History

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Red Hill National School - A History

The Red Hill National School began in a tent under the title of Warrenheip Gully School. Unfortunately, canvas was expensive on the diggings, and in September 1854 the schoolmaster reported that “some ruffians had attempted to carry off the school tent”, probably to use on their own claims. The tent was unsatisfactory as it was stifling in summer and when the wind blew the noise of the canvas made it difficult to hear.

The canvas tent was soon replaced by a simple wooden building with a shingle roof, situated on Main Road right in the heart of mining activity. Many problems were faced by schoolmasters on the goldfields including cold, leaking buildings, measles epidemics, shortages of slates and irregular attendances as families moved, literally overnight, from one goldfield to another.

However, education in the 1850s was seen as the key to personal improvement and advancement. Many local gentlemen acted as Patrons for the Red Hill National School as they realized that while a digger might find gold and become instantly wealthy, the real key to achieving a better life was a sound education. In the nineteenth century this meant a solid grounding in spelling, grammar and mental arithmetic as well as a basic understanding of history and geography.

In September 1856 the Red Hill National School was hit by Ballarat’s unpredictable climate when a gale blew down the school. This time the local citizens decided to build a more solid schoolhouse. James Oddie, a leading citizen who had become very wealthy through mining, was chairman of the Local Patrons for the Red Hill National School and he described the school they planned to build:

“...the building is to be 18 feet by 30, all of colonial timber, with 2 windows in front and 2 at the back and roofed with shingles to cost £80 and to be up in 5 days from the date the contract was signed...”

Despite difficulties raising the £80 and complaints by newspaper editors that schools and the hospital were short of funds when “thousands of pounds were spent every week in casinos, grog shanties and hotel bars”, the new school was opened in late 1856.

In this school children sat at long wooden benches with no backs in front of long wooden desks. They worked out their mathematical problems on slate boards and learnt copperplate writing using dip pens and ink.

St Peter’s School - A Brief History

Two boards of education, the National School Board and the Denominational Board, operated in Victoria in the 1850s. The National system provided a broad general education but owed no allegiance to any church.

The Denominational schools on the Ballarat goldfields were strong and at least a dozen emerged in the 1850s, indicating the size and influence of church going communities in the young developing township. The official denomination was Church of England, this being the religion of the mother country (Britain) and therefore adopted as the official religion in the Australian colonies.

St Peter’s Church of England School in Ballarat West was one of these early denominational schools. Its first school building was erected near Yuille’s swamp (later enlarged to create Lake Wendouree) in 1858. It served as a church as well as a school and commenced with an enrolment of 35 children.

During the next few years, the growing congregation put pressures on the building in its dual capacity as church and school. In 1860, the Rev. John Potter approached the Denominational Board for a grant to assist in the building of the first official school house, stating that it would continue to be used as a place of worship. The grant was eventually made and combined with money raised by public subscription to erect a suitable building at a cost of £200. We believe this building was erected near the corner of Mair and Pleasant Streets and the original plans for this building were used to construct the building at Sovereign Hill.

Constructed of humble weatherboard, the architect was H.R. Caselli, who later designed the Ballarat Town Hall, the Ballarat City Fire Station and several other local churches.

In June 1862, The Common Schools Act abolished the Denominational and National Boards. St Peter’s Church of England School became Pleasant Street Common School No. 695. In 1872, the State was made responsible for free, secular and compulsory education and in 1874 St Peter’s/Pleasant Street Common School became Pleasant Street State School No. 695.

In 1877, a new school for 404 children was built on the same site next to the old school and extended along Pleasant Street from Mair Street to the lake.

The old school house and Church Reserve were sold to the government. The money from the sale of these buildings was used to build a schoolroom close to the new St Peter’s Church, which had been built in 1865 in Sturt Street, by then the main thoroughfare of the city. This St Peter’s Church still stands in Sturt Street, Ballarat today.

Ragged Schools - A Brief History

EDUCATION IN BRITAIN IN THE 1850S AND 1860S

Education in Britain, and therefore Australia, was neither free nor compulsory in the 1850s and 1860s and many forms of schooling existed. Parents chose schools for their children based on their class, social status and ability to pay the fees. No national curriculum existed. In some rural areas Dame Schools existed where very young children learnt crafts, such as lace making and straw plaiting while the mistress in charge read to them. Thus the sale of the completed products paid their fees while they gained a meagre education. Many children only obtained a minimal education by attending fee-paying Sunday Schools while they worked on the other six days of the week. Upper class children were educated at home, through a governess while they were young and then through the teaching of a private, usually live-in, tutor until the boys, at least, were old enough for boarding school.

RAGGED SCHOOLS IN BRITAIN

There is some debate about the origins of ragged schooling, but the work of four men is often cited - John Pound (1766-1838), Sheriff Watson of Aberdeen, Thomas Cranfield and Thomas Guthrie (1780-1873). John Pound was a cobbler in Portsmouth who began to use his shop in 1818 as a base for educational activity for local poor children neglected by other institutions. His curriculum included the usual “three R’s” plus religious instruction and nature study, and various practical tasks like cobbling, cooking, toy making and mending clothes. The big difference between Ragged Schools and Sunday Schools was that Ragged Schools were free.

The movement spread throughout Britain culminating in the Ragged Schools Union founded in 1844 under the guidance of Lord Shaftesbury, and supported by Thomas Barnado, Mary Carpenter and writers like Charles Dickens. Supporters of Ragged Schools believed education was the solution to a number of social evils, such as laziness, unemployment and stealing which slum children seemed to develop. It is estimated that around 300,000 children went through the London Ragged Schools alone between the early 1840s and 1881. Many of these poor children were lured off the streets by the offer of hot food and safe housing. Ragged schools gradually disappeared after the 1870 Education Act made education more accessible.

John Pound, the Portsmouth cobbler and founder of Ragged Schools in England.

RAGGED SCHOOLS IN AUSTRALIA

Here the Ragged School system followed the British model. By 1854 there were Ragged Schools in Hobart, Sydney and Melbourne. Ragged school children in Australia came from a variety of backgrounds. Some were the children of paupers or the criminal classes. Others were orphans or children of the long-term unemployed. Also prostitutes’ children, children of poorly paid dock workers and of the chronically ill were all in need and could be found in the less savoury suburbs of Melbourne and other major towns and ports. All were excluded from attending the normal schools because of their inability to pay the fees and their lack of suitable clothing their “raggedness”. In Melbourne the Ragged School teaching program stated

The children are all taught to read and write. The girls are taught to sew and are taught to make and mend garments for themselves. Habits of order, cleanliness and industry are cultivated, while the primary object of the schools, viz, the instruction of the children in the word of God, is always kept in view.

After the Education Act of 1872 introducing free, compulsory, secular education there was less need for children to attend these specialized schools and they began to close.

As early as 1848 the Reverend Thomas Hastie opened a boarding school for children of the surrounding district in Buninyong. When Thomas Hiscock discovered gold near Buninyong in August 1851 this immediately transformed the small inland settlement.

It was not long before even greater riches were discovered seven miles to the north at Golden Point and soon newspapers reported “thousands” of diggers at work. After an initial decline the population grew rapidly and by August 1852 there were 2000 people, by October 3500 and by November 4200. Ballarat was a scene of excitement and chaos as new discoveries of gold lured even more people to the diggings.

Life on the goldfields was dangerous. Mining accidents were common and, as the population grew, the overcrowding created unsanitary conditions where diseases spread rapidly. This, combined with the extremely basic medical knowledge of the 1850s, meant that the death rate soared. Pneumonia, dysentery, scarlet fever, cholera and typhoid claimed many lives and left a growing population of orphans to fend for themselves on the diggings. For these children life on the diggings was precarious, dangerous and harsh.

St Alipius - A History

Our story is a story of people, rather than buildings and dates, although it is important that we acknowledge these. It is the story of a people who have been brought together in faith and love.

St. Alipius Parish School has its beginnings in the Ballarat “Gold Rush” that started in August 1851. As thousands of people made their way to the diggings and a town quickly took shape, Father Patrick Dunne celebrated the first Mass for the Catholic miners in October 1851.

In late 1852 a second priest Father Matthew Downing arrived and named his Parish after St. Alipius and the Bishop of the time, James Alipius Goold.

In February 1853 Father Downing moved to the present St. Alipius site and erected a church made of slabs with a canvas roof. A school was also built and classes began on April 1st.

By 1865 there were 177 on the roll.

In 1881 the Sisters of Mercy arrived to take charge of St. Alipius girl’s school and in 1883 a new school was built on the present St. Alipius site.

Members of the Christian Brothers arrived in 1888 to assume responsibility of the boy’s school in what is now the old parish hall in Hopetoun Street.

1909 saw additions to the St Alipius girl’s school building and in 1911 a new boys’ school was build in Victoria Street. Boys were educated there until 1976 when classes went co-educational and moved to the present St. Alipius School site.

In 1959 new additions altered the look and the size of the school significantly. Roll call had mounted to 500 pupils.

1977 saw the first lay principal appointed to the school with both boys and girls in the one school for the first time in nearly 100 years. The old boys’ school is now our Parish Hall.