Ye Olde School Yard

Windermere School (1922 – 1942) – The school that travelled to the children!

On March 21 this year, it will be 100 years since Windermere School opened with Miss Fanny Hancock as teacher and fourteen pupils – Eva, Robert and Edward Barr; Agnes and James Fraser; Margaret and Nell Holmes; Thelma, Cyril and Harold Lee; Florence and Herbert Lee; Frederick and James Pepper.

The school commenced in the Cannon Valley Hall where it operated for twelve months until the closed school at Palm Grove in the Conway district was transported and re-erected on land donated by Mr H. W. Holmes.  Fittingly, it took its name, Windermere, from the name of Mr Holmes’s farm. The school and the Cannon Valley Hall were situated on either side of what is now known as Robinson’s Road.

The first teacher, Miss Hancock (1922 – 1924), made a lasting impression. During her first year of teaching which was in the Cannon Valley Hall, things were fairly hectic on weekends when dances were to be held. Dances were significant fund raisers for communities – as well as important socially. Everyone available had to work to move all the school gear out for the dance and then set it up in time for Monday morning’s school.

Times were challenging – Miss Hancock taught seven different grades in her little bush school with few aids other than a blackboard, slates and slate pencils.

Recollections from past students paint a picture of a wonderful school environment. When the Palm Grove school was re-erected, gardening began in earnest and through the combined efforts of both girls and boys, a lovely flower garden was established. Friday afternoon was devoted first to sewing (both boys and girls participating) and then it was into the garden to beautify the surroundings.

Many of the children rode horses to school as there was plenty of room in the new school grounds for their horses to graze. Pupils took part with enthusiasm in concerts, plays and maypole dancing.

In its twenty years as a school, there were only five different teachers – Miss Fanny Hancock, Miss Morris, Miss Connie Hopkins, Miss Flegabein and Mr Pearce. As was the case in the early days, all these teachers boarded locally.

On June 25, 1942 the Department of Public Instruction informed the secretary of the school committee that it was necessary to close the school as from June 30. The school had not met the department’s requirement of an average attendance of at least nine pupils. Petitions in 1944 to have the school re-opened were unsuccessful.

The Windermere School building remained unused for several years and in 1945 a decision was made to remove and re-erect the building at Proserpine State School (then situated behind the Entertainment Centre) to be used as a classroom for the students attending the High School Top and as extra classrooms for the primary school until students transitioned to the new building in Sterry Street. It was subsequently used as the Proserpine Kindergarten until 2013.

After many years, the land was handed back to the Holmes family.      

Story and photo courtesy of Proserpine Museum and “Enlightened Horizons” by Neville Smith.

Fanny Hancock and horse called Old Girl circa 1922

Windermere class in the late 1930s

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