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Our History Chapter One - The Beginning 28th December 1845
Our History Chapter One - The Beginning 28th December 1845
Chapter One - The Beginning 28th December 1845
When Stoke School celebrated its sesquicentennial at Labour Weekend, 1995, it wasn't quite 150 years old. The date on which it opened for pupils in 1845 was 28 December, a time of the year now unlikely to entice anyone to school, not even an old pupil to attend an anniversary celebration as important as 150 years. That this public school began so long ago, and at Christmas time, says something of the uncommon value that ordinary people of the new settlement of Nelson (1842) placed on education. To be sure, Christmas was less celebrated by holidays then and even as late as the 1880,s schools closed on Christmas Eve and opened again just after New Year's Day. However, for Stoke School there was a longer holiday each March when everyone including children helped with the hop harvest. Stoke is now, after Wakefield, the second oldest continuous public school both in Nelson and the whole country.
The very limited provision for education in early New Zealand was by fee-charging private schools, such as Mrs Burtons Dame School in Wellington, and by denominational Christian schools. Non-sectarian public education was not provided in Auckland (1840) or in Wakefield scheme settlements: Wellington (1840) and Wanganui and New Plymouth (1841). There was still no tradition of public education in England at that time, the so called public schools such as Eton, being for the wealthy and privileged only.
The Nelson Wakefield scheme settlement was to be different. Like the Otago settlement which followed in 1848, Nelson had a considerable number of non-conformist Christian settlers and it is conceivable that the Company Prospectus which promised public education facilities from the proceeds of land sales had included that provision to meet their wishes as potential settlers. Inadequate finance from the start thwarted the Company's intention although it did open a public school in September 1842. This closed however in the turmoil that was the aftermath of the 17 June 1843 Wairau affray and utu killings, when 22 of the new settlement lost their lives.
The task of public education was taken up instead by the Nelson School Society established "by a number of Christians" under the leadership of Matthew Campbell. The group had within a month of landing in 1842 set up a first school and the basic principle which the Society followed was that elementary education would be available "to the children of all without regard to the religious opinion of the parents" and that "no sectarian views whatever should be taught and the Bible when read should be read without note or comment". To understand the strong motivation for public education one must appreciate that the dissenters, from the state religion (Anglican), or Roman Catholicism, were seeking greater religious freedom in the new land and believed that people should be individually responsible for their own salvation. Thus it was imperative they should all be able to read, in order to study the Bible. There were other reasons too of course but that was the main one accepted widely in the community of the time which typically gave great importance to religion.
Following building of a "Campbell School" by the eel pond, (joined later by the Suter Art Gallery) the first branch of the Society opened at Wakefield on 8 October 1843 and its school there was formally opened on 1 January 1844. The Society's Spring Grove School opened on 18 May 1845 followed by Brook Green (the original name for Stoke) on 28 December that year. Here a school was erected on the main road not far from the Poorman's Valley brook. This expansion of public education was despite the dispiriting effects of insufficient land and employment, the threat of starvation which at one stage forced settlers to dig up seed potatoes again and replant the eyes, and the insecurity resulting from the horrendous tragedy at Wairau. The first general assembly of children of the Campbell Schools, as they were known, took place at Brook Green on 2 December 1846 "in Mr Songer's Schoolroom". Other pertinent early records have reportedly been destroyed by fire but it appears that William Songer, first Stoke resident and the one who named it after his English birthplace, was the school building's owner. The first teacher is believed to have been Thomas Dyke Piper.
Children walked in procession to the assembly all the way from Nelson, Waimea Village, Spring Grove and Wakefield. Enough carts were available far the younger children. After a meal in which they were joined by "a considerable number of visitors", they were examined about 3 pm by Mr Fox (later Attorney-General) "principally in Scripture, History and Arithmetic. They also recited some short poems and sang a few hymns". According to the report in Nelson's early newspaper "The Examiner", "Mr Fox expressed himself as greatly delighted with the result of the examination" . There was no mention of their return home on the summer evening but it must have been late in an extraordinarily long tiring day before they were all safely back. Roads where they existed were still very primitive and some children had a river to cross. Bullock cart journeys in early days from Nelson through some marshy country to what is now Richmond often took most of a day. The examinations became an annual event in Nelson town and reports on Stoke School itself began to be published as the following extracts relate:
1854: "The examination gave satisfactory proof of "Mr Bennett, the master's fitness for his work". Altogether the total of school fees averaged 28 pounds per annum "willingly and regularly paid. The teacher receives from the Society at present a grant of 30 pounds per annum. The committee should endeavour to raise the grant to 50 pounds. The respectability and comfort of an able teacher require it. A sum of 10 pounds is required to be expended on the school buildings"..
1855: "The school room is a weather-boarded building of moderate size with a fire-place. It is well provided with maps and has a tolerable supply of books. The building stands on a half acre of land facing the Main Road and there is a small dwelling place for the master attached. The average attendance of children is 27 mostly under 10 years of age of both sexes. There is also an evening school which is resorted to chiefly by boys of a more advanced age --- average attendance is 10. Considering the tender age of the majority of the children in the day school, the progress they had made in elementary instruction was very creditable to the master. The children are taught chiefly from books of the British and Foreign School Society. The absence of a school mistress to teach the girls sewing was regretted by many of the parents".
The original school on the Waimea (main) Road was rebuilt in 1851 on a new site where St Barnabas Church now stands. In 1858 Thomas Marsden, the landowner, who lived at Isel House, gifted the school site to the inhabitants of Stoke through the Nelson School Society. Eighteen months later at a public meeting attended by Messrs Marsden, Holland, Martin, Giblin, Salt, J Beatson, Waller, Small, Parker, Tilley, Allport Snr, Percival and Carvel, it was decided that the school's half acre should be the site of a church (St Barnabas) and that the meeting would defray expenses of shifting the school to a new site - the present one. This would be legally owned by the Nelson Education Board established in 1856 as a consequence of the introduction of Provincial Government in New Zealand. Reportedly stone from the school was incorporated in the new church and the first school on the new site was built of cob with windows facing the main road. Its clay walls were kept white with lime whitewash. The next building on the site was a high wooden three-roomed structure heated, but not well, by open fires. This was followed in 1930 by a building with ample windows on the sunny side and a hot-water central heating system. It was later enlarged on the north side to meet the improved code for space per pupil and is still standing. When in due course this old block became surplus it was converted to a teacher in-service training centre incorporating a Reading Recovery clinic. The block is available for some community purposes and is well used by the school as a hall.
Up till 1945, the school's Centennial year when World War Two ended, there were still only three classes. But Stoke was on the verge of a post-war building boom that transformed a rural village to the largest suburb of a vibrantly growing city. In 1946 while St Barnabas Church hall was used for the overflow, two more rooms, the beginning of the infant block, were erected. Thereafter growth was phenomenal with relief obtained only through further use of the church hall and opening of new schools - Nelson Intermediate which first took Stoke School Form I and Form II pupils, Enner Glynn, Nayland, Waimea Intermediate, Broadgreen Intermediate and Birchwood Schools. By the time of the 125th Anniversary (1970) there was still a roll of 460 pupils in 13 classrooms, with the intermediate school in Stoke about to open. Stoke secondary pupils had been provided for from 1966 by Nayland College. The taking over and expansion of the Nelson School Society system by the Education Board in 1856 had put Nelson far ahead of other provinces and it was the inspiration and model for the New Zealand Education Act 1877, consequent on the abolition of provincial governments in 1876. This legislation made education free, compulsory and secular for all primary pupils in New Zealand. Stoke School, as New Zealand's second oldest continuous public school must stand as a proud example of Nelson's achievements in provision of education.
Nelson had wanted to retain its non-sectarian religious instruction and found a way, without contravening regulations on the minimum time a school must be open, and on the secular requirement, by allowing its schools to close for half an hour a week. Clergy and lay teachers provided religious instruction during this time. Known as "The Nelson System", the provision was adopted throughout New Zealand, another Nelson first. It had been possible for Nelson to pioneer this method because of long-standing "Christian fellowship and fraternisation" between denominations, a hallmark of Nelson since its beginning. There was a time when the elementary school with pupils to Standard 6, (Form 2) was the only educational opportunity for a great many. Their schooling began and ended there. Now it is but a link in the chain that begins at a preschool centre for organised education and then through compulsory primary, intermediate, and secondary education. The chain continues for a large and ever-growing number to tertiary education and beyond. But although Stoke School is now only a small part of that chain, the importance of the primary years when children are growing and developing rapidly, and learning basic skills and vital attitudes, means that its value is not less but greater than ever in helping its pupils towards achieving their full potential in today's world.
The very limited provision for education in early New Zealand was by fee-charging private schools, such as Mrs Burtons Dame School in Wellington, and by denominational Christian schools. Non-sectarian public education was not provided in Auckland (1840) or in Wakefield scheme settlements: Wellington (1840) and Wanganui and New Plymouth (1841). There was still no tradition of public education in England at that time, the so called public schools such as Eton, being for the wealthy and privileged only.
The Nelson Wakefield scheme settlement was to be different. Like the Otago settlement which followed in 1848, Nelson had a considerable number of non-conformist Christian settlers and it is conceivable that the Company Prospectus which promised public education facilities from the proceeds of land sales had included that provision to meet their wishes as potential settlers. Inadequate finance from the start thwarted the Company's intention although it did open a public school in September 1842. This closed however in the turmoil that was the aftermath of the 17 June 1843 Wairau affray and utu killings, when 22 of the new settlement lost their lives.
The task of public education was taken up instead by the Nelson School Society established "by a number of Christians" under the leadership of Matthew Campbell. The group had within a month of landing in 1842 set up a first school and the basic principle which the Society followed was that elementary education would be available "to the children of all without regard to the religious opinion of the parents" and that "no sectarian views whatever should be taught and the Bible when read should be read without note or comment". To understand the strong motivation for public education one must appreciate that the dissenters, from the state religion (Anglican), or Roman Catholicism, were seeking greater religious freedom in the new land and believed that people should be individually responsible for their own salvation. Thus it was imperative they should all be able to read, in order to study the Bible. There were other reasons too of course but that was the main one accepted widely in the community of the time which typically gave great importance to religion.
Following building of a "Campbell School" by the eel pond, (joined later by the Suter Art Gallery) the first branch of the Society opened at Wakefield on 8 October 1843 and its school there was formally opened on 1 January 1844. The Society's Spring Grove School opened on 18 May 1845 followed by Brook Green (the original name for Stoke) on 28 December that year. Here a school was erected on the main road not far from the Poorman's Valley brook. This expansion of public education was despite the dispiriting effects of insufficient land and employment, the threat of starvation which at one stage forced settlers to dig up seed potatoes again and replant the eyes, and the insecurity resulting from the horrendous tragedy at Wairau. The first general assembly of children of the Campbell Schools, as they were known, took place at Brook Green on 2 December 1846 "in Mr Songer's Schoolroom". Other pertinent early records have reportedly been destroyed by fire but it appears that William Songer, first Stoke resident and the one who named it after his English birthplace, was the school building's owner. The first teacher is believed to have been Thomas Dyke Piper.
Children walked in procession to the assembly all the way from Nelson, Waimea Village, Spring Grove and Wakefield. Enough carts were available far the younger children. After a meal in which they were joined by "a considerable number of visitors", they were examined about 3 pm by Mr Fox (later Attorney-General) "principally in Scripture, History and Arithmetic. They also recited some short poems and sang a few hymns". According to the report in Nelson's early newspaper "The Examiner", "Mr Fox expressed himself as greatly delighted with the result of the examination" . There was no mention of their return home on the summer evening but it must have been late in an extraordinarily long tiring day before they were all safely back. Roads where they existed were still very primitive and some children had a river to cross. Bullock cart journeys in early days from Nelson through some marshy country to what is now Richmond often took most of a day. The examinations became an annual event in Nelson town and reports on Stoke School itself began to be published as the following extracts relate:
1854: "The examination gave satisfactory proof of "Mr Bennett, the master's fitness for his work". Altogether the total of school fees averaged 28 pounds per annum "willingly and regularly paid. The teacher receives from the Society at present a grant of 30 pounds per annum. The committee should endeavour to raise the grant to 50 pounds. The respectability and comfort of an able teacher require it. A sum of 10 pounds is required to be expended on the school buildings"..
1855: "The school room is a weather-boarded building of moderate size with a fire-place. It is well provided with maps and has a tolerable supply of books. The building stands on a half acre of land facing the Main Road and there is a small dwelling place for the master attached. The average attendance of children is 27 mostly under 10 years of age of both sexes. There is also an evening school which is resorted to chiefly by boys of a more advanced age --- average attendance is 10. Considering the tender age of the majority of the children in the day school, the progress they had made in elementary instruction was very creditable to the master. The children are taught chiefly from books of the British and Foreign School Society. The absence of a school mistress to teach the girls sewing was regretted by many of the parents".
The original school on the Waimea (main) Road was rebuilt in 1851 on a new site where St Barnabas Church now stands. In 1858 Thomas Marsden, the landowner, who lived at Isel House, gifted the school site to the inhabitants of Stoke through the Nelson School Society. Eighteen months later at a public meeting attended by Messrs Marsden, Holland, Martin, Giblin, Salt, J Beatson, Waller, Small, Parker, Tilley, Allport Snr, Percival and Carvel, it was decided that the school's half acre should be the site of a church (St Barnabas) and that the meeting would defray expenses of shifting the school to a new site - the present one. This would be legally owned by the Nelson Education Board established in 1856 as a consequence of the introduction of Provincial Government in New Zealand. Reportedly stone from the school was incorporated in the new church and the first school on the new site was built of cob with windows facing the main road. Its clay walls were kept white with lime whitewash. The next building on the site was a high wooden three-roomed structure heated, but not well, by open fires. This was followed in 1930 by a building with ample windows on the sunny side and a hot-water central heating system. It was later enlarged on the north side to meet the improved code for space per pupil and is still standing. When in due course this old block became surplus it was converted to a teacher in-service training centre incorporating a Reading Recovery clinic. The block is available for some community purposes and is well used by the school as a hall.
Up till 1945, the school's Centennial year when World War Two ended, there were still only three classes. But Stoke was on the verge of a post-war building boom that transformed a rural village to the largest suburb of a vibrantly growing city. In 1946 while St Barnabas Church hall was used for the overflow, two more rooms, the beginning of the infant block, were erected. Thereafter growth was phenomenal with relief obtained only through further use of the church hall and opening of new schools - Nelson Intermediate which first took Stoke School Form I and Form II pupils, Enner Glynn, Nayland, Waimea Intermediate, Broadgreen Intermediate and Birchwood Schools. By the time of the 125th Anniversary (1970) there was still a roll of 460 pupils in 13 classrooms, with the intermediate school in Stoke about to open. Stoke secondary pupils had been provided for from 1966 by Nayland College. The taking over and expansion of the Nelson School Society system by the Education Board in 1856 had put Nelson far ahead of other provinces and it was the inspiration and model for the New Zealand Education Act 1877, consequent on the abolition of provincial governments in 1876. This legislation made education free, compulsory and secular for all primary pupils in New Zealand. Stoke School, as New Zealand's second oldest continuous public school must stand as a proud example of Nelson's achievements in provision of education.
Nelson had wanted to retain its non-sectarian religious instruction and found a way, without contravening regulations on the minimum time a school must be open, and on the secular requirement, by allowing its schools to close for half an hour a week. Clergy and lay teachers provided religious instruction during this time. Known as "The Nelson System", the provision was adopted throughout New Zealand, another Nelson first. It had been possible for Nelson to pioneer this method because of long-standing "Christian fellowship and fraternisation" between denominations, a hallmark of Nelson since its beginning. There was a time when the elementary school with pupils to Standard 6, (Form 2) was the only educational opportunity for a great many. Their schooling began and ended there. Now it is but a link in the chain that begins at a preschool centre for organised education and then through compulsory primary, intermediate, and secondary education. The chain continues for a large and ever-growing number to tertiary education and beyond. But although Stoke School is now only a small part of that chain, the importance of the primary years when children are growing and developing rapidly, and learning basic skills and vital attitudes, means that its value is not less but greater than ever in helping its pupils towards achieving their full potential in today's world.
