Ipswich North State School is a heritage-listed state school at 9 Fitzgibbon Street, North Ipswich, City of Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Frederick Thomas Jellet and built from 1934 to 1937 by Queensland Department of Public Works. It was formerly known as North Ipswich National School. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 5 February 2016.
History Ipswich North State School, located east of Downs Street and south of Fitzgibbon Street in North Ipswich, opened in 1867 as North Ipswich National School, to accommodate the growing population of North Ipswich. In the mid-1870s the school was divided into a Boys School and a Girls and Infants School, which were reclassified as state schools . In 1935 the two schools combined to form Ipswich North State School, housed within a Depression-era brick school building (constructed 1934, extended 1937). The school includes terraced grounds, retained by concrete walls which were built around the brick school building and its parade ground in 1934 and around the lower playground in 1937. The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
North Ipswich is an early suburb of the city of Ipswich, which was initially known as Limestone.Lime kilns were established at Limestone Hill, Limestone, in 1827 to provide quicklime (Calcium oxide) for building work at the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement ('Baptist Church and memorial gate (former), Ipswich', QHR 602573'Education Kit, convicts and settlement' http://www.ipswich.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/8658/education_kit_convicts_-and-_settlement.pdf, (accessed 10 November 2015)). After the penal settlement closed in 1839, and free settlement began from 1842, Limestone was renamed Ipswich, and developed as a river port for pastoralists on the Darling Downs. Ipswich became a municipality (the Borough of Ipswich) in 1860, and was proclaimed a part of the Port of Moreton Bay the same year.George Harrison (Ed), 1910, Jubilee History of Ipswich, HJ Diddams & Co, Brisbane, pp. 15, 63'Local intelligence', The Moreton Bay Courier, 29 September 1860, p. 2.
North Ipswich's development accelerated from the early 1860s. The area north of Lawrence Street, around the later site of Ipswich North State School, was subdivided in 1864;Survey plan I1626, DNRM. The later site of the school on the 1864 plan was originally marked as a "Reserve for Public Buildings". by which time an immigration depot existed on the North Ipswich side of the Bremer River.The Immigration depot was almost completed by March 1864 ('Public Works', The Courier, 18 March 1864, p. 2).
Many of the immigrants arriving at the North Ipswich depot were destined to work on Queensland's first railway, the Main Line railway. Construction of the Southern and Western Railway commenced with a ceremony in North Ipswich on 25 February 1864.Harrison, Jubilee History of Ipswich, p. 59'Sandstone Railway Culvert', QHR 602562. The first section, to Grandchester, was opened in July 1865 and passed through the site of the present-day North Ipswich Railway Workshops.'Sandstone Railway Culvert', QHR 602562'The Athens of Queensland', Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser, 29 August 1865, p. 4. The railway line crossed a combined road and rail bridge (the Bremer Bridge) from the town centre, and passed north through the site of Ipswich's first railway workshops and goods station (now Riverlink Shopping Centre), and then the current workshops site. The Bremer Bridge replaced a ferry service across the Bremer River that had been established in 1860, but was itself superseded (for railway use) in 1897 (Harrison, Jubilee History of Ipswich, p.20). The section of railway line from North Ipswich to Wulkuraka was bypassed in 1875 when the railway line was extended to Brisbane, which spelt the end of Ipswich as a river port ('Sandstone Railway Culvert', QHR 602562'Ipswich', The Queenslander, 19 June 1875, p.9).
The development of Ipswich and North Ipswich soon led to schools being established. In pre-separation Queensland, education was provided initially by fee-charging religious schools and private academies. They catered principally for children in the main population centres of Brisbane and Ipswich.Thom Blake, "Educating Queenslanders" in Queensland Historical Thematic Framework, 2007 (rev. 2013 by EHP), pp. 1–2. A more organised approach to education commenced with New South Wales Governor Charles Fitzroy's appointment of a National Board of Education in 1848. The Board established and administered schools where parents contributed one-third of the building costs and guaranteed an average attendance of at least 30 pupils.Hector Holthouse, Looking Back. The first 150 years of Queensland schools, a report for the Department of Education, Queensland, 1975, pp. 10–13. Schools were opened in Warwick (1850), Drayton (1851) and Brisbane (1859).Holthouse, Looking Back. The first 150 years of Queensland schools, pp. 14–5. Following the separation of Queensland from New South Wales in late 1859, the Queensland Government introduced the Education Act 1860, which created a Board of General Education to oversee the development and administration of schools in the colony. The number of public or national schools increased from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.Blake, "Educating Queenslanders" in Queensland Historical Thematic Framework, p. 2.
Two national schools, each sub-divided into separate schools for boys and girls, were established in Ipswich in the early 1860s: in Brisbane Street (Ipswich); and Omar Street (Little Ipswich State School, now West Ipswich State School). In 1864 these schools had a total average daily attendance of 201 and 103 pupils respectively,Brisbane Courier, 27 May 1865, p.4 (Report of the General Board of Education for 1864). A total of 33 schools, (30 vested, and three non-vested) operated in Queensland under the Board by 1864 – counting the boys and girls schools within a National School as separate establishments. and by April 1865 there was a movement to establish a national school in North Ipswich, where a building had already been hired for teaching local children.'Ipswich', The Brisbane Courier, 5 April 1865, p. 2
The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. 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, "Mount Morgan State High School" in Queensland Schools Heritage Study Part II Report, for Education Queensland, 2008, pp.4-5Paul Burmester, Margaret Pullar and Michael Kennedy Queensland Schools: A Heritage Conservation Study, a report for the Department of Education, 1996, pp .87–8.
At a meeting of local residents in the North Ipswich immigration depot in April 1865, a Mr Fitzgibbon moved that a primary school of the vested class be founded under the Board of General Education. Mr Hawthorne, of the Ipswich Grammar School (established 1863), stated that "seeing there had been such a large influx of population to North Ipswich on account of the important works [the railway] now going on, it was time a school was established".'National School for North Ipswich', Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser, 20 April 1865, p.3. In non-vested schools, usually run by religious denominations, the Board of General Education did not own the building. ('The National System of Education', The Queenslander, 16 May 1868, p. 12).
The site of the National School (No.61) at North Ipswich, on an allotment of over that was granted by the Government (the current site, east of Downs Street, and south of Fitzgibbon Street), was arranged in March 1867 by Randal Macdonnell, the Inspector General of Schools, and the school was later opened by Macdonnell on 1 July 1867.'Week ending 2 March', Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser, 19 March 1867, p. 4'Ipswich', The Brisbane Courier, 3 July 1867, p. 3'Ipswich', The Queenslander, 6 July 1867, p. 7. However, the school site was not officially gazetted until 1871, when and , was gazetted a Reserve for a National School.Comprising allotment 13 of Section 16. The school site was bordered by Lawrence Street, Downs Street, Fitzgibbon Street and allotments 6-12 (Queensland Government Gazette 1871, p. 372).
The school originally operated from a timber building, divided into separate rooms for the boys and girls, which was "very pleasantly situated on an eminence commanding a fine view".'Scientific and useful: Railways, Roads and bridges', The Queenslander, 22 June 1867, p. 3. The school was designed by Mr Hart, of the railway, who donated his £20 fee to the building fund ('Ipswich', The Brisbane Courier, 3 July 1867, p. 3). The initial enrolment was 26 pupils, but this rose to an attendance of 90 by September 1867.'Local and General News', Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser, 19 September 1867, p. 2. In 1867 there were 60 schools in Queensland, under the Board of General Education, with 9000 pupils (The National System of Education', The Queenslander, 16 May 1868, p.12). In the 1860s North Ipswich was mostly thick bush, and pupils who rode to school kept their horses in a paddock fronting Lawrence Street.Lorraine Burton and Catriona Robinson, 1992, "Ipswich North State School: 125th Anniversary: 1867-1992", Ipswich North State School Anniversary Committee, North Ipswich, p. 11.
The North Ipswich National School expanded and was reorganised in the 1870s. In the mid-1870s it was divided into the North Ipswich (or Ipswich North) Boys' School No.61, and the North Ipswich (or Ipswich North) Girls' and Infants' School No.246.Sources differ on the exact year of the division: Burton and Robinson, "Ipswich North State School: 125th Anniversary: 1867-1992", pp. 11,13claim the schools separated in January 1874Queensland State Archives Agency ID8640, "Ipswich North State Girls And Infants School" claims January 1875Queensland State Archives Agency ID8645, "Ipswich North State School" claims 1876. The two schools at Ipswich North were either labelled Ipswich North, or North Ipswichboth forms were used in the media during the 1870s. In September 1875 the Girl's and Infant's school had 186 pupils enrolled and 141 pupils present, while the Boys School had 111 enrolled and 74 present.'Report of Inspection of West Moreton Schools' (1875) Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser, 6 June 1876, p. 4. By June 1876 the Boys School was in its own building, while the Girls and Infants School had two buildings.Burton and Robinson, "Ipswich North State School: 125th Anniversary: 1867-1992", p. 13. The two schools became state schools, under the State Education Act 1875, which provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction.The Act replaced the system of provisional and vested schools with provisional and state schools. A Committee for the state school at North Ipswich was appointed by August 1876 ('Official Notifications', The Week, 12 August 1876, pp. 21, 22).