St Francis Xavier Church Catholic School

Statement of Significance

St Francis Xavier Catholic School is an Interwar primary school, located with St Francis Xavier Church, serving the comparatively poorly serviced neighbourhood east of Lord Street. It extends the already strong Catholic educational presence within the district. It is comparable, albeit modest in accommodation standards, with Catholic neighbourhood primary schools developed in other parts of the region in the Interwar period, such as Nedlands and Claremont.

Physical Description

The single storey school building is laid out in a form comparable with other neighbourhood Catholic primary schools of the period. It has a hipped tiled roof with walls of brick dado and render and double hung windows. The street façade has a central symmetrical feature formed by an Art Deco style stepped rendered parapet wall, with two sets of two double hung windows overlain with diagonal tracery. This Art Deco motif was used to articulate other key elements of the school. Short setback- grass and mature street trees None apparent

History

The Catholic story in the colony of Western Australia began to take shape in 1841. The gold discoveries of the 1890s changed the face of the Catholic Church by bringing an influx of lay Catholics from the eastern states of Australia whilst big waves of migration between 1920s and post-World War II meant the rapid expansion of parishes and schools in Perth and the country areas. St Francis Xavier School was constructed in the 1930s to serve the increasing numbers of the Catholic community. The Westralia Estate, on which the School is situated, was developed in 1895 on the western side of the Fremantle-Guildford Railway line, in the East Perth area, while the East Norwood Estate was developed in 1898, on the eastern side of the line. The subdivisions were carried out by the Perth (WA) Estate Company Limited and were a result of the population boom created by the gold discoveries in the State. St Francis Xavier School was constructed circa 1935, probably at the same year as the St Francis Xavier Church, on the corner of West Parade and Windsor Street, replaced three residential dwellings at the original site. The Wise's Post Office Directories illustrate that St Francis Xavier School is listed as Nos. 21-27 before 1949. It replaced Nos. 21, 25 and 27 on the site, of which No. 21 was the earliest dwelling built circa 1906 with Robert Holliday as the first resident. Just one year before the construction of the church, William J. Coreoran, R. Lindsay and Mrs. A. A. Cahill were lived at Nos. 21, 25 and 27 respectively. St Francis Xavier School served the comparatively poorly serviced neighbourhood east of Lord Street. It extends the already strong Catholic educational presence within the district such as Aranmore College and Sacred Heart College. The school is comparable, albeit modest in accommodation standards, with Catholic neighbourhood primary schools developed in other parts of the region in the Interwar period, such as Nedlands and Claremont. In 1947, an application was submitted to the City of Perth to erect a school play shed at the subject site by St Mary's Cathedral, the then owner of the school. The plans show that the subject lot accommodates a church and a school and the subject place had an address of No. 25 Windsor Street, East Perth. A Sewerage Plan dated 1953 illustrates that the School was built in a rectangular form, addressing Windsor Street. There was a verandah at the rear of the building. An asbestos outbuilding and two brick water closets were located at the rear of the subject lot. In 1982, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Perth submitted an application proposed to construct an extension at the rear of the existing Emmanuel Disabled Centre, which is addressing Windsor Street.

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