Number Two Palm Grove School (1926 – 1951)

Palm Grove School Number 2 in 1926 when it opened.  

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This year marks 100 years since Palm Grove School (Number Two) was opened at the location of 100 metres past the Cedar Creek turnoff. It was the second school in the area, commencing classes on January 27, 1926. The first school had operated between 1916 and 1918 until attendance numbers forced its closure.  

The first Palm Grove School, long known as Palm Groves, stood at what was described as “a dead end” of the settlement. Mountains and creeks made the journey much longer than maps suggested, and after its closure Conway parents spent years unsuccessfully seeking its reopening. Many children faced a six- to eight-mile trip to Bona Vista and so many did not attend. In March 1923, the building was moved to Windermere in the Cannon Valley area.  

On July 25, 1924, the Department of Education approved a new school. Long-term teacher Alan Crocker, who taught at Palm Grove 2 until March 7, 1949, questioned the chosen site: a ten-acre paddock on a rocky lower slope, poorly suited to a playground. He noted that “those children who rode horses to school could have walked home and back several times in the time it took to catch them.”  

When the school opened, there were ten students which included two sets of twins. The following week, four more students enrolled. One student, Percy Monaghan, who was a student at the first school, was fifteen by this stage but remained at the school until May 1926 to keep the attendance numbers up. When one student left later that year, another started at age four and a half years to ensure the school remained open. Imagine this happening today!  

The first teacher was Mr Fred Clowes who taught at the school until the latter part of 1928. This man with two artificial legs, camped in a storage room underneath the school. In Neville Smith’s book, students recalled how it would take Mr Clowes “about one hour to climb the great slab of rock to the boys’ toilet”.  Alan Crocker commented that he could not understand the Education Department allowing such a transfer to take place – and rightly so! Can you envision what the unions would make of this today? Mr Clowes is pictured top right in the photograph.  

As in most early district schools, children wore uniforms only for athletics and usually came barefoot. They played rounders, marbles, cricket, and Dogs and Wallabies, a chase game that sent the “wallabies” racing through long grass ahead of the “dogs”. It was remarkable no child was bitten by a snake. Although the school had some interschool sporting success, preparation was inadequate as most of the training took place on the hard gravel road in front of the school - far from ideal.  

The end of year picnic was the social event of the year – but not just for the children. Everyone in the district, whether parent or not, went along and enjoyed the occasion.  Following an afternoon of games, the festivities continued on into the night with music and dancing – until the stroke of midnight.    

Palm Grove School Number 2 closed in December 1951. Just as the pupils had done when the first school closed at the end of World War One, the remaining children enrolled at Bona Vista which had reopened only the year before. Mr E (Ted) Curtain, who had been the last teacher at Palm Grove Two went on the teach at Bona Vista. The wheel had turned full circle.  

Story and photos sourced from “Enlightened Horizons: The History of Education in the Proserpine District” by Neville Smith.  

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