
In July 1933 he was given honors and Andrew Killian was appointed to assist him as coadjutor. Spence died in Adelaide on 5 November 1934, and the city Council paused its proceedings to honor him.
In 1931 he dedicated a pulpit at St Xavier’s, designed by architect Herbert Jory, as a memorial to World War I soldiers.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 16:50 (CET).