Page 113 - J Delaney - City of Cessnock Education and Schools

120.

CESSNOCK SOUTH SCHOOL
STATE ARCHIVES FILE NO. - 5/15358-2

Cessnock's continued increase in population followed the almost
uninterrupted developments of the coal industry~ New collieries brought more
and more miners and their families to the area. New schools at Cessnock West,
Cessnock East, the transfer of Cessnock Branch to Nulkaba and the growth of
Cessnock-Aberdare Primary School, almost catered for the main needs of
education for the children from Cessnock and its immediate surrounding district.

However, the parents of young children in South Cessnock felt there
was still a need within the area for more schools for infants. The South
Cessnock Progress Association canvassed both the Education Department and
the local Parliamentarians to have an infants school established. Their
arguments stressed the need for some extensions at the existing schools to
cover this urgent requirement, and it was reasonable that such accommodation
could just as well be built here as at the existing school and thereby eliminate
travel for younger children.

The secretary of the South Cessnock Progress Association, Mrs. M.
Bint, of Jeffries Street South Cessnock, wrote many letters to various
authorities on behalf of her association. Late in 1925, she received notif-
ication of the success of her overtures. In February 1926, an infants school
commenced in two classrooms on land adjacent to the Cessnock Trades School.
One classroom was twenty-four (24) feet by twenty (20) feet, and the other
twenty-five (25) feet by twenty (20) feet. These classrooms had previously
been part of the Trades School.

The new Cessnock South Infants School was officially opened by
Mr. H.J. Connell, M.L.A., at 2p.m. on 23rd January 1926. This had followed
a luncheon held at the Cessnock Bowling Club at which Mr. Chas. Pryor,
President of South Cessnock Progress Association, had been host.