Page 374 - J Delaney - City of Cessnock Education and Schools

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405.

YANGO CREEK SCHOOL

STATE ARCHIVES FILE NO. - 5/18245-2

"The Big Yango" was a tributary of Wollombi's Cockfighter Creek.
It evidently attracted early settlers from both its adjacent and neighbouring
villages of Laguna and Wollombi. "Education" was always a prominent thought
in the minds of settlers throughout N.S.W. Thus it is not surprising to find
a Letter of Application from the Yango Creek settlers to the Council of
Education, dated 9th March 1880, which sought some financial aid for the
establishment of a school.

The names of the petitioners, the numbers of their children of school
age and the family religion show on the petition thus:-

NAME CHILDREN OF FAMILY
SCHOOL AGE RELIGION
Henry J. Connor
Mick Cagney 2 Roman Catholic
William Goodwin Reman Catholic
David Davis 4 Church of England
William Smyth Church of England
5 Church of England
? Ralston 2 Roman Catholic
Isaac Jacobs Church of England
John Willis 1 Church of England
William Beavar. 1 Church of England
3

5
4

This letter to the Council was written under the terms and conditions
of the Public Schools Act of 1866, by which Provisional Schools were built
by the residents of an area. The Yango Creek settlers built a schoolhouse
twenty six (26) feet long by thirteen (13) feet wide and nine (9) feet high.
It was erected on an area of about five (5) acres of Crown Land. The building
materials were ironbark wall slabs constructed on a base of sleepers. It had
a bark roof and was floored with pit-sawn boards. The first teacher was
Allan Simmons, who did not have 'school residence' accommodation and therefore
had to live with local families. His school enrolment was twenty eight (28)
pupils with an average daily attendance of eighteen (18).