Address at the General Meeting on 10 Sept 2022
DR. CHERYL GRIFFIN, FRHSV
Cheryl Griffin became interested in the history of schools and teachers in Victoria as she was a teacher by profession. Her recent research, centred on teachers in the 1880s to 1920s, as well as female teachers in the intra war years, earned her a research PhD at the University of Melbourne. Today she presented an overview of education in the first 15 years of white settlement in the Port Phillip District.
Amongst the resources she studied were the Annual Returns of Schools, H.C. Childers Inspectors’ Reports 1851 – 1859, Teacher Career Records, the Select Committee Inquiry into Education 1851, Sands and McDougall directories, and Masters’ Stipends Records.
“Records of the Pioneer Women of Victoria”, produced in 1937 by the National Council of Women’s Centenary Council, offers much information. Only 6 copies of this huge book were published, and they are all held by libraries. The State Library of Victoria and the British Library each have a copy and there is one in New York. Some entries in the book were personal records whilst others were written by direct descendants. In a similar manner to the entries in Alexander Sutherland’s, “Victoria and Its’ Metropolis”, people paid to have their story included, and often used artistic license in their writing.
‘Georgiana’s Diary’ by Georgiana McCrae provides some information on education as do the 3 volumes of ‘Vision and Realisation: A Centenary History of State Education’ by Leslie James Blake.
Before 1848, the Government didn’t have any controls over schools but occasionally a government subsidy was paid to schools established by recognised religious denominations and some funds were given to parents who couldn’t afford school fees. There were numerous schools in the Port Phillip District, albeit they varied enormously in size and standards. James and Christina Smith had a school with 65 pupils, whilst S. E. West only had 5 pupils. West offered reading, writing and arithmetic, but there were other schools which taught more glamorous subjects. There were a few schools in Lonsdale Street which catered for poor students but in general education for the needy was neglected.
Matthew Marshal, in Collingwood, offered a ‘general education’. The Rev William Brickwood, an Anglican, after doing a term at Saint Ninians, Brighton, became Headmaster of an Academy in Collins Street which offered a ‘classical education’. Richard Hale Budd who eventually became an inspector of non-denominational schools, was a Master of Melbourne Diocesan Grammar School in Eastern Hill.
The Reverend Thomas H Brain ran a ‘Preparatory Grammar School’ in Belfast (Port Fairy) whilst Reverend James Smith ran a ‘Congregational School’ under the British and Foreign school system. His school offered an alternative to schools run by the Anglicans, the Wesleyans, the Presbyterians, and the Roman Catholics.
In the 1840s John G. Lee in Geelong offered his students an ‘Interrogatory System’ of
education and James Rutherford McLaughlin, who apparently had a ‘fondness for the tavern’ ran an ‘Analytic’ Seminary for general education in Melbourne. McLaughlin taught thirty boys, whilst his wife Jane taught 44 girls at their school.
The site in Melbourne where Young and Jackson Hotel stands, No. 1 Swanston Street, was bought at the first land sales in Melbourne in 1837 by John Batman. He built a seven-roomed cottage on the site which he named Roxburgh Cottage. Following the loss of her mother and three sisters in the sinking of the schooner Yarra Yarra in Bass Strait, Nichola Cooke, governess to John Batman’s children, rented the cottage from Batman and in 1838 established the Roxburgh Ladies Seminary. She ran it until 1851, after which she returned to Ireland.
Robert Lawson ran the Presbyterian Melbourne Academy in Spring Street, an institution which later became Scotch College. There were seventy pupils aged between twelve and thirteen, and the boarders, aged between eight and thirteen, lived with his family. He had three assistants, and two visiting teachers who taught drawing and music. Lawson considered that sixty students should be the maximum number of pupils. Janet Scott however ran a Roman Catholic School in Richmond which only had three pupils. How did she manage to make a living?
School buildings varied considerably. On the gold fields school classes were often held in tents. Mrs William Parton in Skipton ran her school in a small cottage, but it was also used as her husband’s bootmakers shop. Desks were gin cases and seats were planks placed on the boxes. Comfort obviously wasn’t a high priority, and it would be interesting to know what qualifications Mrs Parton may have had.
John Mansfield ran a Roman Catholic School in Geelong. He was in the Temperance Band, but he had no teaching qualifications. School Inspectors found him to be ‘not competent’ and his wife who also taught, was no better. Matthew Hayes at Pt Henry was unable to spell and was ‘perfectly incapable’.
Although many of the early teachers were ministers from a church and would have been educated, it would seem that there were teachers with no formal education whatsoever.
In 1848 the Denominational School Board was established, and a Board of National Education followed at the end of 1851, based on an Irish model. The 2 boards amalgamated in 1862, and in 1872 the Education Act brought in free, compulsory and secular education. Teachers under Denominational, National, and State School systems who were affected by the 1872 Act had long teaching lives and a summary of their pre-1872 teaching record can be found using a ‘name search’ in the Public Records of Victoria website.
Nichola Cooke might have run the first Ladies Seminary in Victoria for many years, but the oldest State School still in operation today is the Bacchus Marsh school, No. 28, which opened in 1850 with Head Master, Henry G Ball.
Contributed by Jan Hanslow PPPG Member no 1057