From Vision and Realisation, A Centenary History of State Education in Victoria, Education Department of Victoria 1973, Vol 2: 2258 Lower Homebush (p.822)
Lower Homebush was a bustling settlement on an alluvial goldfield about 6 miles to the NE of Avoca. In March 1878 William Campbell and others urged the establishment of a school for the large number of children. A hardwood building, 30ft x 13ft, but unlined, unceiled and without a floor, was purchased from William Burhlert for £30 and moved to a site on crown land that had been gazetted as a school reserve on Jan. 23, 1880. William Bennett carried out its removal, re-erection and renovation for £69 16s. This building was almost immediately overcrowded and a church hall, 44ft x 24ft, was leased from the Union Church in 1881 for £38 p.a. and used an adjunct. Within months the adjunct too was overcrowded, and children under 6 and over 13 were excluded. In 1882, when the enrollment was 183 and the *a. a. as high as 112, the Department provided a third building- a portable with quarters-which was erected beside the building purchased from William Burhlert. On the occasion of the inspectors visit in 1882 175 children attended.
Residents thought the makeshift building unworthy of their prosperous township and gained Board of Advice support when they urged erection of a permanent and substantial building. In 1887 a handsome new school was erected at an estimated cost of £1,360. It consisted of two rooms of brick-50ft x 20ft and 20ft x 20ft. The old hardwood building was left as a shelter-shed and the portable removed elsewhere. As with many goldfields schools the *a. a. soon fell rapidly: by 1903 there was only 40. The two small classrooms were now unused and HT J. T. Hynes sought permission to convert them into a residence, at his own expense. His proposal was approved but the project apparently proved beyond his means. He appears to have dismantled the galleries and used the timber as partitions in the classrooms. The name of the school was changed to Homebush in 1919, but the Lower was restored in 1951. This school was unstaffed in 1962 and finally closed on Aug. 10, 1967.
* a. a. - stands for average attendence
Related posts and pages
- Lower Homebush School #2258
- Lower Homebush School Centenary History
- Teachers: Lower Homebush School Teachers
- Pupils: Homebush Former Pupils and Residents
- Lower Homebush School Inspectors Report 1937-1961
- Mount Waverley Secondary College camp 1996- 2011
- Charlotte Wilkins nee Young, 1861–1925 (wife of teacher George Wilkins)
Wikitree:
- William Campbell (1830-1894) : petitioned for school in 1878
- William Ernest Buhlert (1834-1883) : supplied the building for the first wooden school
- William Bennett (1845-1926) : removal, re-erection and renovation of wooden school
- James Thompson Haynes (1853-1930) : teacher 1903-1906
- George Edward Wilkins (1857 – 1944) : teacher 1907-1921
- Charlotte Ethel (Young) Wilkins (1861 – 1925) : wife of George Wilkins
- Laura Eliza (Squires) Wilkins (1878-1970) : teacher; second wife of George Wilkins
