The island was a penal colony, and Hobart Town was a transition port for convicts who were being transported further on to places like Norfolk Island and Port Arthur.

The Bishop was struck by what he saw: miserable and harsh conditions, and people being treated with a lack of respect or dignity.

For the first 10 years of his time in Tasmania, and as the state’s first Catholic bishop, he dedicated his work to improving the lives and conditions of convicts, among others.

It was his drive for the betterment of society’s underlings that garnered him so much respect, Catholic Archbishop of Hobart Julian Porteous said.

Bishop Willson’s remains will soon return to Tasmania, to St Mary’s Cathedral in Hobart, which he helped to build.

He was buried in Nottingham, England, after dying in England – but it was his intention, Archbishop Porteous said, to serve out his retirement and be buried, in Tasmania.

In 2005, the Archdiocese of Hobart sent a request to Nottingham Cathedral to have Bishop Willson exhumed and returned to Tasmania.

Earlier this week, that request was finally granted.

“It has been a long-standing Catholic tradition that bishops are buried in the crypt or under the cathedral, in their own cathedral church,” Archbishop Porteous said.

Until recently, St Mary’s Cathedral did not have a crypt – something that the archdiocese has recently amended.

“We are now in the situation where we can arrange for the return for the remains of the first bishop of Hobart,” Archbishop Porteous said.

It is expected that his remains will return to Hobart by the end of the month. A date for his interment has not yet been set.

Archbishop Porteous said he hoped the return of Bishop Willson’s remains to Tasmania would be a catalyst for appreciation for his contribution to the history and betterment of the state.

“People say that he was ahead of his time in many of the social reforms that he sought to implement,” Archbishop Porteous said.

“[I hope] through this he will be rightfully honoured within the Catholic community, but hopefully too, more broadly in the Tasmanian community in realising that he was somebody who has made a very particular contribution to the history of Tasmania.”

Bishop Willson was born in England, and was serving as a priest in Nottingham when he was appointed as the Hobart bishop.

There was outcry from his parishioners at this news.

“The local people were very upset, and actually petitioned the Pope, to say please do not send him away, such was his recognition,” Archbishop Porteous said.

Archbishop Porteous said the then-priest had worked hard to improve the outlook, care and situation of people in English mental institutions.

When he arrived in Tasmania, to streets full of convicts in chains, he took that compassion and translated it to the convict community.

“He was very concerned about the living conditions of the convicts, often in very, very poor conditions,” Archbishop Porteous said.

“He was very concerned about sanitary conditions both in mental institutions, and also for the convicts, and worked very hard to improve the standards of where they actually were living.

“Many of the Catholics were actually convicts or ex-convicts, so his flock were among the convicts. So he was firstly very much involved with trying to care for them.”

He paid trips to the colonies on Norfolk Island and at Port Arthur, relaying his concern at the horror conditions to the then-Tasmanian governor, and even as far as London.

“His interventions in this area in particular led to changes in government policy in Tasmania, and generally in the way that convicts were being treated,” Archbishop Porteous said.

“So he was a great social reformer, and he’s regarded as probably the greatest Catholic social reformer of his time. (So) in Bishop Willson, we’ve got quite a remarkable man.”

Throughout his 20-odd years as the Tasmanian bishop, he worked hard to establish the Catholic community in Tasmania.

“He was very concerned with trying to give them a sense of their own dignity and worth, because I think they were often seen as second-class citizens,” Archbishop Porteous said.

As he began to prepare for retirement, Bishop Willson bought a nearby pub to fund himself throughout retirement.

In his role as the Tasmanian bishop, he would regularly travel back to England to collect liturgical and ecclesiastical items to bring back to furnish new churches around the island, Archbishop Porteous said.

“He went for one final journey … with the intention that he would come back and retire here in Tasmania,” Archbishop Porteous said.

“On the ship going over he had a serious stroke and was forced to go into convalescence. He had another major stroke, and subsequently died in England, and so he was buried there in Nottingham, actually in the church that he himself, when he was a parish priest there, built.

“It was always his intention and his wish to come back to Tasmania and he very much saw himself as living out his retirement here in Tasmania and being buried in Tasmania.

“So to an extent we are fulfilling his wish by bringing his remains back to Hobart.

“Everybody has been very, very co-operative [in the exhumation process], everybody understands the significance of him as the very first Catholic bishop in Tasmania - and Tasmania was the second Catholic diocese established in Australia after Sydney, so there is great historical significance.

“I am hoping that the return of Bishop Willson will be an occasion for the Catholic community here in Tasmania to firstly appreciate our history, and to be taken back to the 1840-60s to the beginnings of the establishment of the church.”