Bundaberg State High School is a heritage-listed state high school and technical college at 37 Maryborough Street, Bundaberg South, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1920 to 1956. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 22 June 2017.
History Bundaberg State High School (SHS) was established in 1912, and was opened on its current site on Maryborough Street in Bundaberg South in 1921 as Bundaberg State High School and Technical College. The school is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. Bundaberg SHS retains the first two timber teaching buildings constructed on the site: a large variant of the suburban timber school building type (1920, Block D); and an early vocational building (1920, extended 1937 and 1956, Block G); plus two saw-tooth workshop buildings: Workshop No.1 (1956, Block R), and Workshop No.2 (1959, Block M). The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment, and Block D is the earliest surviving purpose-built state high school building of its type in Queensland.
The European presence in the Burnett River area, traditionally the land of the Kalki people, began with pastoralism in the 1840s and 1850s, while timber cutters arrived in the mid-1860s to work the coastal scrub. By the 1860s, there were five pastoral stations on the lower Burnett River.The runs were: Tantitha, Kolan, Barolin, Bingera, and Branyan. "Branyan Road State School", QHR 602852Janette Nolan, Bundaberg history and people. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1978, p.12. Selection of land around Bundaberg began in 1867 under the "Sugar and Coffee Regulations" of the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1860, and the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1868 enabled the resumption of half of the Bingera and Branyan Runs in November 1869.Nolan, Bundaberg history and people, p.38Queensland Government Gazette, 1869, p.1543 (proclamation of resumption of 58 square miles the consolidated runs Bingera and Branyan)The Queenslander, 27 November 1869, p.3. The site of Bundaberg was officially surveyed the same year.
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, large sugar plantations with their own mills and a SSI workforce were eventually replaced by European small farmers supplying central sugar mills.'Bundaberg Central State School', QHR 601533'Sugar in the Wide Bay Region', DERM, c.2008, pp.3-4.
The development of Bundaberg was accompanied by the establishment of secondary education facilities. Bundaberg possessed a private high school for girls from February 1893, which became co-educational .Bundaberg State High School: 75th Anniversary Celebrations, 1912-1987, Bundaberg, Bundaberg State High School, 1987, p.9Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser, 30 January 1893, p.2Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser, 12 October 1910, p.2. When Bundaberg SHS was due to open, Bundaberg High School changed its name to 'Shaw's School', after its male co-principal (Bundaberg Mail & Burnett Advertiser, 6 December 1911, p.3). In Queensland, governments were slow to establish state secondary education, considering this to be of little relevance to Queensland's economy which was based on primary industries. The Grammar Schools Act 1860 provided scholarships for high-achieving students to attend elite grammar schools. It was not until 1912 that the government instituted a high school system, whereby separate high schools were established in major towns or, where the student population was too small, a primary school was expanded to include a "high top". The first high schools were established within existing technical colleges, utilising their buildings. In Queensland generally, high schools remained few in number until after World War II (WWII).T Blake, "Educating Queenslanders" in Queensland Historical Thematic Framework, 2007 (rev.2013 by EHP), pp.9-11P Burmester, M Pullar and M Kennedy, Queensland Schools A Heritage Conservation Study, a report for the Department of Education, 1996, pp.32-35. By 1940 there were only 17 high schools in the State of which two were in Brisbane. An additional 14 State schools had "tops" (Project Services, "Bundaberg State High School", in Queensland Schools Heritage Study Part II Report, for Education Queensland, January 2008). In the 1950s the number of high schools in Queensland increased significantly. The grounds were large, greater than 12 acres (4.8ha) providing ample room for sports facilities.
Throughout the 19th century, the only avenue for technical education in Queensland was the local School of Arts. During the 1880s, several committees established separate technical colleges and initially these colleges were conducted within existing school of arts buildings. The first purpose-built technical college to open was the Ipswich Technical College in 1901; and the Technical Instruction Act 1908 later empowered the government to take over existing technical colleges.A History of Technical Colleges in Queensland', Historic Buildings Section, Department of Administrative Services, Technical College fileTechnical College Instruction Act, 1908. Queensland Government control of technical colleges in turn facilitated the combination of technical colleges and state high schools on the same sites.
In accordance with the Queensland Government's decision to provide free secondary education, in late January 1912, the first three Queensland state high schools were opened: in Gympie, Warwick, and Bundaberg. They were followed a week later by high schools in Mackay, Mount Morgan and Charters Towers. High tops were soon established at primary schools at Childers, Gatton and Herberton. In accordance with government policy, high schools were not opened in towns with existing grammar schools, although the government planned to take over any grammar schools at a later date.Capricornian, 23 September 1911, p.20Telegraph (Brisbane), Tuesday 30 January 1912, p.4'Week (Brisbane), 17 January 1913, p.39Bundaberg State High School: 75th Anniversary Celebrations, 1912-1987, p.6.
The Bundaberg State High School was accommodated at Bundaberg Technical College, in a former Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations (BSES) laboratory building, on a small site, north of Quay Street and west of Maryborough Street. The technical college, established in the Bundaberg School of Arts c.1889, had relocated to this riverside site in early 1911.Queensland State Archives Agency ID2082, 'Bundaberg Technical College'Brisbane Courier, 31 January 1911, p.4Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser, 24 February 1911, p.2Bundaberg State High School: 75th Anniversary Celebrations, 1912-1987, pp.6, 105.
By March 1912, Bundaberg SHS had an attendance of 97 pupils.Daily Mercury, 13 March 1912, p.7. As the high school and technical college shared the same site, there was soon pressure to find a new home for the high school. The school's first principal, Berthold Henry Charles Krone, noted in 1914 that a reserve, which had been set aside for high school purposes, would be a suitable location, with more room for sports. This land was a Reserve for a Grammar School, gazetted in 1887, located in Bundaberg South, between Maryborough Street and the North Coast railway line, north of the Lady Chelmsford Hospital.Bundaberg Mail & Burnett Advertiser, 12 December 1914, p.3DNRM Survey Plan N25291, 1886Queensland Government Gazette, Vol XL, 1887, p.1159. In 1916, the Minister for Education, Herbert Hardacre, agreed that the Grammar School Reserve should be used for the high school, while the technical college should have a new building on its current site by the river.Bundaberg Mail & Burnett Advertiser, 10 March 1916, p.4. The Grammar School Reserve was gazetted as a Reserve for High School Purposes in April 1916 (Queensland Government Gazette, Vol CVI, 1916, p.1440). A new brick building had been constructed at the Quay Street site, for the technical college, by 1919 (Bundaberg Mail, 26 February 1921, p.4).
The high school was still operating at the technical college in late 1918, even though enrolments at both the high school and technical college were increasing, after a decline during World War I.Bundaberg Mail, 7 December 1918, p.8Bundaberg State High School: 75th Anniversary Celebrations, 1912-1987, pp.6-7. The Queensland Government eventually decided to build a combined technical college and high school on the Grammar School Reserve, and Public Works expenditure of £9,026 was approved in October 1919. The Technical College Committee later claimed it had always been opposed to moving to the new site, which it argued was too remote and dangerous for female students to attend night classes.Telegraph (Brisbane), 10 October 1919, p.4Bundaberg Mail, 26 February 1921, p.4Bundaberg State High School: 75th Anniversary Celebrations, 1912-1987, p.7.
The first purpose-built high school buildings in Queensland were constructed in 1917 and were large, elaborate buildings that were variations of a standard design introduced in 1914 (the suburban timber school building), as well as vocational buildings built to standard designs.Burmester et al, Queensland Schools: A Heritage Conservation Study, a report for the Department of Education, pp.32-35. suburban timber school buildings solved many of the problems of light, ventilation, and classroom size that had plagued previous school designs as well as providing the ideal, modern education environment.Burmester et al, Queensland Schools: A Heritage Conservation Study, a report for the Department of Education, p.21. The type was timber-framed, highset with covered play space beneath, and classrooms were vented by a system of metal ducts leading to prominent roof vents. A continuous ventilation flap was also provided on the wall at floor level. Large banks of windows were set on the south side, to provide left hand natural light to pupils, and classroom wings were linked by verandahs. Larger examples had a symmetrical arrangement of wings. Classrooms were wide, and hat and coat rooms, plus teachers rooms, were provided.The type was designated C/T8 (P Burmester, M Pullar and M Kennedy, Queensland Schools: A Heritage Conservation Study, Conservation Management, a report for the Department of Education, November 1996, p.25).
The new Bundaberg State High School and Technical College building was a large variant of a suburban timber school building. It was under construction in early 1920 when the Railway Department, which sought to build a locomotive depot on the Grammar School Reserve, was forced to back down in the face of public protest. The building was almost complete by December 1920.Bundaberg Mail, 20 February 1920, p.5Bundaberg State High School: 75th Anniversary Celebrations, 1912-1987, pp.7-8.