Page 293 - J Delaney - City of Cessnock Education and Schools

QUORROBOLONG SCHOOL 324.

When the ten (10) year lease of the school site on the Wallong Estate
expired in May 1895, the Wyndham family agreed to the continuance of the lease,
except that a rental of £2.0.0. ($4.00) per annum was charged. School enrolment
at this date had reached a total of 34 pupils, with a daily average attendance
of 24.

Joseph Paterson, when he was appointed as the Quorrobolong School
Teacher, in the absence of a· school residence, had rented the Daunt farmhouse
at an annual fee of £13.0.0. ($26.00). However, considering the Daunt house
to be of a poor standard he moved, ·0n 7th June 1898, to a house on t~e Sandy
Creek Road on the opposite side of .the school, but at · about the same distance ·

I

from it. !his house belonged to Edmund, Baker who agreed to rent the place,
also at £13.o.o~ ($26.00) per annum.

In November 1897, the residents of the Quorrobolong area, petitioned
. and made application for a new school and a . school teacher's residence. They

particularly requested that the school should be constructed on the Sandy Creek
Road, which, area had become the centre of the school pupil population. However,
it was not until mid 1899 that the Department of Public Instruction agreed that
a new school should be built - but the Department would not agree to the con-
struction qf a school teacher's residence.

A site of two (2) acres, situated on Portion No. 35, Parish of
Quorrobolong, at a point ten (10). chains south of the junction of Sandy Creek
and Ellalong Roads, Quorrobolong, was purchased for £6.15.2. ($13.52) fro~ Mr.
Elias Kerr; who, the Departmerit of Public Instruction records, was an inrna:e
in an 'Insa~e Asylum'.

"The contrac~ for the new schoolroom and outhouses was won with a tender
of £98.10.0. ($197.00) from Thomas and William Cowan of 19 Watt .Street Ne~castle.
The building was completed and ready for the start of the 1901 school year~
New furniture and equipment was ordered and mostly supplied. It . include~:-

Six Desks with iron stands, eight feet long
Six Forms, eigh~ feet long
One Cedar Table three feet by two feet
One Austrian Chair