Page 76 - J Delaney - City of Cessnock Education and Schools

83.

B UT T AI S C H 0 0 L
(ORIGINAL NAME - STOCKRINGTON SCHOOL)

Pupils and teacher spent many school lunch hour breaks in clearing the
very scrubby and thickly timbered land. On 1st November 1938, a boy named
Alan Brown aged 10 years, was killed felling a tree in the schoolgrounds.

The classroom had been half the normal double portable size and
had been transferred by the Department to Buttai and is shown as Order 0/2464,
dated 1st March 1938. It had a verandah the full length of one side, but on
arrival it required an end to be built in. Only half the schoolground had
been cleared when the school opened. After the fatal accident, Tarro Shire
Council relief workers completed the clearing of the brush and saplings.
Four large iron bark trees and a large gum tree were left as shade and she~ter.
The Council workers also fenced the grounds.

Mrs. W. Lindsay, Secretary of Buttai Parents and Citizens Association,
on 21st September 1939, requested the provision of a weathershed. The request
was denied on the grounds that the school buildings had cost £176.8.6 ($352.86)
and had available accommodation for forty eight (48) pupils, but only housed
twenty eight (28).

The school closed on 18th March 1948, and the teacher James O'Brien
was transferred.

Teachers at Stockrington School, later re-named Buttai, have been:-

George Akhurst 8th May 1899
Cecil Robertson 4th Apr;il 1901
Clotilda Purcell 6th February 1902
Charles Langlands 16th February 1903
John Gray 21st April 1903
Horace Martin 1st April 1911
Char.!..es Kelly 8th October 1913
John :-:erner 20th January 1915
Eva ~farner 3rd August 1915

School closed 24th February . 1920.