Greghamstown School

Where did your ancestors go to school? Did they go to school at all? How long did they go to school, and what was being taught at the time?

To understand your ancestor it’s important to know what sort of education was available at that time and in that area, if any.

Historical context

First we need to know something of the educational system in New South Wales. Here is a brief timeline of some milestones in the history of education in New South Wales.

1788 – no provision for education of the children of convicts or soldiers.

early 1800s – only schools were private “academies” and “public” schools subsidies or fully-funded by government but run by the Anglican Church.

1801 – Female Orphan School founded to prepare destitute girls for domestic service.

1819 – Male Orphan School founded for destitute boys.

1826-1833 – Clergy and Schools Corporation, run by Anglican Church and funded by grant of one seventh of all land in the Colony. Unpopular with other denominations and private landholders. Repealed in 1833.

1844 – Select Committee found only half of all children going to school.

1848 – Board of National Education introduced government education system. Local communities had to contribute one third of building costs, pay school fees and provide committee to run the school. New National Schools were built mostly in country areas where no schools currently existed provided a minimum of 30 pupils were enrolled, and fees paid.

1866 – Public Schools Act – restrictions on denominational schools, inspection of schools. National Schools became Public Schools, with minimum of 25 pupils. Provisional Schools, where the number was reduced even further, and Half-Time Schools, where a single teacher had to cover two schools, also introduced. The number of schools increased dramatically in the country, where they were most needed.

1870s – school available to almost all children but many attended irregularly or for brief periods. Most denominational schools except Catholic had closed or become government schools.

1880 – Public Instruction Act made attendance at school compulsory for 6-14 year olds. Secondary education introduced to prepare for university, with high fees. Funding was withdrawn from denominational schools resulting in the closure or absorption of many of them. New types of schools were introduced. Superior Public Schools combined primary and secondary education. High Schools were purely secondary schools, with high fees and low enrolments, intended to prepare students for university. Evening Public Schools were intended to cater for young people who had missed out on an education before it became compulsory, and ran at night. replaced the Council of Education with the Department of Public Instruction.

1890s – economic depression reduced spending on school buildings and many teachers retrenched, resulting in large class sizes in poor classrooms.

1904 – New Syllabus introduced – learning by doing.

1911 – High School fees abolished. Intermediate Certificate after two years of High School, and Leaving Certificate after a further two years.

1920s – more pre-vocational and academic courses introduced in High Schools

1914-1945 – World Wars and Great Depression reduce funding for schools and teachers

1961 - Wyndham Scheme introduced – Four years of High School for School Certificate, further two years for Higher School Certificate.

Local schools

Now we need to find out what schools were available for our ancestors to attend in the area in which they lived.

The NSW Department of Education and Training has an online index to Government schools of New South Wales from 1848. A search of the database will give a list of schools containing the search-term, ie a place name, and the type of school, years of operation, alternative names, and the county in which it is situated.

Here is an example:

We can see that the dates for the different schools in Blayney are consecutive, so they all likely refer to the same school, with name changes reflecting the different stages of the public education system in NSW.

Keep in mind how far the children may have had to travel to get to school, and that they may have walked, or rode, many miles to attend school each day, especially in country areas.

Clicking on the type of school takes you to the Glossary of Schools. The Glossary of Schools explains the different types of schools, and makes interesting reading in its own right.

School history

Once you have found likely schools for the area you can trace their history. If you are lucky there will be a published account of the school, often published to coincide with the centenary or other anniversary of the school’s foundation.

State Records New South Wales holds the files that relate to the establishment, maintenance, and staffing of most schools. The files may contain plans of the site and drawings of buildings, so that you can see what the school may have looked like even if it no longer exists. They are available for inspection at the Western Sydney Reading Room at Kingswood.

To find out what records are available for your school search the Schools index. Here are the search results for Blayney:

You can see that the files are all administrative files, and that there are none before 1876.

To take another example, the school in the photograph is in Greghamstown, near Blayney. The Government Schools of New South Wales from 1848 search shows me that there was a Provisional School from August 1871. It closed in December 1872. A Public School opened in May 1875 and closed in Dec 1947. There are no further entries, accounting for the emptiness of the building in the photo.

A search of State Records NSW Schools Index has hit the jackpot!

There is usually very little in these files relating to individual pupils, although there may occasionally be lists of parents requesting establishment of a school, or who haven’t paid their fees. For this school, however, there is an admissions register  for 1914 to 1926. If your ancestor lived in this area and was of school age within this period you could be lucky!

More information about the school records held by State Records NSW can be found here, and about records of pupils here.

School has a lasting influence on all of us as we develop into adults and make our way in the world. Discovering the school your ancestors attended and the type of school that it was can tell you a lot about your ancestor.

Sources:

Burnswood, J. and Fletcher, J. Sydney and the Bush, A pictorial history of education in New South Wales. [Sydney]: New South Wales Department of Education, 1980.

NSW Department of Education and Training. Government schools of New South Wales from 1848. http://www.governmentschools.det.nsw.edu.au/cli/govt_schools/index.shtm.

State Records NSW. State Records Archives Investigator: Activity Detail, School Education http://investigator.records.nsw.gov.au/Entity.aspx?Path=\Activity\25.

State Records NSW, Index to Schools and Related Records, 1876-1979. Website at http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/state-archives/indexes-online/indexes-to-education-and-child-welfare-records/index-to-schools-and-related-records.

Spending time in the reading room of State Records NSW at Kingswood and the State Library NSW can be an educational experience.

I sometimes come across university history students looking for convict indent records as part of an assignment, and I help them when I can with the finding and the printing. The surprising thing to me was that they can’t read the records!

It’s not beautiful writing, but that isn’t the problem. The style of writing I was taught at school in the late 1960s was called Modified Cursive. Or running writing. Joined-up writing. The pen doesn’t leave the paper until the end of each word.

Kids don’t seem to learn to write like this at school any more. I have no idea why, but they learn to write in a way that we used to call “printing”. Where each letter is separated from the next. Block letters.

Perhaps it’s easier for kids to learn. Or for teachers to read. They learn to type and use computers and calculators, and never have to write a lot, or write quickly. I don’t know why it changed, or what most of the consequences are.

So what’s going to happen in the future?

We often hear about the Death of Microfilm and how all these records that have been preserved on microfilm will be unreadable in 50 years unless we transfer them to another media because we won’t have microfilm readers, or the spare parts for them.

Never mind the media, it seems to me that even if they are all digitised in the next 5 years we will still have a problem.

Who’s going to be able to read them?

The next Australian and New Zealand Genealogy class offered by Genclass.com starts on the 1st May. Genclass is a USA-based company that offers online training on a wide range of genealogical topics and geographic areas. The instructors are all experienced educators in the field of family history research. Courses last for a month, two lessons per week. Students receive the materials for the class by email and take part in online discussions with the instructor, who is also available for questions via email.

The Australia and New Zealand class is taught by Kerry Farmer, a member of the Education Committee of the Society of Australian Genealogists who has given classes to community college groups for over 10 years.

I have seen the preparation and commitment that Kerry puts into all of her classes and seminars and I can highly recommend this course.

You can see more details of the class topics here.

Over the years since 1848 there have over 30 different kinds of government schools in New South Wales. Here are some of the most commonly-seen schools:

Public Schools

In 1848 a Board of National Education was established by Governor Fitzroy to establish schools based on the Irish system. National Schools were built to provide elementary education for a scattered population not catered for by the four religious denominations already providing education. The schools were called National Schools and in 1867 became Public Schools, when church schools came under the jurisdiction of the new Council of Education. The attendance of 30 children was required for a National School; reduced to 25 for Public  Schools in 1867 and 20 children in 1880.

Until the 1880s there were no publicly-funded secondary schools, and very few until 1910. Some Public Schools became Superior Public Schools, offering some secondary such as higher mathematics and languages.

Existing Public Schools remain today as elementary, or primary, schools.

Provisional Schools

Many country areas did not have enough children to justify the building of a National or Public School and so in 1867 the Provisional School was introduced, requiring a minimum of 15 children. Parents were required to pay for the building and furniture, and the Council of Education (later the Department of Education) provided books and equipment, and paid the teacher. The minimum number of children was reduced to 12 in the 1880s and by 1945 the minimum was 9 children.

Even though the Department made provision to supply all or part of the cost of buildings in 1882, most of the cost was still borne by parents into the 20th Century. Teachers had minimal or no training.

The remaining Provisional Schools became Public Schools in 1957.

Half-Time Schools

Schools with at least 10 children but less than 25 could be visited by itinerant teachers who travelled between a number of schools. These schools, introduced in 1867, were called half-time schools when the number of schools a teacher had to service was reduced to two schools in 1869. The minimum number of 20 children (across the two schools) was reduced to 16 in 1898 and the minimum was removed in 1908.

Intermediate Schools

In 1912 the Intermediate High School was developed to cater to children unable to attend the more academically-focused High Schools, and took the children to Intermediate Certificate level. Many were renamed Central Schools in 1944. Many of these schools became Junior High Schools and eventually full-fledged High Schools.

High Schools

Although provision had been made for secondary schools in 1880 very few were built until after 1910, when the education system was completely reorganised. Secondary schools specialised

• High Schools catered for children expecting to go on to university
• Commercial Schools catered to boys expecting to go into business
• Junior Technical Schools were designed for boys entering the trades and industry
• Domestic Science Schools were designed for girls becoming homemakers

From the 1920s the role of high schools became increasingly blurred and all secondary schools were called High Schools, although some may still carry their former names and functions such as Technical High Schools. Domestic Science Schools, I’m happy to report, became Girls High Schools and Junior High Schools.

Subsidised Schools

Where a community did not meet even the minimum requirement for any type of government school they could establish a Subsidised School, where the government paid a subsidy for each child and the parents had to provide everything else.

For a more complete listing of the types of schools see the Department’s Glossary.

Sources:

New South Wales Department of Education and Training, Government Schools of New South Wales from 1848. Website.  http://www.governmentschools.det.nsw.edu.au/cli/govt_schools/index.shtm

New South Wales Department of Education, Sydney and the Bush, A Pictorical History of Education in New South Wales. Published by the New South Wales Department of Education, 1980.

If you are considering going to Auckland in January for the Australian Federation of Family History Organisations 12th Congress then let me remind you that the early-bird registration closes on the 30th September. If you were not considering going then let me try to change your mind!

This is a marvellous opportunity to hear speakers from around the world and to learn more about how to find your ancestors and discover more about their lives. The opportunity to mingle with other researchers is also a huge, often overlooked, benefit. People who think the way we do! People who don’t think it’s odd to include cemeteries in the sights of a town, and who understand how exciting each new discovery is.

Dick Eastman, the technology guru; Paul Allen, co-founder of Ancestry.com and now the CEO of FamilyLink; Elaine Collins, Commercial Director of FindMyPast; John Grenham, the Irish research guru; Michael Gandy, editor of the Society of Genealogists’ journal and a very entertaining speaker; Megan Smolenyak, an expert on DNA research; Cora Num, website guru; these are a few of the famous international speakers that will be lecturing and running workshops over the four days of the conference.

Topics cover research in Australia, England, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, technology, DNA, and specific how-to sessions such as preserving documents and heirlooms and writing your family history. Many sessions run concurrently so that you can always find something of interest for every session, and some lectures are repeated at other times so you can sort out clashes in the programme with other lectures you want to see. Hands-on workshops are available in many of these subject areas as well.

Accommodation is available at the College where the conference will be run, or alternatives can be found in nearby motels.

These Congresses are only run every three years. The last one was in Darwin in 2006 and I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed it; it could have gone on for another four days and I would have been happy! The next one will be in Adelaide in 2012, which seems a long way away at the moment.

Here is the message from the Convenor, Richard Hollier:

REMINDER

For those of you who have not yet registered for the AFFHO 2009 Congress this email is to remind you that the earlybird registration closes on 30 September 2008.

Still undecided?

Look at the benefits:

• Around 15 speakers from outside Australasia
• Four consecutive lecture streams
• Plus parallel workshop stream with up to 4 additional options
• Networking with fellow genealogists from throughout the world
• On site accommodation in gorgeous surroundings
• Range of social events and tours
• Registration cost lower than previous AFFHO congresses and comparable to NZSG when compared on a daily cost
• Convenient online registration

Go online http://www.affhocongress2009.org and register now

Don’t miss this highlight on the 2009 genealogical calendar!!

Any questions or issues please email me or one of the congress committee. Contact details are on the website.

Regards

Richard

Richard Hollier
Conference Convenor
c/- 24 Gretel Place
Hillcrest, North Shore City 0627
New Zealand
Phone: +64 9 4190521
Email: convenor@affhocongress2009.org

I personally will be taking advantage of the opportunity to do some research on my long-neglected New Zealand ancestors and I am going over a week early. Perhaps I’ll see some of you there!