Remembering school days of yesteryear

Simple take a visit to the Redland Museum’s school room be transported back in time.

The room, set-up from the 1930 to 1960s era, provides an accurate image of bygone school days.

While representative of the Redlands, even those who were schooled elsewhere will delight in its details.

The building of schools was often the responsibility of local citizens.

In the case of the Redlands a committee of parents, led by the Hon. Francis Bigge, who had built what is now the Grand View Hotel, had wrote to the Board of Education on September 1865 making an application for the building of a school for 60 pupils.

In April 1868, Cleveland’s fi rst school was held in a modest ‘recycled’, £20 a year leased shop on North Street, next to a peach orchard which was next to the Grand View Hotel.

The shop counters had been made into desks. In 1880, the old school building was demolished.

Local citizenry raised £55 for some of the building costs for the new schoolhouse, with the Board of Education providing the rest.

Cleveland East School as it was now called, was completed at a total cost of £275.

In 1915, Cleveland School was moved from North Street to its present site in Queen Street and the school master’s residence was sold.

Redland Museum holds many items and stories from these early school days.

A school room was recreated in the museum by Norman Austin OAM in the 1970s.

The school had a wonderful old pendulum clock that lasted many years but when it was deemed to ‘have had its day’, Thomas Kirk a local resident, purchased it from the school for two shillings and six pence.

It was donated to Redland Museum through his daughter Jean who had it ticking away in her house for many years.

Most interesting are the large blackboard and easel both of which were donated by the late Mervyn Beitz, a former school teacher at Cleveland State School, in 1979.

This blackboard and slates in the desks intrigue young visitors as it predates modern computers.

Children also find the school bell, donated by the late Norman Dean OAM, of great appeal while the two long canes reposing on the school desk have long since been in disuse.

Similarly, unfamiliar objects, not used in today’s schools, are the inkwells, ink blotters, leather satchels, old radio, and large metal pencil sharpener.

Rules for women school teachers, issued in 1915, included what today we would consider draconian:

The ‘Good Manners’ chart featured in the museum’s school room displays some interesting rules based on the ‘Children’s National Guild of Courtesy’.

Some of the rules are as follows:

You will find Redland Museum at 60 Smith Street, Cleveland. It is open seven days from 10am to 3.30pm.

Visit www.redlandmuseum.org.au or phone 3286 3494.