“The Morang South Primary School opened on 1 November 1877 under head teacher Thomas Doyle. The neat bluestone building, with attached four-room residence, had been erected by Richard Davies at a cost of 796 pounds 18s.6d. It stood on four acres formerly reserved for a cemetery. Although the school was designed to accommodate fifty pupils and initially had an enrolment of forty-nine, average attendance in 1878 was only thirty-four. In 1985 the school had 152 pupils. This had increased to 536 in 2003”.
From 1915
In March 1915, the school committee requested minor modifications andrenovations to the school building, to enable the forty children then attending to be housed more comfortably. New flooring was supplied and the gallery removed.
Morang South remained a one teacher school until 1935, when an infant teacher was also appointed. In 1959 a second classroom was constructed, and with the population increases resulting from new housing developments, further classrooms have since been added. The school now has over 500 pupils.
Bluestone building
The old bluestone school and residence were almost lost during the late 1960s when the Public Works Department condemned them as beyond economical restoration. Fortunately demolition was opposed by the School committee and after a spirited defence in 1971, aided by the mother’s club, the buildings were saved. Renovations were carried out by the School committee and mothers club, transforming the old school building into a library. The residence, now also restored, houses a canteen, meeting rooms and private study area.
Design
South Morang is a typical small school with attached residence resulting from the early Education Department policy of the 1870s. There had been debate for some years about the provision of residences for teachers.
These were to be provided only in country schools but frequently their accommodation left much to be desired. The size of the residence was linked to the number of pupils. Schools under 40 pupils would only receive two rooms for the residence and those of 60 or under four rooms, but attached to the school house. For timber schools the attachment caused problems with noise. All the two roomed residences were grossly insufficient for a teacher with a family.
Features
South Morang is a particularly fine example of the attached four room standard school. It is substantially intact externally and reasonably intact internally. Bastow has used the local material bluestone, in rough faced ashlar blocks but has relieved the generally dour character this material produces with bright red brick dressings to the corners and to window openings, including a circular gable vent at each end of the school room. This unusual materials combination, the decorative form of the school room window and the general attention to details at gable ends and window joinery, make this building a very picturesque example of the standard plan.
The tracery window at the back of the school room whilst uncommon on small country schools were use on some urban schools notably Queensberry Street North Melbourne (1882, Bastow). Its used illustrates the preference for the Gothic revival and its variations and picturesque schools in particular. In 1877 the Town Clerk of South Melbourne wrote to the Minister of Public Institutions concerning the new school “requesting him to direct the Architects attention to the desirability of designing a pretty and tasteful building”. South Morang is a good example of this public desire.
Architectural signficance
This school provides the same facilities as Epping 1874, but there the use of plain bluestone and the separated elements produces the impression of a much smaller, cheaper school.
Like Epping the school house is a gabled structure to the front two rooms with a skillion extension to the rear rooms. The school room is the standard gabled design applied to all the material types – brick, timber and stone. A porch is attached to the front with a side entrance. Internally the school followed the standard single room form with a raised gallery facing the long side with fire place and blackboard (the gallery has been removed).
Burchell’s appendix listing schools of substantially similar facade type does not list South Morang. No other examples of the use of stone with the elaborate architectural brick dressings seen here is known for 60 pupils school. Indeed the use of red brick dressings to bluestone is rare over all building types. Used here it acknowledges the local material and the sophisticated architecture based on northern Italian examples, eliminating from the various building divisions of the State Government.
In consequence South Morang Primary School is of state wide architectural significance. It is historically significant at the local level for the association with the South Morang Community and architecturally significant locally for the inventive use of the local material – bluestone, with red brick dressings.
N.B. The current site of Sth Morang Primary School is at 77 Gorge Rd, Sth Morang
