Redcliffe State High School buildings are a group of heritage-listed buildings at Redcliffe State High School on the corner of Klingner Road and Oxley Avenue, Redcliffe, City of Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia. They were built between 1958 and 1962. They were added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 31 May 2019.
History Redcliffe State High School opened in 1958 as the first state high school on the Redcliffe Peninsula. The school retains its seven original school buildings built between 1958 and 1962, which were designed by the Department of Public Works to provide abundant natural light and ventilation for optimal educational environments. These standard buildings are arranged on the site according to 1950s nuclear master planning ideals, providing outdoor courtyard assembly and play areas and retaining pre-existing mature trees. The complex includes three vocational training buildings, built between 1959 and 1962.
The Redcliffe Peninsula is part of the traditional lands of the Kabi Kabi people, and was briefly the site of the Moreton Bay penal settlement at Redcliffe Point (1824–5). For many years the Redcliffe Peninsula was known as "Humpybong" (dead house), the name the Kabi Kabi, gave to the abandoned convict settlement. A 23,000 acre (9302ha) Redcliffe Agricultural Reserve, which included the peninsula, was declared in 1861, followed by the sale of farm portions from 1862. Some coastal portions were subdivided for "marine villas" in the late 1870s-early 1880s, when the peninsula was promoted as a resort, but few subdivisions were actually occupied at this time. Steamers initially provided the main access to Redcliffe, with jetties constructed at Woody Point (1882) and Redcliffe Point (1885). By 1890 steamers were bringing 10,000 day-trippers and holidaymakers per year, although there were still only 352 permanent residents on the peninsula in 1891.Queensland Government Gazette, 1861, p.753M Jones, Redcliffe: first settlement and seaside city, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1988, pp.36, 61-5, 97, 99.
Redcliffe did not develop as a residential centre until road transport links improved. Anzac Memorial Avenue was opened from Petrie to Redcliffe in December 1925, and the population boomed after the Hornibrook Highway Bridge was opened in October 1935. The population of the Town of Redcliffe (declared in 1921) grew from 8,871 in 1947 to 18,000 in 1959, the year the City of Redcliffe was declared, and this strong growth continued into the 1960s.City of Redcliffe, Redcliffe, Redcliffe City Council Administration Centre, 1 March 1974, pp.1-2P Fairhall (ed), Redcliffe comes of age: 21 years a city, Redcliffe Historical Society, 1987 (reproduction of a 1980 article), p.3. Population statistics are based on the area of the Redcliffe Peninsula, not on today's suburb of Redcliffe (Redcliffe: first settlement and seaside city, p.36) In 2008 the City of Redcliffe became part of the Moreton Bay Region, which was renamed City of Moreton Bay in July 2023.
The earliest school on the peninsula, the Humpybong Provisional School, opened in Clontarf in 1876. The Redcliffe Provisional School opened at Redcliffe in 1888. Humpybong State School opened in Margate in 1909. The peninsula's first private secondary school, Soubirous Convent School in Scarborough in 1951. However, the peninsula did not have a public secondary school for another seven years when Redcliffe State High School opened in 1958, followed by the opening of Clontarf Beach State High School in 1964.City of Redcliffe, pp. 2-3"Convent school at Redcliffe", Courier Mail, 19 February 1951, p.5. Although the Queensland Government had instituted a high school system in 1912, high schools remained few in number until after World War II.T Blake, "Educating Queenslanders" in Queensland Historical Thematic Framework, 2007 (rev.2013 by EHP), pp.9-11Paul Burmester, Margaret Pullar and Michael Kennedy, Queensland Schools: A Heritage Conservation Study, a report for the Department of Education, November 1996, pp.32-35.
The site of Redcliffe State High School was once part of Portion 226 of the Redcliffe Agricultural Reserve.DNRME Survey Plan S3132, 1864 (at this time Portion 226 was labelled 'Reserved for Wharf'). By 1905 2.26ha of land at the northwest corner of this portion was a reserve for railway purposes. The North Coast railway line reached North Pine (now Petrie) in 1888. Despite a branch railway line to the Redcliffe Peninsula being proposed in the 1880s,'Humpybong Railway' Telegraph, 14 October 1885, p.4. it was not until 2016 that the Redcliffe Peninsula railway line was opened. In 1885, a 2-acre (0.8ha) Reserve for Post and Telegraph Office was surveyed in the northeast corner of Portion 226, with a 5-acre (2.0ha) Reserve for Police Purposes to its south.DNRME Survey Plan M331200, 1885DNRME Survey Plan R3435, 1905Queensland Government Gazette 1885, Volume 2, p.1462). By 1885 the remainder of Portion 226 was part of a large Reserve for Public Purposes In 1936 the unused railway reserve was leased by Claude AM Reid, of Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Indooroopilly (now in Fig Tree Pocket), who opened a koala park and zoo on the site in October 1937.'Redcliffe', Courier Mail 15 January 1936, p.5'Redcliffe', Courier Mail 14 September 1937, p.7DNRME Survey Plan R3435, 1905 ('Claude AM Reid' annotated on the railway reserve). The former railway reserve and koala park was gazetted as a "reserve for a state school" in 1945. The government also acquired 6.5ha of the northern part of the showgrounds, opposite the school reserve and west of Oxley Avenue, in 1947 for a school sports ground.DNRME Survey Plan R3435, 1905 (Annotation notes that Portion 454, a Reserve for State School, was gazetted in 1945)'Secondary school sites procured', Cairns Post, 31 October 1951, p.5'£500,000 plan for Redcliffe', Courier Mail 16 July 1946, p.3 (secondary school to be built on koala park)'New school plans ready', Courier Mail, 31 October 1946, p.3 (school to be built on 'five acres of the old railway reserve behind the Redcliffe Post Office')DNRME Survey Plan SL1804, 1946 (Portion 490, "Reserve for State School Purposes", GG 1947.1.171).
Another decade passed before a high school was built. In 1954 it was reported that high school enrolments in Queensland had more than doubled since 1948, from 4,500 to nearly 11,000.'Big expansion is planned. New high school buildings now on priority list', Sunday Mail, 14 November 1954, p.7. An enormous demand for state education began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the "baby boom".Project Services, Queensland Schools Heritage Study Part II Report, for Education Queensland, January 2008, pp.28-31.
Plans for the first four school buildings at Redcliffe State High School were prepared by the Department of Public Works (DPW) in August 1957.DPW Plan 11911955, "Redcliffe S High S, Gnd floor plans", August 1957. In 1956 the high school site was still covered in trees.DNRME aerial photograph QAP687-80, 14 August 1956 During a period of high demand for more classroom accommodation, from the mid-1950s DPW architects introduced school master planning, a concept to plan for controlled growth and change. During the period emphasis shifted away from grid-like layouts to nuclear layouts, centred on a nucleus of core facilities. The plans balanced the need for correct orientation and an appropriate response to contours and existing vegetation. Generous courtyard spaces between classroom wings were used for assembly and play areas. Redcliffe State High School followed this nuclear master planning approach.Burmester et al, Queensland Schools: A Heritage Conservation Study, p.78Report of the Department of Public Works for the year ended 30th June 1957.
The school opened in 1958 with 107 students, either on 3 February or in October.An October 1958 opening date, with an enrolment of 107 students, is given in a 1980 newspaper article included in "Redcliffe comes of age". By May that year only Block C had been constructed, set in a cleared section of the treed school reserve; as at 2019 some trees which predate the school still survive.DNRME aerial photograph QAP743-89, 4 May 1958 (only Block C visible)Only Block C is shown in a photograph of the school in the Report of the Department of Public Works for the year ended 30th June 1958.Aerial photographs of the school show that trees predating the school were retained, especially along the Klingner Road frontage. Blocks A, B, and D were completed by mid-1959.Report of the Department of Public Works for the year ended 30th June 1959Queensland State Archives Digital images numbers 6592, 6593, 6594, 6595, July 1959 (photos show Blocks A-D).
Block A was a one-storey, slab-on-ground administration building constructed at the front of the school on the west side of the complex, facing Oxley Avenue. It had an asymmetrical gable roof and a splayed feature wall leading through large doors into a foyer at the north end of the building. The building accommodated: three offices (for the Principal, Deputy Principal, and staff), toilets, staffroom, and a store. The corridor featured school honour boards. A large dais at the rear (east) of the building faced directly into the understorey of the adjacent Block B, which was open and two steps lower.DPW Plan 11911955, "Redcliffe S High S, Gnd floor plans", August 1957Project Services, "Redcliffe State High School", in Queensland Schools Heritage Study Part II Report, for Education Queensland, January 2008 Although not identified as a standard type, very similar administration buildings have been identified at Mitchelton State High School (built in 1959) and Rockhampton State High School (drawn in 1960).
Blocks B and C were built to a standard design (Timber Framed School Building incorporating steel open-web floor trusses).Type F/T7 (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.51). From 1950 the Department of Public Instruction introduced new standard plans for school buildings designed by the DPW. These buildings were high-set timber-framed structures and the ground floor "understorey" was used as covered play space. The principal type was a long and narrow building with a gable roof. A semi-enclosed stair connected the understorey to a north-facing verandah running the length of the building. Classrooms opened off the verandah and had extensive areas of windows, allowing abundant natural light and ventilation.Burmester et al, Queensland Schools: A Heritage Conservation Study, p.116. In 1954 this type was improved by replacing the proliferation of stumps in the understorey with a timber truss that provided an unimpeded play space. This concept was further refined in 1957 with a steel open-web joist, set on reinforced concrete piers, that spanned further and removed more understorey stumps. The design was further refined in 1959 by replacing the concrete piers and open-web joist with a steel portal frame that was employed extensively in the 1960s and 1970s.Burmester et al, Queensland Schools: A Heritage Conservation Study, p.117. Blocks B and C at Redcliffe were of this latter type, which had a standard classroom size of either 24 ft (7.3m) square or 24 ft by 21 ft (7.3m by 6.4m).Burmester et al, Queensland Schools: A Heritage Conservation Study, Conservation Management, p.51.