Schooldays

What was it like for kids back in "them days"?

Schools in the early part of the 20th century were very different places than they are today. By the age of 14 most children had left school to enter the workforce, and many did not progress beyond year 6, the final year of primary school at the time. It was commonplace for children to walk to school - there were hardly any cars - and many went home to have their lunch. Much of the learning was done through repetitive copying and memorising of facts.

On January 1, 1873 the Victorian Government passed a law - the Education Act - that made it free and compulsory for all children to attend school. For the constituents of the towns of Preston and Northcote this meant that a local, state-run school was required for the growing young population to attend.

Teachers

Mr. Richard Tobin, headmaster of Helen Street School

In 1874, after much community discussion, the first state school was opened in Helen Street Northcote with a Mr. Richard Tobin as the headmaster.  

The school fence was a source of grief for Mr. Tobin, with cows often walking onto the school grounds and local thieves walking off with the fence posts. When Mr. Tobin complained that the school needed the fence replaced, the Education Department’s Architect responded: 

“I think the teacher must be very much to blame if he allows the rails to be removed and to let the cows in”.

At that time teachers – and in the instance of the Helen St. School, poor old Mr. Tobin – were paid extra for the cleaning and maintenance of the school and, as a result, were expected to pay for any damages - such as broken windows - to school property. The Helen St. School windows were often smashed and, when asked to explain the vandalism, the local police claimed that they were accidental broken by boys shooting birds with slingshots in the nearby paddocks. Judging by the frequency of broken windows at the school, these boys where not a very good shot. 

The first school to be built in Preston was named the Tyler Street Primary School – now named Preston South Primary school – and was opened in 1865. At the time the parents in the community had to pay 1 shilling per student to cover the teacher’s salary and pay for general running and maintenance costs. 

Classes

In 1878, due to increased student numbers, the Tyler Street School was closed and moved to its current location in Hotham Street, Preston. The new school was still too small to fit all the children in the area and the community complained that a second school was required to cover the numbers. 

In 1875 Preston Primary School was opened, once again in Tyler Street. An inspector visited in 1879 to check that the 188 enrolled students were attending school. He found that only 105 students where in school that day and that the average attendance was only 101 students. He suggested that a truant officer be employed to catch all of the students who were wagging school.

Wales St. Primary school – originally named Prince of Wales Park – was opened in 1891 but then was closed again in 1892 due to a population drop in the area. It wasn’t until 1898, when numbers attending Helen St became unmanageable (some classes had to be held in the school hallway) that Wales St was re-opened.

The school day began with an assembly. Students would sing 'God Save the King', 'Land of Hope and Glory' and other patriotic British songs and promised to be good to God, King and country. 

Desks in the early 1900 were made to seat six pupils. Children would write on a slate (a small chalk board) with a slate pencil. Attached to the slate board was a piece of rag tied on a string that was looped through a little hole in the wooden frame. Students would have a little jar of water to keep their rag damp (although some students were known to use spit) to clean their slates after writing on them.

One former student remembers summertime smells at school back then: “plasticine, smelly slate rags, sweaty hands, tennis shoes and chalk” 

Some of the subjects studied at the time include British history, science, nature studies and the geography of the British Empire. Students learnt things in a very different way than they do now. They were expected to learn their sums and spelling by seeing and hearing; by memorizing facts and by repetitive copying.

At Tyler St. Primary, each grade had a maths competition every Friday afternoon; the winner of which was given a brand-new lead pencil. The teacher kept a record of the student's behaviour in a large book – called the Good Conduct book – and at the end of the week added up the scores. The child that was best behaved got to wear a ribbon with a large brass letter B (presumably for ‘best’) around their neck for the entire day and on the first Monday back after the weekend. Unfortunately, once school finished on the Friday, the winners were teased with chants of ‘Hi, hi, there he goes, be for bad from head to toes.' It’s no surprise that nobody was very keen to be the winner of the prize!

An ex-scholar remembered homework - pre television - in the 1920’s: “The teacher…read the poem “The Man from Snowy River” to the class, and the homework that night was to draw the Man from Snowy River” I hadn’t a clue what he looked like, but I gave him a long beard. I think it was the snowy bit that gave me the idea”

One ex-Fairfield Primary student remembers that during the 1930’s depression there was no heating in the classroom apart from an open fire in each room - which the teacher stood in front of blocking the heat - and limited amounts of wood, and that the mother’s club provided students with hot cocoa to keep them warm in the winter.

The students of Helen Street Primary School in 1901

Punishment

Grade 1 students at Preston South Primary School, 1943.

Punishments ran from being kept after school to the strap. It was rare - though not unheard of - for girls to get the strap; boys who misbehaved would get it more often.

A student at Helen Street School in the early 1900’s remembers “If a troublesome boy was sent to the headmaster… [The teacher] would get the strap out and say “well, this is my doctor and if you can’t be a good boy you will have a dose of this medicine”. That generally was enough to stop them” 

He remembers being “given the cuts with a leather strap and as [we] got older certain teachers were very strong with it...one fellow would hit you from the side in such a way the strap stuck to your fingers and wrapped around your hand”. Some other ex-students remember getting into trouble:

“We never used to stay at school…my cousin and I …we left after ten minutes, we’d just say to each other we’d had enough and get up and leave…but we’d eventually get dragged back again. We’d get five to ten cuts per week”

“I remember my teacher…had a stick about 15 foot long…once you lifted you’re head off your papers you were doing your work on , you’d get a clout across the head with this big stick he used.”

After School Fun

Kids swimming in Fairfield Swimming Pool that was filled with water from the Yarra River, 1925

In the early 1900’s children in the Darebin area had a lot more space to play. There were fewer roads and houses. Children used their imagination to create games that required little, if any, money or equipment. After school, local children would spend their time catching grasshoppers, bullfrogs and butterflies, collecting bird’s eggs, looking for snake skins, playing with billy carts, flying kites, fishing and swimming in rivers and creeks. One Darebin resident remembers “gathering wildflowers, fishing with a stick and a bent pin, mushrooming….these were all exciting things to do back then.”

Darebin Creek was a popular swimming spot and also, apparently, the perfect place to wag school: “near Bell St….we always swam naked…because our parents did not know that we were [there] swimming…the bottom was always so soft and muddy”

Tobogganing – sliding down a steep muddy slope - near the creek, was also a popular pastime. Kids would fill buckets with water from the creek and carry them to the top of a hill and poor them down the slope to make it as muddy and slippery as possible. Once this was achieved they would slide down the track on old sheets of galvanized, corrugated, roofing iron. One tobbogganist remembers making the slopes “nice and slippery, oh boy! And then [we’d] go home and get a hiding off mum for being so dirty and muddy.”  

Mulberry fights were another headache for overworked mothers without the luxury of modern day washing machines and stain removers: “we would climb the trees and gorge ourselves on mulberries, then [we had] mulberry fights, and we would go home with mulberry stains from head to toe.”

Keeping Silkworms was another popular hobby: “we all had silkworms…we used to weave the silk on little looms. We’d warm the cocoon in warm water and unwind the silk strands onto little bobbins. You got lovely golden silk”

Shanghais (or sling shots) were hugely popular with boys. They’d use them to hunt rats, “the biggest you’ve ever seen…we shot anything. We chased everything and everything that moved was fair game” Some of the local boys “rigged up a flying fox with ropes, wire and an old tire to swing across the creek. An old mattress was tied to a tree to land on.”

Cherry bobs was a popular game; kids would try and lob a cherry pip (or bob) into a hole. If he or she succeeded then they would win all of the pips in the hole along with the one they threw.

“We’d eat heaps of cherries in summer and they [the pips] would be used in a lot of our games. We’d play a game where different coloured cherry bobs were placed in a matchbox with a little hole and you had to guess which colour would come out. You would bet cherry bobs on the outcome”

“Cherry bobs or pips were played in the cherry season…playing [cherry bobs] was looked on as a sort of gambling by some headmasters” 

“[Spinning] tops was also a good game. My brother and I had no trouble getting tops as my dad had a lathe and made them for us” 

Marbles was also a favourite game amongst boys: “we’d play in a big ring or a small ring. It got very, very heated and was taken most seriously.”

Children would go down the Darebin or Merri creeks with a piece of string with a bit of meat tied on the end and try to catch yabbies. They’d scoop them out of the water with a net made out of an old sock: “My word, beautiful!...take them home and eat [them]. Even used to suck the claws on them.” 

At the end of the school year the children at Tyler St. had a picnic in a paddock north of Bell St. they ate sandwiches, buns, fruit, and cakes and drank tea. At the end of the picnic the owner of the paddock would throw a bunch of lollies into the air and the children would scramble to pick up as many of them as they could.

Clothes

Girls wore dresses that went down to the knee and long socks and boys wore long trousers that also reached their knees. 

“I wore my second best dress to school (first dress for church and special occasions)… boy’s trousers… were called apple catchers or knickerbockers”

During the depression one student remembers that: “those…who had shoes would take them off on the way to school, not so much out of sympathy for those who didn’t but so we’d fit in and wouldn’t get our heads punched in at lunch time”

Girls wore dresses that went down to the knee and boys wore long trousers called knickerbockers.

Work

Most of the children lived on properties and were expected to help with milking the cows before and after school, cleaning out stables and brushing down horses. This meant that they had to get out of bed before the sun came up and had lots of work to do when they got home from school too!

Once a child had finished primary school they were expected to enter the workforce. A boy employed to carry bricks at the Northcote brickworks would earn around fifteen shillings (approximately $1.50), and would be expected to pay at least a quarter of that to their mother for food and board.

Children were expected to help with milking the cows before and after school

Things to think about

In what year was your school founded?

What games do you play now that they might have played back then?

Do you think you could do your school work on a slate board with chalk?

Can you swim in creeks and rivers near where you live? If the answer is no, why not?

Do you know anybody who has to milk cows before they go to school?

What sort of chores do you do around the house that they may have done back then too?

A prep class at Bell Primary School around 1939

 

Carroll, Brian & Rule, Ian. 1985. Preston: an illustrated history.  Preston: City of Preston.

Collingwood History Committee. 1979. In those days: Collingwood remembered. Richmond:  Richmond Hill Press.

Fiddler, Michelle. 2009. Alphington Primary School: 100 years of learning. Alphington: Alphington Primary School Centenary Committee. 

Green, Juanita & Michell, Paul.1998.  Voices from the archives: Northcote people talking. Northcote: Northcote Historical & Conservation Society. 

Jones, Roger J. & Keddie, Lisa.1994. Back in them days: an oral history of Preston. Preston: City of Darebin.

Lemon, Andrew. 1983. Northcote Side of the River. North Melbourne: Hargreen Publishing Co.

Northcote Historical & Conservation Society. 1988. Northcote: Glimpses of Our Past. Northcote: NHCS. 

Russell, Emma. 2010. Fairfield Primary School 2711: the Langridge Street knowledge emporium, celebrating 125 years: 1885-2010. Fairfield: Fairfield Primary School. 

Watson, Kelly. 1998. Recollections of the Darebin Creek Valley. Alphington: Darebin Creek Co-ordinating Committee.