Branyan Road State School is a heritage-listed state school at 430 Branyan Drive, Branyan, Bundaberg, Bundaberg Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Queensland Department of Public Works and built in 1905. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 1 May 2015.
History Branyan Road State School, located southwest of Bundaberg, was opened in 1905 as Branyan Road Provisional School, and was upgraded to a state school in 1909. A playshed was added in 1914, while the original school building was extended with the addition of a similar building in the mid-1920s. The place is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland, and retains excellent examples standard of government designed school buildings that were an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies. Branyan Road State School also includes an impressive kauri pine tree (Agathis robusta), planted in 1914, and a forestry plot.
Education history
The provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school's construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.Project Services, 2008. "Mount Morgan State High School" in Queensland Schools Heritage Study Part II Report, for Education Queensland, pp.4-5; Paul Burmester, Margaret Pullar, and Michael Kennedy, Queensland Schools A Heritage Conservation Study, a report for the Department of Education, 1996. pp.87-88.
A minimum of 30 pupils was necessary before the government would build a state school. From 1869, provisional schools could be established with as few as 15 (later 12) pupils. If the district or town developed, provisional schools were raised to state school status, with purpose-designed school buildings and teacher residences attracting better qualified and more experienced teachers. By 1908, 640 provisional schools were operating compared with 461 state schools.Thom Blake, Queensland Historical Thematic Framework, Chapter 9: Educating Queenslanders, 2007 (rev.2013 by EHP), pp.2-3.
To help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.Burmester et al, Queensland Schools, a Heritage Conservation Study, pp.84, 120-121.
However, early provisional school buildings were not built to standard plans and many were of poor quality. Under regulations introduced in 1892 to address this situation, if a provisional school was built according to government specifications, the government would provide up to half the cost of the building and its furniture.'The growth of provisional schools, 1876-1908', http://education.qld.gov.au/library/edhistory/state/provisional/growth.html (accessed 25 November 2014). The recommended government plan for provisional schools was for a small low-set timber framed and clad building with a gable roof. These were often a huge improvement over previous provisional school buildings and were constructed until .Burmester et al, Queensland Schools, a Heritage Conservation Study, p.14.
Branyan history Branyan Road State School resulted from European settlement along the Burnett River. Traditionally the land of the Kalki people, the European presence in the Burnett area began with pastoralism in the 1840s and 1850s.'Bundaberg Central State School', QHR 601533. Timber cutters arrived in the mid-1860s to work the coastal scrub near Bundaberg. By the same decade there were five pastoral stations on the lower Burnett River: Tantitha, Kolan, Barolin, Bingera, and Branyan.Janette Nolan, Bundaberg history and people. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1978, p.12. Branyan had been leased from c.1855 (Nolan, Bundaberg history and people, p.14).
Selection of land around Bundaberg began in 1867 under the "Sugar and Coffee Regulations" of the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1860, which aimed to promote agriculture and closer settlement.Nolan, Bundaberg history and people, p.38. The Crown Lands Alienation Act 1868, also designed to promote closer settlement, enabled the resumption of half of the Bingera and Branyan pastoral runs in November 1869.Queensland Government Gazette, 1869, p.1543 (proclamation of resumption of 58 square miles the consolidated runs Bingera and Branyan); "Official Notifications", The Queenslander, 27 November 1869, p.3. The location of Branyan run was the Parish of Kalkie, east of Bundaberg (Nolan, Bundaberg history and people, p.14). The site of Bundaberg was officially surveyed the same year. A large farm was established by Edward Lloyd Elwood by 1871, on a large bend south of the Burnett River (upstream from today's Branyan Road State School) on land resumed from the Bingera run.Survey Plan C3731, 1871; "Bundaberg, Burnett River", The Queenslander, 24 June 1871, p.10. This was referred to as "Branyan Plantation" by 1879, by which time it was owned by EB Jeune, who established Branyan Sugar Mill.'Sugar growing at Bundaberg', Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), 27 March 1879, p.2; "Bundaberg", The Queenslander, 4 October 1879, p.424; Nolan, Bundaberg history and people, p.98. The school was named after the road to this plantation.
Bundaberg's development as a port and service centre was boosted by growing coastal traffic and by its designation as the port for Mount Perry's copper mining from 1881. Surrounded by sugar plantations and the site of two sugar refineries, Bundaberg became an important sugar town. The first South Sea Islander (SSI) indentured labour arrived in Bundaberg in 1879 and the sugar plantation system reached its peak in Queensland in the early 1880s. However, the Queensland Government, seeking to promote European closer settlement, passed legislation in 1885 to end recruitment of SSI labour. As a result, large sugar plantations with their own mills and a SSI workforce were eventually replaced by European small farmers supplying central sugar mills. In 1889 there were 202 cane farmers in Queensland; this rose to 2,610 by 1901. By 1911, over 4300 small farmers had replaced the 140 Queensland plantations that had existed in 1888.'Sugar in the Wide Bay Region', DERM, c.2008, p.4.
20th century school history The increased European population in sugar growing areas like Bundaberg meant more schools were required. In 1904 a school reserve was gazetted on Branyan Road, on part of a former quarry reserve.Survey Plan CK167, 1904; Map, County of Cook, 2 Mile to an Inch, 1902. The Branyan Road Provisional School opened 14 April 1905.Queensland State Archives Agency ID5006, 'Branyan Road State School'; Project Services, "Branyan Road State School", in Queensland Schools Heritage Study Part II Report, for Education Queensland, January 2008, p.6.
The school building at Branyan Road had a single classroom measuring , and a deep front verandah, stepped in from the gable bargeboard and set at a slightly shallower angle than the building's main roof. The recommended government design normally had single skin walls, clad with chamferboards, and had rectangular louvred vents above the sash windows in the gable-end walls.Paul Burmester, Margaret Pullar, and Michael Kennedy, Queensland Schools, a Heritage Conservation Study, Conservation Management, a report for the Department of Education, 1996, p.6. A photograph taken c.1908 confirms the school building at Branyan Road was originally clad in chamferboards. ('Branyan Road State School, Bundaberg, ca 1908', John Oxley Library, record number 423985.)
Soon after its opening, the school was affected by the aftermath of a serious industrial accident. In September 1906 a night-shift boiler explosion at the Bonna sugar mill (Bonna plantation was located adjacent to Branyan plantation) seriously injured three men. Two of the men, Frank Juel and Jack Lavery, died while being transported to Bundaberg the next morning. As a memorial to the two men, two mango trees were planted that year at Branyan Road Provisional School, but neither tree survives in 2015.'A sugar mill catastrophe', Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 22 September 1906, p.2.
In 1909, by lowering the required minimum average number of pupils for a state school from 30 to 12, the Department of Public Instruction upgraded the majority of provisional schools to state school status, gradually providing these schools with new buildings designed and constructed to government standards. In 1912 the requirement for communities to contribute one-fifth of the cost of establishing a state school was abolished. With these reforms, the provisional school system became virtually redundant, although a number of these schools were maintained into the mid-20th century.
Branyan Road Provisional School's conversion to a state school had occurred by August 1909.'State School matters', The Brisbane Courier, 20 August 1909, p.7; Queensland State Archives Agency ID5006, "Branyan Road State School". Shortly afterwards a verandah was added to the rear of the school building by JT Novakoski. The 1910 plan for the addition shows casement windows, and boarding across the upper sections of the ends of the verandahs. The rear windows were also moved to accommodate a new door. The new verandah was built in line with the gable barge boards, in contrast to the original verandah, that was slightly stepped in.Department of Public Works, Drawing 290/6/6. "New Veranda State School Branyan Road", 14 June 1910.
As well as changes to buildings, the grounds were improved over time. Trees and gardens were planted as part of the beautification of schools. Educators believed gardening and Arbor Days (from 1890 in Queensland) instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land. Aesthetically designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors.Burmester et al, Queensland Schools, a Heritage Conservation Study, pp.44-45. In 1912 Branyan Road State School placed third in the Education Department's awards (Bundaberg-Gladstone area) for state school gardens and experimental agricultural work;'State School Gardens', The Queenslander, 23 March 1912, p.39. and in 1929 the school was noted for its picturesque flower gardens and sugar experimental plot.Bundaberg Genealogical Association, A history of schooling in the Bundaberg district, 1870-1970. Bundaberg, c.2001, p.120. An early surviving tree planting at Branyan Road is a kauri pine (Agathis robusta), planted by school pupil Sydney Dittmann in 1914. This tree survives in 2015 as an impressive specimen to the north of the playshed.