The State and the Provision of Education in Tasmania, 1839 to 1913
-431- CHAPTER 7 PRIVATE VENTURE SCHOOLS Brief history and meaning of the term These schools, their meaning shortly to be defined, are given space in this dissertation because they provided an alternative and competing form of education to the public schools. Historically, they preceded the public schools in Tasmania as they had done in England and their origins lie in the charity schools, Sunday Schools and dame schools of the eighteenth century. The origin of private venture schools in Tasmania is not difficult to discover. Thomas Fitzgerald, a former convict who shared his time between clerking, teaching and drinking, started his school in Hobart in 1807 and was followed by a number of others whose reputations, in some cases, were no better. Fitzgerald and his wife were given grants of money by the government in 1817 and 1818 to maintain their schools. Schools of a quite different kind, however, existed in the early decades. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, an Anglican body a.ssociated with the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, founded a school in Hobart and a Wesleyan Sunday School was established at much the same time in the second decade of settlement. In the late twenties, Archdeacon Thomas Scott's enquiry yielded two reports on education. Scott urgently recommended the establishment and government funding of male and female orphan schools for the children of convicts and destitute parents, infant schools, the building of twenty day schools throughout the island and a general boarding school to be supported by subscription by parents who did not wish their children to associate -432- with the children of emancipated or convict parents .
[Show full text]