Page 66 - J Delaney - City of Cessnock Education and Schools

73.

B UC HANAN S C H 0 0 L

by sixteen (16) feet and eleven (11) feet high. It had
been built from slabs and had a shingle roof and an earth
floor. Now the doors and windows are missing, as well as
quite a quantity of the shingle roofing. The slabs in the
walls have now shrunk so much that they are now almost one
inch apart. The classroom measures twenty-eight (28) feet
by sixteen (16) feet. The balance of the building was for
use as the residence.

There is only one original patron of the first Buchanan Local
School Board left - James Price of Buttai.

Patrick Traher, a contractor, has examined the building and
estimates it will cost £60.0.0 ($120.00) to restore it to
the specifications of the State Board".

As was to be the pattern for many years, there was considerable
controversy and differences in Buchanan on what was to be t~e best location
for the school. Finally in July 1858, Inspector W. Wil~ins was instructed
to interview the residents of Buchanan. In his report, Inspector Wilkins
indicated that with the current location of people, it would appear that
the National State Board of Education had its school site on the wrong
side of the creek. A move towards restoring the original schoolhouse
and the re-establishment of a National School at Buchanan a~peared to
be shelved.

The Department of Public Instruction Annual Repor:s from 1854
to 1862 inclusive, do not show any record of the Buchanan Church of England
Denominational School. However, as indicated previously, i~ is considered
that the Church of England maintained its Buchanan schocl d~ring this
period. The 1863 Annual Report, in describing the Denomina:ional schools,
includes Buchanan. The report gives Buchanan's pupil enrol~~nts as twenty-
two (22) boys and twenty-three (23) girls. further, it des:.'.'ibes that