Atherton State School Head Teacher's Residence is a heritage-listed school residence at 42 Mable Street, Atherton, Tablelands Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed and built by the Queensland Department of Public Works in 1913. It is also known as Atherton Provisional School, Enterprise House, and former Principal's Residence. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
History The former Atherton State School Head Teacher's Residence was built in 1913 to accommodate the large family of the school's head teacher at the time, Joseph Johnson. Its design was the product of the Queensland Department of Public Works under the leadership of notable architect Thomas Pye. Atherton is located in Far North Queensland about south-west of Cairns. It is one of the principal towns of the highland area known as the Atherton Tablelands, the main industries of which are agriculture, dairying and tourism. After the school was relocated in the mid-1980s, the land on which the residence and school buildings stand became a local government reserve and the site has been available for community purposes since 2009.
In 1880 tin was discovered at the site of Herberton, on the present day Atherton Tablelands, bringing Europeans into the area including a number of timber-getting teams seeking valuable cedar. They established small camps including one named Prior's Pocket. In 1883 agricultural blocks were opened for selection in the area and requests were made for a survey of Prior's Pocket to allow the establishment of a township. This was surveyed in 1885 and renamed Atherton. The first land sale took place on 23 February 1886, when 84 town lots were sold. Atherton was on the path of the railway being constructed from Cairns and by 1888 it was seen as a future terminus for agricultural produce and timber. The town developed rapidly and the need for a school was soon felt.
Colonial governments played an important role in the provision of formal education. In 1848 the New South Wales Government established National Schools. This was continued by the Queensland Government after the colony's separation in 1859. The Education Act 1860 established the Queensland Board of General Education and began to standardise curriculum, teacher training, and facilities. The Education Act 1875 provided a number of key initiatives for primary education; it was to be free, compulsory and secular. The Department of Public Instruction was established to administer the Act. This move standardised the provision of education and, despite difficulties, colonial educators achieved a remarkable feat in bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.
The provision of schools to provide formal education to Queensland children was considered an essential step in the development of early communities; integral to the success of a town, the colony, and the nation. Land and construction labour was often donated by the local people and schools frequently became a major focus within the community as a place symbolising progress, for social interaction, and a source of pride. Also, the maintenance of schools frequently involved contributions of time and effort from teachers, parents, and pupils.
Provisional schools were introduced in 1869 to provide education to communities with small, scattered student populations and limited financial capacity, and were often constructed on rail lines or in mining areas. If there were between 15 and 30 pupils, and the community could provide a school building, the government would provide a teacher and equipment.
In 1890 a school committee was formed at Atherton and an application made for a provisional school to meet the needs of the growing community. The Committee raised for the school, which was constructed as a simple two-room timber building and opened in 1891 on a site at the corner of Mabel and Vernon streets. The school suffered a setback in 1895 when the teacher resigned. It was closed, and the children sent to school at Carrington until a new teacher was appointed and the school reopened in 1896.
Although the progress of the railway took longer than initially expected, when it arrived at Atherton in 1903 it brought prosperity and more families to the township. By 1904 the Atherton Provisional School was the biggest in the state by a considerable margin, far exceeding the minimum numbers required for the establishment of a state school, and its status was upgraded. A new school building was completed next to the provisional school in 1906 and the old building was extended and adapted as a residence for the head teacher. The state school formally opened in 1906 with Richard Hooper as head teacher.
By this period, the Atherton Tablelands had become the main maize growing area in Far North Queensland and this was the chief agricultural pursuit around Atherton. Chinese tenant farmers dominated the industry, and a sizeable Chinatown developed. Although dairying in the Tablelands was not a significant industry until World War II, the industry showed some early promise with establishment of the Golden Grove Butter Factory built just north of Atherton in 1909. In 1913 it had 110 registered suppliers.
Atherton had 1186 residents when Joseph Johnson commenced as head teacher at the school in 1911, and moved into the old residence with his wife and seven children. One of his sons, Joseph Jacques Johnson, was also employed as a pupil teacher.
It soon became evident that the residence was inadequate for the Johnson family. In August 1911, Johnson wrote to the Under-secretary for Public Instruction complaining that it was too small and uncomfortable and its condition was so deteriorated that one of his sons had fallen through a floorboard. In September, the Works Department's Inspector of Works for the Northern District confirmed the poor state of the building and recommended a new residence be constructed. The following month, the family moved to a rented property and in 1912 the old residence was sold and removed from the site.
As in other Australian colonies, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings, which helped to ensure consistency and economy. The standard designs were continually refined by government architects in response to changing needs and educational philosophy. Until the 1960s school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, taking advantage of the material's abundance in the state and the high number of builders skilled in its use. This also allowed for easy and economical construction and enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Due to the standardisation of facilities, schools across the state were developed in distinctly similar ways and became complexes of typical components.
Design and construction of school buildings was the responsibility of the Department of Public Works from 1893. Its staff refined the Department of Public Instruction's existing practice of using standard plans and documentation to eliminate the expense of preparing site- specific documents for every school. In 1909, new standard designs for school residences were developed by the department in response to persistent criticism of the old designs by the School Inspectors. One inspector commented in 1904: "I believe this want of comfort in the matter of residences to be one of the causes why teachers are so reluctant to accept schools in the Western parts of the State". In order to make the residences more comfortable, the verandas were enlarged, and, in larger residences, a rear veranda was designed to be used for dining or as a sleep-out.
The design of the head teacher's residence at Atherton differed considerably from the standard designs. As well as being quite different in room layout, the ten-roomed timber and corrugated iron house was larger. It had four bedrooms, a sitting room and a dining room whereas the largest of the standard designs from the period could have up to four bedrooms but only by converting the sitting room to a bedroom. Why the house was made larger than normal may have simply been due to the size of the family it had to accommodate, or that it accommodated a pupil teacher as well as the head teacher. Nevertheless, its design was consistent with the resolve to improve the comfort of teacher residences that had motivated the development of the 1909 standard plans.
Tenders were called for the new residence in March 1913 and the following month the tender of H Boyle was accepted. Following its completion, the Johnson family moved in on 25 October 1913.
The Department of Public Works at the time of construction of the former residence was led by Alfred Barton Brady, the Queensland Government Architect. In 1912, the Works department had a team of 21 draftsmen and one draftswoman under the supervision of the highly competent Thomas Pye as Deputy Government Architect. During the early 20th century, this team produced a substantial body of high quality work including the Land Administration Building, the former Queensland Government Savings Bank (later the Family Services Building), the George Street additions to the former Government Printing Office, Block A of the Rockhampton Technical College (1914) and Windsor State School (1915 to 1916). Many of the finest public buildings in Queensland were designed at this time.
Of the school residences built between 1893 and 1914, 19 are extant, and of these, 16 were built to a standard design. After 1914, the standard designs changed and in the late 1920s two types were introduced that resembled the residence at Atherton in form and plan arrangement. The earlier standard residences (1893–1914) were low-set with simple hipped roofs, featuring a verandah along the front of the house with rooms stacked behind. To increase the capacity of these houses, a verandah was added at the rear. Later designs (those used after 1914) featured hip-and-gable roofs and were high-set. The overall form of the residence at Atherton and its plan arrangement are similar to the post-1914 types, but is low-set like the earlier types.
Johnson remained at the school until his death, aged 66, in the Atherton Hospital on 6 November 1930. Mr AJ Beck replaced him as head teacher in December that year (formerly of Dallarnil State School). The following year the Atherton State School became a Rural School and provided manual training and domestic science classes. A new head teacher, Mr Gilchrist, formerly of Silkwood State School, was appointed in 1934. The school continued to expand with the addition, in 1951, of the first wing of a new school building to accommodate a High Top. This was progressively expanded until 1963, even after the opening of the new state high school at its present site in 1959.
In 1984 a new State Primary School was opened and grades 5 to 7 moved to the new school site in Armstrong Street. In 1985 grades 1 to 4 followed them and the Mabel Street primary school was closed. The National Trust of Queensland entered the residence in its register in that year.
The land occupied by the school was gazetted as a reserve for Local Government purposes in 1988 and responsibility for the buildings passed to the Atherton Shire Council. The former head teacher's residence became Enterprise House in 1997 and accommodated various government offices including one for the Department of Primary Industries. A deed of grant of the land was made to the Tablelands Regional Council in 2009.