ANME

NEWS

Newsletter of the

Email: ANME@canberra.edu.au www.canberra.edu.au/centres/anme or www.anme.org.au Post: Australian National Museum of Education Box 24 Building 5, University of Canberra ACT 2601 Phone: 02 6201 2473

March 2013 No. 5 ANME Director and Senior Curator attend History of Education Conference Director Dr Malcolm Beazley and Senior Curator Dr Geoffrey Burkhardt attended the National Conference of the Australian and New Zealand History of Education Combined Conference at the RMIT University Melbourne, 28th November-1st December 2012. The event was a combined Conference of the ANZHES, the Australian Library History Forum and the Mechanics Institutes of Victoria. Over 120 participants attended the Conference and associated functions which included a behind the scenes tour of the State Library of Victoria during which Conference members were taken into the stacks, rare books and manuscripts sections of the Library. A pre-conference bus tour of Mechanics Institutes in Melbourne and surrounding towns was also arranged. Keynote speakers included Prof. Alistair Black from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science of the University of Illinois whose presentation was titled Cathedral of Culture, citadel of science: the public library building in Britain since 1850 as monument and machine. A number of Conference attendees came from the USA, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Among the Conference participants was one of ANMEs Patrons, Prof. Geoffrey Sherington from University of Sydney. ANME Senior Curator Dr. Geoffrey Burkhardt presented a paper at the Conference titled The Research Collection of Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century School Textbooks in the Australian National Museum of Education.

Chinese Medical Educators from Guandong Visit ANME

(Photo by Michelle McAulay UC Monitor Online)

On 15th December 2012 the ANME Director Dr Malcolm Beazley, ANME Chairperson, Prof. Barbara Pamphilon and Senior Curator Dr Geoffrey Burkhardt hosted a visit of 20 Medical Educators from the Guandong Medical College. The group, which was on a study tour of medical and education museums in Australia, was led by Prof. Zhiwei He, the Director of the College, and Prof. Liu Xinguang, Director of Teaching Administration. Following a welcome by Prof. Pamphilon and the exchange of gifts, the group was given a Powerpoint Profile of the ANME Collection by Dr Burkhardt after which the group was conducted on a tour of the ANME museum displays and repository. Members of the group were especially interested in ANMEs collection of school textbooks and school readers, some dating back to the early nineteenth century. This was the second group of overseas education experts to visit ANME during the last twelve months. The ANME welcomes visiting groups and individual visitors to the Museum provided that bookings and tour arrangements are made through the ANME Director prior to the visit. Preparations for Canberras Centenary Celebrations in 2013 Many of the schools in Canberra are planning events and displays to celebrate the Centenary of the naming of Canberra which occurred on 12 March 1913. At that time there were a number of small schools in the region that became the Federal Capital
2

Territory in 1913. The oldest of these district schools was St. Johns School, the first to be established in the district in the 1840s, a church parish primary school. Most of the others were government rural one-teacher schools including Hall Public School, Ginninderra Public School, Uriarra Public School, Tuggernong Public School, Weetangera Public School, Gibraltar Public School, Mulligans Flat Public School, Williamsdale Public School and Yarralumula Public School. All of these schools were established and staffed by the NSW Department of Public Instruction. Following the establishment of the Federal Capital Territory the school building and maintenance was funded by the new Federal Government, although schools in Canberra continued to be staffed and managed by the NSW Department of Education until 1974 when the Interim ACT Schools Authority became responsible, along with the Commonwealth Teaching Service, for the staffing, control and management of schools in the ACT. The ANME proposes to organize a display of historic documents, memorabilia and school ephemera relating to the history of schooling in Canberra 1913-2013. Details of this display will be notified in the next Newsletter. Rev. Henry Fulton: An Early Colonial Educator Henry Felton is recognised as having established the first secondary school in the Australian colonies. He started this boarding school in 1814 in Castlereagh, where his initial intake was a very selective group of twelve youths, sons of parents who were able to afford the fifty pounds per annum fees for a classical grammar school education for their offspring. Henry Fulton arrived in Sydney per Minerva in 1800 having received a life sentence after being convicted of Seditious Practices during the Irish Rebellion in 1798. Fulton was born in 1761, but there is uncertainty about his place of birth. The Australian Dictionary of Biography entry states he was born in England, while the Nepean District Historical Archaeology Group website states that he was born at Lisburn in Co. Antrim, Ireland, son of a wealthy damask manufacturer. However, more significantly for our purposes he graduated from Trinity College Dublin (B.A.) in 1792 with an outstanding academic record in the Classics and Mathematics. He joined the Church of Ireland in which he was ordained a minister and posted as a curate to a parish in East Galway. When Fulton arrived in Sydney in 1800 he was probably the best educated person in the colony at that time. Whether he was justly or unjustly convicted of a political crime is still debated. It is claimed that he joined the Society of United Irishmen and that although he had sympathies with the Irish Rebels and may have assisted their cause, he did not actually participate actively in the Rebellion. His wife Ann and two children accompanied him to NSW. Within a few months of his arrival in the colony Fulton was granted a conditional pardon by the Governor who recognized his abilities and believed it was appropriate to make best use of the talents of a well-educated clergyman. He was appointed as assistant chaplain and teacher to the Hawkesbury District for a short period until 1801 when he was appointed as the Assistant Chaplain in Norfolk Island where he remained until 1805 when he was given an absolute pardon which made him eligible to
3

be appointed as a Crown Chaplain to the colony. By 1808 Fulton had become a great friend and supporter of Governor Bligh in the Governors efforts to constrain the officers of the NSW Corps monopoly of trade in the colony. Fulton was present in the Governors house when Bligh was arrested by Major Johnston. Fulton was dining with Bligh and several others on that day and it is claimed that he and Blighs daughter tried to prevent the soldiers from entering Government House. Fulton stood behind the closed door and was nearly killed when a soldier thrust his sword through the door, just missing him. Fulton, as a chaplain of the Colony, was dismissed by Johnston. During Blighs period of capture and confinement by Johnston, Fulton acted as Blighs private chaplain and secretary. After Macquaries arrival in the colony Fulton was reinstated and following the arrest of the Rebels, Fulton accompanied Bligh to England in 1810 where he gave evidence at the court martial of Johnston. Upon returning to Sydney Fulton became chaplain to the Hawkesbury, living at Castlereagh, where he started a private school (Parsonage House School) in 1814 for Young Gentlemen who were boarders at this school. Fulton taught classics, mathematics and modern languages to these specially selected sons of wealthier local inhabitants and at that time his school was most probably the first in the colony to offer a secondary school curriculum. During his many years in the Hawkesbury District, Fulton was highly regarded, not only by the local residents, many of whom were emancipists, but also by the Governors of the day. He received land grants in the district and also Governor Darling made to Fulton a land grant in the Cowra district of NSW in 1831, which was managed by Fultons son, Henry Matthias. Being the scholar that he was, it is understandable that Fulton would have owned one of the largest and finest private libraries in the colony at that time. Following Fultons death in 1840, his library was sent to auction in Sydney in 1842. A copy of the auction catalogue for the library was published and a copy survives in the State Library of NSW under the title, Catalogue of the Valuable Library of the late Rev. Henry Fulton, comprising some of the most rare and valuable works of Ancient Authors. To be sold by auction, Mr. Blackman, George Street Auctioneers, on 6 th August 1842. (See Ferguson, No. 3396) In recognition of Henry Fultons great contribution to and support of education in colonial NSW and particularly the education of the children of former convicts in NSW, the NSW Department of Education named a primary school in his honour, Henry Fulton Public School, in Vincent Road Cranebrook, which is in the northern portion of the Penrith district between Penrith and Castlereagh. Profile of a School Museum The Sovereign Hill School Museums, Ballarat, Victoria. The Sovereign Hill Goldfields Museum complex at Ballarat Victoria, contains four school museums on its extensive pioneer historical site. These museums are presented as costume museums where visiting groups of primary school children can dress up as 1850s pupils and have lessons in the 1850s school buildings on site. The four school
4

museums are, the Red Hill National School, the Ragged School, St. Peters School and St. Alipus School. The staff of the School Museums complex arrange special programs for visiting primary school groups who spend two days studying and playing as 1850s goldfields children. The schools use the Irish National School Curriculum, common at that time in the colonies of NSW and Victoria. Overall the four school museums represent the four types of schooling available in mid nineteenth century goldfields Australia. Each of the school buildings is furnished in period style. In the Red Hill National School building school students are introduced to the Curriculum used by the National School Board in 1850s Victoria. These National Schools were non-denominational, secular institutions, operated by the colonial government. St. Peters School and St. Alipus School were church, ie. denominational, schools, the former being a Church of England parish school originally located in West Ballarat, and the latter a Catholic Parish School. The Ragged School was originally a Charity School providing a basic education for orphans and children of poor and destitute parents. Their curriculum emphasis was upon elementary vocational skills. As part of the much more extensive Sovereign Hill Museums complex, these school museums offer a most educative insight into the history of Australian Colonial education. For those interested in Australian social, industrial, mining and education history a visit to Sovereign Hill Museums is highly recommended. For further details of the school museums briefly mentioned above please refer to the Sovereign Hill website at www.sovereignhill.com.au/