THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND Accepted for the award of on.lk.i;5g;^M.ge^..B5^ UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND DEPARTMENT '^STOf^v ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AFFECTING TEACHING AND LEARNING IN NORTH QUEENSLAND 1875 -1905 A THESIS submitted in fiilfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Department of History, University of Queensland MARY de JABRUN BA DipEd BEd(St) MEdSt(Qld) 1999 I hereby declare that the work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original, except as acknowledged in the text, and the material has not been submitted, either in whole or in part, for a degree at this or any other university. Maiy de JaJoim (J ABSTRACT This thesis is about primary schooling in tiie region of north Queensland between 1875 and 1905. Specifically, it examines teaching and learning as an intCTactive process between the participants in the educational enterprise and tiieir particular environments. Guiding the study are ethnogr^hic and narrative ^^proaches which take account of human agency, especially tiie capacity of the northem communities, including teachers, pupils and officials, to interconnect the diversity of their social and economic landscapes with the formal requirements of secular schooling. In the period from 1875 to 1905, primary schooling expanded in numerical terms but was provided unevenly across the colony at both the system and community levels. Disruption was part of the estabUshing process, but the location was as much with families, communities and teachers as with the newly-formed Department of Pubhc Instruction. Where schooling took place was important. Throughout the period, north Queensland was considered the frontier region of the State. Undaunted by the difficulties of distance, isolation and climate, settlers were attracted to the pastoral, mining and sugar industries. Given the ephemeral nature of many of the mining settlements, a large section of the population was itinerant and male, often in survival mode in the early years and uncertain of the ftiture. Significantly, the processes for establishing and maintaining schooling were interrelated with diverse forms of regional activity and with the different values and commitments of teachers, pupils and community groups to both schooling and place. The inclusion of schooling within the narrative of regional experiences permitted the following question to be addressed. What ii different perspectives emerged about the interrelationship of schooling and place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in north Queensland? This is an important question, for it moves the investigation of schooling into a wider social milieu, where the diversity and complexity of teaching and learning may be understood and represented as interactions of human agency with place. Hi TABLE OF CONTENTS Signed Statement i Abstract ii Tablet of Contents iv List of Tables vi List of Figures vii List of Abbreviations ix Acknowledgements x Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Methodology 12 Chapter 2 Literature Review 25 Conclusion 48 Chapter 3 The Natural Environment and Settlement: 1875 -1905 50 The Natural Environment 50 Settlement 56 Distance and Isolation 67 Chapter 4 Inspectors in the North Queensland Region 1875 -1905 78 Infroduction 78 Formation and Structure of the Department of Public Instruction 82 Formal Role of Inspectors 90 Inspectors' Opinions 94 Inspectors as Travellers in the Northem Region 97 Inspectors' Status 106 Interactions with the Environment 107 Interactions between Regional Development and Schoohng 110 Inspectors in the School 114 Inspectors'Perceptions of Teaching and Learning 120 Conclusion 126 IV Chapter 5 Communities and the Schooling Process in the Northern District 127 Formal Stractures and Community Participation 130 Social Composition of Committees 131 The Process of Early Schoohng: Settlement Factors 134 Transition Process: Cost Factors 141 Boundaries: Interrelation of School and Townscape 143 Costs and Distances 158 Parental Interaction with Schooling 155 Conclusion 158 Chapter 6 Teachers in North Queensland Teacher Recruitment to the North 161 Distance / Overseas Recruitment 164 Distance / Costs 169 Professional Isolation 184 Nature of Setdement 190 Climate 201 Lifestyles and Adaptation to the Northem Communities 207 Conclusion 210 Chapter 7 Learning m North Queensland 1875-1905 213 The Curriculum and Nineteenth Century Ideologies of Learning 214 Nature of Settlement: Attendance 218 Isolation / Distance: Learning 232 Climate: Healtii and Learning 245 Conclusion 252 Conclusion ^53 Bibliography 258 Primary Sources UnpubUshed 258 Published 259 Books 260 Secondary Sources Books 261 Articles 269 Unpublished Theses 274 Other UnpubUshed Material 275 ir LIST OF TABLES Page No Table 1 % of Male / Female in Northem Census Districts, 65 1886-1901 Table 2 Types of Shelters in Northem Towns m Table 3 Numbers of Provisional/State Schools and Pupil 114 Enrohnents 1880-1905 Table 4 Queensland's Regional Population 1871 - 1901 164 Table 5 Employment of Teachers Across Categories in the 165 North, 1880-1905 Table 6 Employment of Classified Teachers All Categories, 165 1880-1905 Table 7 Employment of Provisional Teachers, 1880 - 1905 165 Table 8 Employment of Pupil Teachers, 1880 - 1905 166 Table 9 Percentage of Pupils Enrolled in State and 227 provisional Schools 1880 - 1904 Table 10 Successftd Scholarship Candidates in the Northem 231 District / All Districts 1883 -1905 VI LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Rivers and towns in north Queensland. Page 7 Figure 2 Population of the far north. Page 51 Figure 3 Physical region of north Queensland. Page 53 Figure 4 Towns and Homesteads in the Kennedy District, 1870. Page 55 Figure 5 Tracks to the coast fix)m inland towns. Page 68 Figure 6 Lines of Communication: Page 85 Figure 7 Routes from Thomborough to Maytown. Page 102 Figure 8 Site of Kingsborough school, 1884. Page 144 Figure 9 Plans of additions and renovations to head teacher's residence, Ravenswood. Page 200 Figure 10 Mary Ruth Bassett in the early 1900s at Martintown school. Page 205 Figure 11 Spare boy with teamsters. Page 219 Figure 12 Plan of the Georgetown Provisional school showing Uving and teaching spaces. Pagg 234 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ACER Australian Council for Educational Research Act Education Act of 1875 Annual Report Annual Report of the Secretary of Public Instruction ANZHES Australian and New Zealand History of Education Society Board Board of General Education DPI Department of Pubhc Instraction EHU Education History Unit RTF Register of Teachers, Fanale RTM Register of Teachers, Male QEJ Queensland Education Journal QGG Queensland Government Gazette QPD Queensland Parliamentary Debates QPP Queensland Parliamentary Papers QVP Queensland Legislative Assembly Votes and Proceedings QSA Queensland State Archives QTU Queensland Teachers' Union US Under Secretary Vlll ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank my supervisor. Associate Professor Ross Johnston, for his patience, insight and positive feedback and my co-supervisor. Associate Professor Chve Moore, for his siq)port and assistance. My thanks also to the staff of the John Oxley Library, Queensland State Archives, Education History Unit, History Department, James Cook University and the Caim's Historical Society. I am indebted to Judy Snelling for allowing me to access her personal collection of North Queoisland history and for her guidance in travelling the physical boimdaries of this study. Within the Australian Cathohc University, I am gratefiil to Patricia Fadian for formatting die thesis and to my colleagues for their conversations and practical assistance. As always, my family has given their wide-ranging support and encouragement. IX INTRODUCTION In 1874, the small school in the far north Queensland settlement of Cooktown was completed and handed over to the school committee who permitted the local clergyman to use it 'for the purposes of reUgion'.' What might have seemed a reasonable use of a local conmiunity resource contravened the regulations of the Board of General Education (1860- 1875) [Board], which forbad the use of school premises for reUgious purposes during school hours. The Cooktown Committee was investigated by the District Inspector who reported to the Board.^ No action followed, for at the pohtical level, die Cooktown incident coincided with the estabhshment of a Royal Commission to consider the whole question of education for the colony of Queensland. The Report of the Commission gave impetus to the Education Bill, written and presented to the Legislative Assembly by Samuel Griffith in 1875 and passed through both Houses with 'a comfortable majority'.^ In 1876, the Education Act of 1875 [Act] became operational in the colony of Queensland, providing henceforth for free, compulsory and secular education. The earUer action of the Cooktown committee was significant, not because it related to the sectarian debates of the nineteenth century, but because it exemphfied a local initiative in a far northem community, where limited resources encouraged pragmatic, local solutions to situations which could not always wait for official sanction to come from a distance of over sixteen hundred kilometres. After 1875, any inhCTent ambiguities about the role of communities in the provision of education were 1 'Annual Report of Inspection' inR^ort of the Board of General Education for the year 1874 (^rv^aas: Government Printer, 1875), p. 75. "2-Ibid. 3 E. R. Wyeth, Education in Queensland. A History of Education in Queensland and in the Moreton Bay District