Page 80 - J Delaney - City of Cessnock Education and Schools

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C E S S N 0 C K SC H·O 0 L

the school's opening during 1859. Cessnock School is fourth on this list.
In another section of the Annual Report, in Appendix "A" entitled 'Schools
and Attendances', Cessnock School is shown as "Opened on 1st July 1859, School
enrolment - 15 boys and 17 girls, total 32 pupils, daily average attendance
12 boys and 14 girls".

In the 1860 Annual Report of the National Board of Education, the
enrolment had dropped to 26 pupils, 8 boys and 18 girls and the daily average
attendance to 3 boys and 10 girls. In this same report, in a section entitled
- "Inspectorial Annual School Examinations", the following reference is made
to Cessnock:-

"Cessnock School visited 14th July 1860. Building,
ground, furniture and apparatus are unsuitable and
insufficient. There is a lack of public interest and
there are no steps to remedy. Pupils are clean, neat
and orderly, but are unpunctual and irregular in attendance.
Instruction is obsolete and of little value. I find the
proficiency of the pupils to be of low standard".

It is not surprising then that in late 1860, Mr. Kenny resigned his post at
Cessnock to take up at a school at Sandy Creek. The Cessnock School had to
close for lack of a teacher, in December 1860.

Another petition was sent to the Government Authorities for the
establishment of a second school at Cessnock. This petition was signed by
Messrs. J. Picton, M. Carroll, B. Wetzler, B. Mc Grane, W. Stafford,
J. Mc Carthy, P. Smith, S. Moore, Stephenson Moore and· J. Moore. Local
interest had been stirred by the attention the reasonably new Parliament
was giving to the field of 'Education'. The petitioners thought that
about forty (40) children would enrol.

In 1866, a second school at Cessnock was opened on a site adjacent
· to the present Cessnoc~ Hotel. This was a single room building, twenty-five

(25) feet by twelve (12) feet, nine (9) feet high. It was made from slab
timber with a shingle roof. Mr. L. Kenn1 had returned to be teacher and