St Mary's College Wellington is situated in the suburb of Thorndon in Wellington, New Zealand. The school is an integrated all girls Catholic secondary school for years 9-13. The school, which is one of the oldest existing schools in New Zealand, was founded in 1850 by Philippe Viard, first Bishop of Wellington and staffed by a small group of religious sisters, the "Sisters of Mary", established by Viard. Part of the land on which the school is situated was donated by Lord Petre, who was a director of the New Zealand Company and whose family seat Thorndon Hall in Essex was an important centre of Catholic Recusancy from the time of Queen Elizabeth I. Another part of the site was given by Sir George Grey, Governor of New Zealand out of public funds. In 1861 the school was taken over by the Sisters of Mercy who first arrived in Wellington in that year. To begin with, the school was co-educational (boys and girls) and had a boarding facility attached. Nowadays the boarding facility is gone, and it is a single sex girls' school.