Page 342 - J Delaney - City of Cessnock Education and Schools

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WATT AGAN CREEK SCHOOL

STATE ARCHIVES FILE NO. 5118051-1

In the early 1860's a local group of residents in the Wattagan Creek
area were most active in their efforts to establish a school in their region.
The 1861 Annual Report of the Department of Public Instruction records that
an application was made for aid to start a school. The residents in their
request had offered to provide a school building if the Department could assist
by appointing a teacher and paying his salary. The Department was sympathetic
to the request and in its Annual Report indicates that aid would be granted.

The 1862 Annual Report of the Department of Public Instruction records
that Wattagan Creek School had opened with James Joseph Walsh as the first
teacher. The Department's 1862 Annual Report under an Appendix entitled
"Enrolments and Attendances", shows Wattagan Creek had an enrolment of eighteen
(18) boys and thirteen (13) girls, a total of thirty one (31) pupils who, during
that year, had a daily average attendance of thirteen (13) boys and eight (8)

The first school appears to have been held in a building owned by
John Lynch. This was a rough slab structure which provided a classroom twenty
two (22) feet by twelve (12) feet and a teacher's residence of two rooms, one
fourteen (14) feet by twelve (12) feet; the other twelve (12) feet by twelve
(12 ) feet. The local School Board members appointed were - John Lynch, William
McMullen, Timothy Manix, Christopher Milan and Charles Cameron. ~en the school
opened it had no desks, but the new School Board rectified this.

Annual examinations were made by the District Inspectors. The first
was made in the first school year on 3rd October 1862. Wattagan Creek School
maintained its enrolment figures in the mid 1860's with thirty (30) pupils in
1864 and thirty six (36) pupils in 1865, but daily average attendances in both
years only reached 20 pupils.

In 1868, when Wattagan Creek enrolments had dropped back to twelve
(12 ) boys and seven (7) girls, the school status was regressed back to that
of a 'Provisional' school. Inspector T. Dwyer made his annual examination
of ~attagan Provisional School on 19th June 1868. He found an attendance of
twel~e (12) boys and six (6) girls. In his report to his superiors he described