Page 190 - J Delaney - City of Cessnock Education and Schools

213.

L AGUNA S C H 0 0 L

Inspector Thomas Dwyer was directed by the new Department to make a review
of the Laguna Church of England Denominational School. This he did on
24th July 1867. In the report he submitted to his superiors, Inspector
Dwyer records the following details:-

11 Laguna Church of England Denominational School
premises are in tolerable repair. The furniture
and apparatus are insufficient. Mrs. Townsend
is the teacher. The school has an enrolment of
25 boys and 17 girls. However, the daily average
attendance for the second school quarter has been
16 boys and 12 girls. The pupils were well-behaved
but -appeared awkward. The teaching methods were
very obsolete and as a result the standard of
proficiency is very small in every respect. The
schoolroom has a four-roomed residence attached to
it, with a detached kitchen".

In August 1872, the Church of England Denominational School
at Laguna closed. A committee of local settlers immediately pressed
for the establishment of a National Public School. Mr. Henry Brown,
the local storekeeper was the Secretary-Treasurer of the Committee and
was the prime mover. Mr. Brown had donated an acre of his land as the
school site. This was on Part of Portion 95, Parish of Blaxland. It
faced the main road, named "Ferry Road", and was. next to the Post Office,
and about a quarter of a mile from the old Church of England Denominational
School.

Inspector Bradley, on 2nd November 1872, found that Mr. Brown
had organised and financed the erection of the new combined school and
residence. It was a weatherboard building, which contained a school
classroom thirty (JO) feet by fifteen (15) feet, a bedroom fifteen (15)
feet by eleveri (11) feet, a kitchen fifteen (15) feet by nine (9) feet,
plus two sr:.aller skillion-roofed rooms. When he found that Mr. H. Brown
was willing to pay the balance, Insp.::c tor· Bradley recommended to hl:s