Queens Park Primary School and House

Statement of Significance

Queens Park Primary School and former Teachers’ Quarters, a complex of buildings established from 1906, has heritage significance for the following reasons:
It is relatively rare as a surviving group of school buildings from 1906 built to a design by Hillson Beasley, PWD Chief Architect 1905-1917;
It has aesthetic value for the Federation era architectural style and forms a local landmark in the Treasure Road streetscape;
The former Teacher’s Quarters has significance as a rare surviving example of a PWD designed Federation Bungalow purpose built for the Head Teacher who lived on site, a system no longer practised; and,
The school has social value to the thousands of students, teachers and families associated with the place from 1906 to today.

Physical Description

The Queens Park Primary School complex consists of buildings dating from 1906. The Teacher’s Quarters are original classroom block (1906-1914) both remain.

Classroom Blocks (1906-1914; 1938; 1950-1959; c. 1975; c. 1990; 2010)
The first classroom was a brick and painted stucco building with a corrugated iron roof in the Federation Free Style. The face brick is broken up by a horizontal stucco band at window sill height, and the three vertical windows extended to the eaves height. The roof is hipped, with a tall face brick corbelled chimney. The additional classrooms to 1914 were built in the same materials and style.
Later wings have shorter, plain chimneys, and the painted stucco extends from ground to sill height with face brick above.
The southwest and southeast corners of the classroom blocks have a painted stucco feature that wraps around both sides of the corner.
From Treasure Road, air conditioning units are visible on the street side of the hipped roof and are visually intrusive.
Teacher’s Quarters (former) (1906; extended 1908)
The former Teacher’s Quarters is a single storey, red brick, former house with a hipped corrugated metal roof. It is built of the same materials as the earliest classrooms, with red brick broken up by a painted stucco and at window sill height.
The roof is hipped with a timber battened gable above a projecting bay with two sash windows, and another sash window under the verandah. The roof has been reclad.
The front door is under the skillion verandah roof and there is a second, plain door (not an original opening) adjacent.
The skillion verandah is supported on simple square timber posts with a simple valance and bracket detail. There is no boundary fence, and a curbed garden bed with a mature tree in front of the projecting bay is the only landscaping, with the remainder sealed for carparking.
The place forms part of the larger Queens Park Primary School and grounds.
The interior spaces and the school grounds have not been assessed as part of this Place Record.

History

Queens Park Primary School was opened in 1905 in a local church hall; with the purpose-built classroom ready for opening in 1906. Queens Park was originally called Woodlupine. Woodlupine Creek was named by colonial British settlers in recognition of the heavily treed woods and an abundance of lupin flowers. (Woodlupine Primary School, Forrestfield,
website) The railway station opened in 1899.
In 1903 a Progress Association was formed to advance the interests of the community:
A meeting of ratepayers of Woodlupine was held in the Jubilee Hall on Monday evening, for the purpose of forming a progress association. The chair was occupied by Mr. R. H. Newman. On the motion of Mr. Weeks, a progress association was formed, to be called the “Woodlupine District Progress Association.” A number of members were enrolled, and the following gentlemen were elected by ballot, as an executive committee: - Messrs. A. S. Keely. L. A. Weeks, G. A. Farmer, C. J. Everett. P. Whelan J. Tolley, and P. G. Clarke. Mr. E. Copping was elected honorary secretary and treasurer. (Western Mail, 23 May 1903, p. 18.)

In 1905 at the Progress Association meeting, members discussed the need for a local school: The first important matter undertaken was a request to the Government to open a State school. The Education Department sent two of its officers to meet the members for the purpose of selecting a site for a permanent school.
This was done, and an amount has been put on the Estimates for its erection. In the meantime, arrangements were made to carry on the State school temporarily in the Congregational Church, Railway-street, and at the time the members of the Association pledged themselves to pay rent of building, 8s. per week.
(The West Australian, 29 April 1905, p. 9.)
The Woodlupine School was at first held in the Congregational Church, opening on 23 February 1905. There were no other facilities such as cloak rooms, toilets or shelter sheds. The church which was not much more than a shed. Made of corrugated iron, it was very hot in summer, and in the winter student numbers dropped off because, with no fireplace, it
was cold and draughty.

The government leased a nearby house to accommodate the teacher, Mr Donald Gollagher. Meanwhile, on 15 February 1905, three acres of land in Canning Location 2, Lot 292, on Railway Street (now Treasure Road), was purchased by the government from Thomas Tate and James Channon for £55 to build the new Woodlupine State School and Teacher’s
Quarters.
The Public Works Department’s design generally following a standard plan, for which the Assistant, and later Chief Architect, Hillson Beasley is particularly noted. This model allowed for new classrooms to be added easily and arose out of the sudden demand for large numbers of schools to provide facilities for the expanding population at the end of
the 1800s due to the gold boom. Designed to take into account factors of materials and location and considerations of climatic responsiveness, the standardised plan was just one of the initiatives of the relatively new Education Department which had been established in 1893, taking over from decentralised district boards.
The first classroom was ready for opening on Thursday 25 January 1906. Due to a shortage of bricks, the Teacher’s Quarters adjacent was not quite ready for the beginning of the school year. Mr Gollagher continued as the teacher but was unable to move on site until 20 February 1906.
In 1907, Mr Gollagher was moved on, which greatly upset the community.

Wail from Woodlupine. A Popular Pedagogue Ordered to get a Move- on, Despite Parents’ Protests.
The residents, as well as the parents of the children attending the Woodlupine State School, learn with deep regret, that the Education Department intends shortly to transfer the present master, of the school (Mr. Gollagher) to some other centre. During the year or so that Mr. Gollagher has been here he has become very popular with the parents and is dearly beloved by his scholars. He has made many improvements in the school premises : mainly at his own
personal expense. The parents are quite satisfied with the progress the children have made in their studies, and they feel that it is very hard on them to loose [sic] such a valuable man, just at the time when his scholars understand him, and he understand his scholars.
(Truth, 29 December 1906, p. 8)

Gollagher was replaced by Mr James H. Royce. The Teachers’ Quarters was not adequate for his family, and he resided elsewhere until the house was extended in 1908. A new classroom was also added in 1908, to the east side of the original.
By 1911 the population of the district had grown to 1,027 with 251 dwellings in the district. In that year after an horrific crime of the rape and murder of a young girl named Frances Compton, the local residents and authorities called for the area to be renamed from Woodlupine to Queens Park. The name is said to honour Queen Alexandra, wife of King Edward VII. In fact, the Railways Department had proposed that the Woodlupine Railway Station be changed to Queens Park in 1907. However, it may be that the 1911 crime was the final push needed to progress with the name change.
The Woodlupine Railway Station was renamed Queens Park station in April 1912, and the Woodlupine State School was changed to Queens Park Primary School in August 1912.
A PWD plan dated 1912 shows a third classroom being added to the east end of the school, a hat room to the west, and a new corridor running along the length of the block on the north side. Meanwhile, until this was built, the school had to make do with a tent as a temporary classroom. Further classrooms were added at each end in 1914.
In 1938, with student numbers at close to 200, another classroom was added, and this was to complete the block along Treasure Road, which remained much the same until 1950. When further additions were officially opened in 1950, it was mentioned that the school site was about to be extended with the resumption of three acres of Lot 293 on the east side
of the school to provide playing fields. The area was finally cleared for use by the Education Department in 1954.
When the State Government developed the nearby State Housing Commission suburb of Maniana in 1954, the student numbers grew so fast that in 1955 six more classrooms were needed, followed by more in 1959. Plans show that two wings of classrooms were built at each end of the original block, in a north-south alignment. The school buildings now formed
a ‘U’ shape around a central paved area. To the northwest, the Parents and Citizens (P&C) had erected a School Hall. By 1965 there were over 650 students across 15 classrooms which was still very overcrowded, at more than 40 students per class.
In the 1970s another wing of classrooms was added to the school, effectively closed the ‘U’ and making the complex a square with four wings around the central paved area. Also in the late 1970s a Pre-Primary Centre and Health Clinic were built on the corner of Treasure Road and Andrea Way.
In c. 1990 the P&C Hall was demolished. A new building was erected in the central paved area, which was later treed and grassed. In 2010 the Federal Government through the Building the Education Revolution (BER) Program provided funding for buildings in the area northwest of the classroom complex for a music room, art room and library.

As at 2021, the former Teacher’s Quarters remains intact externally, and is used for the Kindergarten. The original classroom block built incrementally from 1906 to 1914 also remains intact.

Integrity/Authenticity

The buildings have HIGH integrity and are considered to have MODERATE authenticity

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

Publish place record online (inHerit):

Last Update

Disclaimer

This information is provided voluntarily as a public service. The information provided is made available in good faith and is derived from sources believed to be reliable and accurate. However, the information is provided solely on the basis that readers will be responsible for making their own assessment of the matters discussed herein and are advised to verify all relevant representations, statements and information.