A Handsome Building: Avoca State School No. 4 and the Education Revolution

Avoca State School No 4 in 2017

The formal opening of Avoca’s new State School No. 4 on 16 August 1878 was, in the words of the Avoca Mail, “an event of no little importance to the town, the district, and to the rising generation.” The newspaper believed that the building would “bear favourable comparison with any that have been erected in other up-country towns,” and nearly 150 years later it remains one of the district’s most recognisable landmarks.

Yet the new school was more than a handsome public building. It formed part of the educational transformation that followed the Education Act 1872, which established free, compulsory, and secular schooling throughout Victoria.

Henry Robert Bastow and a New Vision for Schools

H R Bastow 1888

The architect responsible for Avoca’s new school was Henry Robert Bastow (1839–1920), Chief Architect and Surveyor to the Victorian Education Department.

Born in Bridport, Dorset, Bastow trained as an architect in the Dorchester district at the same time that the future novelist Thomas Hardy was serving his own apprenticeship. The two men later maintained a correspondence on religious and personal matters after Bastow settled in Australia.

The scale of the task confronting Bastow was enormous. New schools were needed in established towns, goldfields communities, and remote rural settlements, often with limited budgets and difficult transport links. Materials could take months to arrive by bullock wagon or horse and cart, while communication relied largely upon the telegraph. During the first years of the new system more than 600 schools were erected, and over the course of his career Bastow’s influence extended to more than 900 school buildings across Victoria.

Rather than designing every school individually, Bastow developed a series of adaptable plans that could be modified to suit local conditions, enrolments, and community expectations. He also responded to practical experience, incorporating suggestions from teachers and residents as ideas about school design evolved. This flexibility allowed the Education Department to expand rapidly without sacrificing architectural quality.

Although deeply influenced by the Gothic Revival, Bastow’s buildings were never purely ornamental. Larger schools were intended to serve as civic landmarks, while even modest rural schools incorporated thoughtful detailing and a sense of permanence. His work reflected a belief that public education was central to the colony’s future and deserved buildings that expressed both dignity and public purpose.

Avoca State School No. 4 exemplifies this philosophy. Designed to accommodate more than 300 pupils, it featured broad encircling verandahs, prominent ventilators, lofty windows, and a distinctive rood profile. These elements were practical responses to Australian conditions, providing shade, shelter, and improved air circulation, while also creating one of the most distinctive school buildings erected in nineteenth-century Victoria.

Architectural historian Lawrence Burchell later identified Avoca as one of the most significant examples of Bastow’s work. In Victorian Schools: A Study in Colonial Government Architecture, 1837–1900 (1980), he described Avoca as a near-duplicate of the pioneering Horsham school and argued that, because subsequent additions altered the original Horsham design, “it is necessary to study the duplicate, Avoca (1877), to see Horsham as it was intended.”

Burchell regarded the Horsham–Avoca model as a genuinely innovative form of school architecture, achieving a distinctive nineteenth-century character without relying upon historical imitation. The school on the hill at Avoca thus occupies an important place in Victoria’s architectural and educational history.

Calling for Tenders

On 4 October 1877 the Education Department called for tenders for the erection of a brick building for State School No. 4 at Avoca. Contractors could inspect the plans through Henry Hall at the Shire Offices, while forms of tender were also available at Castlemaine State School No. 119.

The following week the Avoca Mail informed its readers:

“The building, which will be a very handsome one, will be of brick, with white facings, and will have a verandah all round, this being only the third school of the kind built in the colony.”

The newspaper anticipated that the Minister of Education would perform the opening ceremony and noted that alternative prices were being sought for either slate or iron roofing.

By February 1878, The Argus reported:

“A handsome building, costing £2,243, has just been commenced at Avoca.”

The final cost ultimately reached £2,363, including £120 for outbuildings and fencing.

A School Designed for the Australian Climate

Avoca Primary School is of architectural significance as one of the first Victorian school buildings to incorporate a continuous encircling verandah as an integral part of its design. The feature reflected a growing sensitivity to Australian conditions and an acknowledgement that European models were not always suited to colonial summers.

Like many gold-rush centres, Avoca’s population had expanded steadily during the 1860s and 1870s. The new State School No. 4 was designed to accommodate approximately 320 pupils, making it one of the largest educational buildings in western Victoria. Yet size alone was not its distinguishing feature.

Teachers throughout the colony had long complained about excessive heat in classrooms. Henry Robert Bastow sought to address this problem by completely surrounding the school with broad verandahs that sheltered children before school and during recess while shading the brick walls from the summer sun. The great tent-like form of the roof rose above these lower verandahs, creating a striking architectural composition unlike anything previously seen in Victorian state schools.

Ventilation gables and high supplementary windows formed part of the same solution. Tall windows extended above the verandah line, allowing additional light into the classrooms, while the prominent roof ventilators improved air circulation. When Minister of Public Instruction W. C. Smith inspected the building at its opening in August 1878, he specifically inquired into the lighting, ventilation, and the effect of the verandahs, expressing himself well pleased with the results.

Architectural historian Lawrence Burchell later argued that the design represented a revolutionary departure from earlier school buildings. The roof, “a great tent-like form,” became the dominant feature of the composition and achieved what he described as “a uniquely nineteenth-century style without recourse to borrowing from the past.”

Avoca school Public Record Office Victoria Photographs Of State School Buildings In Victoria VPRS 1396 P0000 Volume No 3 image 1

The experiment was not wholly successful. Some classrooms remained difficult to light adequately, and later schools introduced modifications to improve interior conditions. Nevertheless, the Avoca design demonstrated a new approach—one consciously adapted to Australian weather rather than inherited British precedents.

The resulting architectural form has since become known as the Horsham-Avoca model. Approximately twenty-five Victorian schools adopted variations of the design, ranging from modest country schools to buildings accommodating more than 500 pupils. Because later alterations changed the original Horsham school, Avoca is now regarded as the most intact expression of Bastow’s original concept and one of the most important surviving examples of nineteenth-century educational architecture in Victoria.

Horsham State School no 298, the prototype of the Horsham–Avoca model. Public Record Office Victoria Photographs Of State School Buildings In Victoria, VPRS 1396/P0000, Volume 3, p. 21.
Built in 1876, Horsham State School No. 298 provided the model for Avoca. Subsequent additions in 1880 altered Bastow’s original design, making Avoca the more faithful surviving example of the Horsham–Avoca type.

Community Effort and Local Advocacy

Although Bastow provided the architectural vision, local residents played an important role in securing the new school.

The Avoca Mail credited the Board of Advice with obtaining the building and singled out Henry Hall for particular praise. Hall had taken a leading part in the campaign and had succeeded in securing several alterations to the plans.

George Powell, chairman of the Board, declared that no more zealous advocate could be found:

“No one connected with the Government could fail to know the vast quantity of letters which Mr Hall wrote to the different departments on local matters.”

The school thus represented a partnership between the Education Department and a determined local community committed to providing the best possible opportunities for its children.

Opening Day

When the new school was formally opened on Friday, 16 August 1878, nearly 400 children assembled in the building. The Avoca Mail observed that they looked “happy and healthy,” dressed in holiday attire and drawn up in orderly lines by their teachers.

Minister of Public Instruction W. C. Smith, accompanied by local member B. G. Davies, inspected the school with head teacher Mr Macadam. He made inquiries about the ventilation, lighting, and the effect of the verandahs and expressed himself well pleased with both the building and the workmanship.

The children burst into the first verse of the National Anthem as the school was declared open, and afterwards enjoyed a substantial treat provided by the Board of Advice. The contractor, Joseph Jarris, was warmly praised for the care and conscientiousness with which he had completed the work, selecting only sound materials and rejecting imperfect pieces.

The celebrations continued with a public dinner at the Avoca Hotel, where numerous speeches reflected both civic pride and confidence in the future.

A Monument to Educational Ambition

The Avoca Mail’s editorial at the time of the school opening captured the broader significance of the occasion:

“The people of this community … have shown the most lively interest in obtaining a thoroughly sound system of education.”

For the residents of Avoca, the new school symbolised far more than bricks and mortar. It represented faith in the future, confidence in public education, and a belief that country children deserved facilities equal to those available anywhere in the colony.

Nearly a century and a half later, Avoca State School No. 4 still stands as testimony to that vision, a reminder of a period when communities, educators, and government alike believed that the education of children deserved the finest buildings they could provide.

Avoca State School No 4 in 2017
Avoca State School No 4 in 2017

Further reading and related posts

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Author: Anne Young

I blog about my family history at http://ayfamilyhistory.com/

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