NRS-17108 | Visitors' Books [Morisset East Public School/Bonnell's Bay Public School]

Full description

The Public Instruction Act, 1866 authorised special religious instruction by visiting clergymen and their delegates (Public Schools Act, 1866, s. 19), and regulations under the Act authorised members of the public to visit schools during ‘the hours of secular instruction’ to observe teaching methods, teaching material and equipment (Regulations adopted by the Council of Education on 27 February 1867, s. 84-85). The regulations required every teacher to keep a visitors’ book ‘in which visitors may enter their names and if they think proper any remarks. Such remarks the Teachers are by no means to erase or alter.’ (Regulations … s. 86).

The purpose of the visitors’ book was to create a record of the persons other than pupils or teachers who attended the school during business hours. Visitors’ books were divided into three columns – date, name and remarks. The remarks usually recorded the purpose of the visit which included religious instruction (by far the most usual purpose for visiting a school), school inspection, medical inspection, departmental officers visiting on business e.g. to inspect the buildings or equipment, and guest speakers. Occasionally visitors (particularly Inspectors) remarked briefly on the conduct or the ambience of the school.

The series from Morisset East Public School (later Bonnell’s Bay Public School) is currently represented by its a single. Visiting clergy and their delegates appear in this volume until December, 1959, after which the complete absence of any such entries suggests that the school may have begun to keep a separate Visiting Clergy Book.

There is reason to believe that the Visitors’ Book may have fallen into desuetude during much of the decade of the 1920’s, and during the years of the Second World War. While the surviving volume of the school’s Observation Books for this period (NRS 17107 [B8496]) records visits by the Inspectors of Schools in every year from 1923 until 1933, the Inspectors’ signatures only appear in the Visitors’ Book in 1926, 1928 and 1930. During 1925 and 1926 the volume is used mainly to record memoranda of P.&C. Association meetings, aside from which only three signatures appear between November, 1924 and November, 1928. Again, only two entries of any kind appear between January, 1939 and the temporary closure of the school in October, 1944. After the re-opening of the school in November, 1944, the record continues apparently complete until the end of the period covered by this volume.

In addition to the Inspectors of Schools, other regular signatories to the volume include officers of the Department of Child Welfare, School Counsellors, School Medical Officers, Police Lecturers and (from 1959) Physical Education Supervisors. A visiting Sewing Teacher signs regularly from the re-opening of the school in November, 1944 until the end of the following year. The school received a visit from the Director of Education (Newcastle) in 1962.

Visiting members of the general public have signed the volume on many occasions, particularly on the occasion of the school’s observations of Arbor Day (1912 and 1946) Empire Day (1912, 1914, 1915 and 1952), Bird Day (1946) and the Education Week Open Days (1961-1963 and 1966-1967). Other functions held at the school which were recorded in this volume include a picnic meeting in 1923, a Wildflower Exhibition in 1924, the meeting to form the school’s P.&C. Association in 1924, and a “Good Luck” function held for the 6th Class in October, 1947.