TAHMOOR NSW

SCHOOLS

Public education in Tahmoor commenced in 1872 when local residents petitioned the Council of Education for assistance in the running of a school they had already established in two rooms of Denfield Villa, the home of Mr Ashcraft. The school was established under the name of ‘Bargo’ with an enrolment of 9 boys and eleven girls from the families of John Ashcraft, William Whitfield, Joseph Ratcliff, Angus McInnes, T W Bollard, Jonathan. Wells, Francis Dietrich and William Shoobridge. The first teacher was a Miss Ollis, daughter of the school master at Upper Picton.

Sometime within the next two years, the school moved to a slab building, once again on private property, located in the vicinity of the corner of Struan Street and Remembrance Drive. By October 1878 the enrolment stood at 36.

Over the next few years, parents and citizens petitioned for a new school building complaining of the dilapidated state of the existing school room. George Bradbury, who had purchased the property on which the school stood, described it as a ‘hut’ with no water supply and the sanitary arrangements as being ‘insufficient and indecent’.

In 1882 plans were drawn for a new school to be erected on land given by Mr Bradbury which was nearly opposite the then existing school. The enrolment at this time was 52, with 38 of the children walking up to three miles from Upper Picton. The reason for the exodus from Picton to Tahmoor was the unpopularity of the Picton school master with the parents of the Picton school children, however when this was realised by the Education Department it reversed the decision to build a new school arguing that if the children from Upper Picton attended Picton school, there would be no need for the expense of a new building at Tahmoor.

Mr Bradbury tried to force the Department to build a new school by charging a rent on his premises but unfortunately this only caused the Department to close the school on 17 February 1883.

The residents wasted no time in petitioning for the re-opening of their school and by December 1883 it was once again established with an enrolment of 13 boys and 14 girls. This school was opened under the name ‘Myrtle Creek’ and was once again in Mr Bradbury’s dilapidated ‘hut’. Petitioning soon recommenced for a new school and teacher’s residence and this time they were successful with the new building being completed on 12 August 1885.

This school closed in 1904.

A school was established in 1916 under the name of ‘Bargo Bridge Camp’ in the residence of Mrs Monk, Meena Park, just south of the Bargo Bridge. This school was primarily for the children of the railway workers who had a camp near the Bridge. With the completion of the line, local residents petitioned for the school to remain but to be relocated to rooms in Mrs Gorrick's residence, Stratford House. This move was carried out on 27 August 1917 and on 20 September of that year the school became known as Tahmoor Public School.

Following Mrs Gorrick's request to the Department to vacate her premises, a building from the old Arina School was moved to the present Tahmoor school site which had been reserved for such a purpose in 1877. The keys were handed to the Mistress in January 1920.

Following representations from residents, a new school building was erected in 1928. This building has the name of the school and the date of its construction written on it which has unfortunately led people to believe that the school was established in that year and thus denies the school its true heritage.

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References:

AONSW. Council of Education and Department of Education files for Bargo, Myrtle Creek, Bargo Bridge Camp and Tahmoor schools