Edith Cowan University Research Online ECU Publications Pre. 2011 1987 Old bush schools: life and education in the small schools of Western Australia 1893 to 1961 John A. McKenzie Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworks Part of the History Commons McKenzie, J.A. (1987). Old bush schools: life and education in the small schools of Western Australia 1893 to 1961. Doubleview, Australia: Western Australian College of Advanced Education. This Book is posted at Research Online. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworks/7075 Edith Cowan University Copyright Warning You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorize you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. You are reminded of the following: Copyright owners are entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. A reproduction of material that is protected by copyright may be a copyright infringement. Where the reproduction of such material is done without attribution of authorship, with false attribution of authorship or the authorship is treated in a derogatory manner, this may be a breach of the author’s moral rights contained in Part IX of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Courts have the power to impose a wide range of civil and criminal sanctions for infringement of copyright, infringement of moral rights and other offences under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and infringements involving the conversion of material into digital or electronic form. OLD BUSH SCHOOLS Life and education in the small schools of Western Australia 1893 to 1961 JOHN A. MCKENZIE Published by the Wes tern Australian College of Advanced Education P.O. Box 217, DOUBLEVIEW Western Australia 6018 ©. Copyright: John A McKenzie 25 Saw Qrive DARLINGTON WA 6070 Typeset and design by Publication Services, Churchlands Campus, W.A.C.A.E. P~568~1~86~500 ISBN 0-7298-0032-6 Printed by Dix Print Pty. Ltd. 10 Wittenoom Street East Perth Western A:ustralia 6000 FRONT COVER: Wiluna State School (Photo 1931) ii TO The thousands of teachers of the one-teacher schools: 'The men and women who blazed the track in the days whe0n the State was wide; who suffered the privations and rude surroundings of the young agricultural settlements, the primitive conditions of the woodline and the semi-civilisation of the timber mill'. Presidential address to the Country Teachers' Association Annual Meeting, May 1913 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thanks are due firstly to: Minnie Merritt, Connie Clancy, and Mabel McKenzie, who taught me in one-teacher schools and helped to provide the experiences without which this book would not have been written. My gratitude to: Teachers and former pupils of one-teacher schools, who provided helpful observations, recollections and photographs. The staffs of the three major repositories of educational records in this State - The Battye Library, The Rooney Library and the Noel Sampson Library, who helped in the location of primary evidence over the more than ten years during which the book was researched and written. The Western Australian Museum of Childhood for access to its invaluable collection of school texts, curriculum material, examples of teaching aids and children's school work, school furniture and equipment, and a wide range of school artifacts. Special thanks to: The Western Australian College of Advanced Education for technical help, willingly given, and their Word Processing Centre for their typing services. My wife, Mary, for her unfailing help in shaping up the format of the book, her reading of the script throughout the various stages of composition and her unerring judgement on matters of style. iv ABBREVIATIONS A.C.E.R. Australian Council for Educational Research C.T.C. Claremont Teachers' College E.C. Education Circular E.D. Education Department E.D.A.R. Education Department Annual Report E.D.F. Education Department File R.I.S.P. Rural and Isolated Schools Project R.W.A.H.S. Royal Western Australian Historical Society S.P.D. Sparsely populated district T.H.C. Teachers' Higher Certificate T.]. Teachers' Journal U.W.A. University of Western Australia OBSOLETE MEASURES Money values: £.s.d. = pounds, shillings, pence. Cannot in any meaningful way be converted to dollars. Should be compared (from 1907) with the basic wage for the year. Measures of length: Miles = 1.61 Km. Feet = 30.5 cm Measure of area: Acre = .405 hectares vi APPENDIX PROFESSIONAL HEADS OF THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA 1893 - 1960 James Walton Chief Inspector 1893 - 1896 Cyril Jackson Inspector-General 1897 - 1903 Cecil R P Andrews Inspector-General, later Director of Education. 1903 - 1929 Wallace Clubb Director of Education 1929 - 1935 James A Klein Director of Education 1935 - 1938 Charles Hadley Director of Education 1938 - 1940 Murray Little Director of Education 1940 - 1950 Thomas L Robertson Director, later Director- General of Education. 1951 - 1960(6) vii INTRODUCTION In researching and recording historical and anecdotal comment on the Old Bush Schools of Western Australia, John McKenzie has secured oral elements of our history which could well have been lost forever, and woven them into the recorded facts of past decades. He has produced an entertaining and particularly illuminating picture of the life of the small-school teacher in outback Western Australia during most decades of the last one hundred years. Even more importantly, he has described the social history of this State and its intimate relationship with the development of the education system. During the latter part of the nineteenth century as government legislation, the expansion of railway systems and increases in immigration, all contributed to the expansion of rural industries, the proliferation of bush schools began in earnest. At times, schools were established at alluvial diggings, near railway sidings, or in timber camps as a direct result of economic expansion; at the same time economic expansion occurred in particular localities, precisely because of the small school in operation there. Gold discoveries in the late 1880's and early 1890's provided a rapid influx of miners, all of whom could not be sustained in the industry, as the greater alluvial fields were worked out. Many of these, no doubt influenced by attractive conditions established as a result of legislation at the time, moved into the agricultural areas, especially those serviced by the railways, and created from holdings considerably eastwards and northwards of those already established. In many of these farming, mining and pastoral areas, there were insufficient children to warrant construction of a school building, educational provisions in the form of correspondence service contracts or itinerant teachers wei;e extended to meet the need. In some cases, half-time schools were developed and many readers will not know, from their own readings into Australian history, of the trials and tribulations encountered by teachers in those early days. Indeed, the experiences attributed to W James, 1962, clearly indicate that such trials and trauma were a vivid part of the backgrounds of many current teachers and principals. In addition, as the population and the economic activity expanded, the timber industry developed to take advantage of the enabling legislation and, ix by the closing years of the nineteenth century, one million acres of forest had been leased with more than forty mills employing in excess of 2500 men. The small schools associated with this development were created throughout the South-West timber centres as well as dairying, fruit growing and small scale mining localities. In timber centres the schools were sometimes ephemeral, opening in response to local demand and closing as economic timber stands were cut out. In a general sense, the first half of the century tends to be marked, in some localities, by substantial pupil turnover as families moved in search of work, accompanied timbercutters, followed the various harvests from one season to another or moved from diggings to diggings in search of a brighter future. Perhaps it is in the goldfields where the juxtaposition of social history and educational history is best seen in this State. Tent schools, half-time schools, portable schools and relatively substantial permanent schools are all a part of this history and Inspector Miles' comment of 1912 that 'our schools are perfect barometers of the rise and fall of centres of population' is well made. The demographic movements associated with World War 1 caused the closure of many small schools; a good many more only remained open through the Department's gazettal of a new classification of school - the 'assisted school' - for which the provision of a suitable teacher and building were the parents' responsibility. At the end of this period, the return of servicemen and the development of the Soldier Settlement and group Settlement Schemes brought about an unprecedented situation and the history of social and economic activity indeed being interwoven. John McKenzie is clearly a most competent historian detailing developments from the late eighteen hundreds, through the periods of consolidation in recent decades to the present time. However this foreword would be particularly lacking if it confined itself to progress and places without commenting upon the more important factor: people and professional pioneers. Throughout the pages, anecdote and recorded fact reveal the hardships encountered by outback teachers in our small remote schools and the cheerfulness with which most faced them. Many of those concerned in the early decades were not well prepared by background or training for the experience that awaited them, and, not infrequently, had difficulty finding out where their township and its school were located! It is in reading the chapters relating to the bush chalkie and his or her living conditions that one perceives at the closest level the 'magnificent distances', the 'lonely vacancies' and the frequently primitive circumstances experienced.