Newcastle East Public School - History of Newcastle East Public School

History of Newcastle East Public School

Newcastle East Public School is the oldest school in continuous operation in Australia. Eddie Braggett has validated this continuity since its formation in 1816 by Henry Wrensford, finding conclusively that the school has accepted pupils every year since its inception.

Henry Wrensford was a twenty-six-year-old convict when he was convicted of fraud and sentenced to seven years’ transportation. It was only two years later in 1814 that he was granted a conditional pardon by Governor Lachlan Macquarie, with his occupation recorded as “schoolmaster”; perhaps owing more to his military connections than any such experience or aptitude. Wrensford started the school in May 1816 with eight girls and nine boys attending, aged from three to thirteen. Lessons took place in one of the government-owned slab huts that stretched along the bottom of the hill now occupied by Bolton Street and its whereabouts. At this time, the settlement consisted of no more than 400 people, mostly convicts, and the students were the children of these. Macquarie himself directed that the Commandant “give it every possible support and encouragement it being highly approved of by the governor as a most benevolent and praiseworthy institution”.

Captain James Wallis, who presided over an expansive building programme in Newcastle, including the breakwater from mainland to Nobbys Island, designed Christ Church which was completed in August 1818. Some time that year, Wrensford’s school was moved to a vestry of the church, and the Newcastle School soon acquired the name “Christ Church School”.

Four years later in 1820 Wrensford became a free man and left the school, being replaced by another convict Samuel Dell. The control of the school was changed from the government to the church during 1826. As the school continued to grow there became a need for a new site and the school moved to the corner of Church and Bolton Streets.

In 1859 an additional school was opened to satisfy the needs of parents who wanted a government controlled school. Newcastle Public School was opened in Brown Street in the basement of the Congregational Church, after which it moved to a classroom opposite the current site. In 1878 the school moved to the current site in Tyrrell Street. The success of this new public school led the state government to take control of the church school in 1883 and name it Newcastle East Public School.