Milton State School
Milton State School is a heritage-listed state school at Bayswater Street, Milton, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1923 to 1936 by Queensland Department of Public Works. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 28 April 2017.
History
Milton State School opened in 1889, as Rosalie State School, on its current site approximately two kilometres west of the Brisbane CBD. The school is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. In 2017 Milton State School retains a Depression-era brick school building, retaining walls and stairs ; a re-purposed two-storey timber classroom building ; and mature trees. The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment.The land north of the Milton Reach of the Brisbane River and southwest of the North Brisbane Burial Ground, part of the traditional lands of the Turrbal people, was outside Brisbane's original town limits. Large suburban allotments were sold in the area in the 1850s. The suburb of Milton is named after Ambrose Eldridge's "Milton House", built near the river in the early 1850s when Eldridge was farming cotton. During the 1860s, the Paddington, Milton, and Auchenflower area consisted of large houses on acreage, but denser settlement later occurred due to the opening of the Main Line railway to Ipswich in 1875; and Milton developed a mix of worker's cottages, small businesses and industry. A distillery opened at Milton in 1871, followed by the Castlemaine brewery in 1878, and there was a population boom during the 1880s due to residential subdivision. The opening of a tram line from Petrie Terrace to Toowong Cemetery, via Milton Road, in July 1904, also promoted suburban development in Milton. A tram line also branched off Milton Road to run along Baroona Road, north of Milton State School.
A large number of residential estates were created in the 1880s, which soon led to pressure for a state school for Rosalie. 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.
The effort to open a school at Rosalie/Milton accelerated when a committee was formed in February 1886 at a meeting of residents of the Rosalie, Oxford, Bayswater, Blackall, Lewison and Holmedale Estates. A small area of high ground on the west side of Red Jacket Swamp, part of an 1884 Water Reserve, was later chosen as the site of the school. Unlike alternative sites, this land was free.
The site of Red Jacket Swamp, which was drained by Western Creek, is today bounded by Baroona Road to the north, Bayswater Street to the west, and Haig Road to the southeast. In the 1880s the swamp was located in Toowong Shire, just south of the boundary with the Ithaca Division. Land to the west and northwest of the swamp was subdivided into residential allotments in 1879; to the north in 1886–87; and to the southeast in the early 20th century. However, in the 1880s Red Jacket Swamp remained undeveloped, and was a source of contention between the two local governments about who was responsible for draining and filling it. Waste-water runoff from the houses on the higher ground around the swamp had created an odorous health hazard.
Regardless, the site was deemed suitable for a school. A and Reserve for State School Purposes was surveyed off the Water Reserve in late 1886, and was gazetted in January 1887; with the remainder of Red Jacket Swamp.
In February 1914 a swimming pool was officially opened at Milton State School, making it the second Queensland state school to have a swimming pool, after Junction Park State School in 1910. The Milton pool, funded by parents, was long, wide, and to deep. Located at the south end of the school grounds, it was built by James Price for £250. This pool was later replaced by a new reinforced concrete pool, built by Messrs William Collin & Sons and opened in November 1930. The new pool was long by wide, and deep; and cost. Parents again provided most of the funding.
Improvements to the school's accommodation also continued in the interwar period, as the population of Milton expanded. A new highset wing, with three classrooms, was added at the south end of, and perpendicular to, the first school building in 1919; and another wing was added in 1923, this time at the north end of the school. The latter building had six classrooms in two storeys, and cost £2500. In 1923 the average daily attendance at the school was 900–1000 students. A 1919 newspaper article was illustrated with a photo taken from the east of the school, with the new wing "on the left". The 1923 building, with a western and northern verandah, is shown on a 1933 site plan, as the northernmost of a group of buildings connected by verandahs.
Improvements to school facilities in the 1930s included tennis courts, located in the northeast corner of Gregory Park. By this time the park had been filled in and served as the school's playground. The tennis courts were moved to their current position, east of the swimming pool, between 1951 and 1955. The tennis courts had been provided within the three years prior to February 1935. By 1909 Red Jacket Swamp had been renamed Gregory Park – after Sir Augustus Charles Gregory, former Commissioner for Crown Lands and Surveyor-General, Member of the Queensland Legislative Council, and a former Mayor of Toowong.
However, the main change to the school in the 1930s was the construction of a Depression-era brick school building between 1935 and 1937. The Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of public building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders, and also embarked on an ambitious and important building program to provide impetus to the economy.
Even before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme, through a work program administered by the Department of Public Works. This included painting and repairs to school buildings. By mid-1930 men were undertaking grounds improvement works to schools under the scheme.
In June 1932 the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power from a campaign that advocated increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. The government embarked on a large public building program designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, the purchase of local building materials and the production of commodious, low maintenance buildings which would be a long-term asset to the state. The construction of substantial brick school buildings in prosperous or growing suburban areas and regional centres during the 1930s provided tangible proof of the government's commitment to remedy the unemployment situation.
Depression-era brick school buildings form a recognisable and important type, exhibiting many common characteristics. Most were designed in a classical idiom to project the sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey through the architecture of its public buildings. Frequently, they were two storeys above an open undercroft and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical plan form and often exhibited a prominent central entry. The plan arrangement was similar to that of timber buildings, being only one classroom deep, accessed by a long straight verandah or corridor. Due to their long plan forms of multiple wings, they could be built in stages if necessary; resulting in some complete designs never being realised. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions.
Despite their similarities, each Depression-era brick school building was individually designed by a DPW architect, which resulted in a wide range of styles and ornamental features being utilised within the overall set. These styles, which were derived from contemporary tastes and fashions, included: Arts and Crafts, typified by half-timbered gable-ends; Spanish Mission, with round-arched openings and decorative parapets; and Neo-classical, with pilasters, columns and large triangular pediments. Over time, variations occurred in building size, decorative treatment, and climatic-responsive features.
Plans of the new brick school, dated February 1935, show a long, symmetrical building of three parallel wings, comprising an undercroft with toilets and open play space, and two levels of classrooms, with teachers rooms housed in a projecting entrance bay in the centre of the main façade. The aesthetic treatment of the building incorporated Spanish Mission-style features, such as decorative parapets and semi-circular arches to the upper floor windows. The hipped roof and window hoods to the northeast facing windows were to be clad in terracotta tiles. Typical of these schools, classrooms were linearly arranged along one side of the building, linked by long corridors, and some classrooms were separated by folding timber partitions.
Construction progressed from early 1935. A description of the building by the Department of Public Works that year gave an estimated cost of £19,500, and stated:
"This building will replace the old school buildings on the existing site... The walls above the first floor will be of face brickwork, the base being formed in cement plaster... Retaining walls will be constructed on the street alignment and will provide a level area surrounding the building. The first and second floors will each contain ten classrooms, providing accommodation for 800 pupils... On each floor provisions will be made by means of folding partitions to throw four classrooms into one for assembly purposes".Only one of the old main buildings of the school survived the construction of the Depression-era brick school building. By January 1935 the two-storey 1923 timber building at the north end of the school was ready to be shifted further north to make way for construction of the new brick school, which was being built on the footprint of the previous school buildings. Rather than demolish Block B, as it was only 13 years old, in 1936 it was remodelled to provide vocational training at the school, which had been requested by the school committee. Approval for remodelling Block B for vocational training, at a cost of £913, was given in August 1936. Students from Sherwood State School were travelling to Milton for vocational training once a week, prior to 1951. Vocational education was a Queensland Government priority to support the development of primary industries; this evolved after World War I into a variety of subjects. Vocational training within primary education began in 1895 with drawing classes and expanded to include domestic sciences, agriculture, and sheet metal and wood working classes. The subjects required a variety of purpose-built facilities and were initially gender segregated. In 1936 the Minister for Education permitted students to take vocational subjects in lieu of geography or history in the Junior Examination, increasing the subjects' popularity.
The remodelling of Block B included altering the internal partitions and partially enclosing the verandahs to create woodwork and sheet metalwork rooms and a teachers room on the ground floor, and cookery, dining and dressmaking rooms, a lecture room and a laundry on the first floor. The ground floor of Block B sat lower than the undercroft level of the new brick building, and the only access to the first floor was via an L-shaped staircase on the southwest side.
The new school, with a total cost of £30,000, was in use from March 1937, and was officially opened in May by the Minister for Public Instruction, Frank Cooper. By this time 833 students were enrolled. Minister Cooper said that the new school "would stand for the next century or more".
Air raid shelters were constructed in Gregory Park, for students of Milton State School, during World War II. Due to fear of a Japanese invasion, the Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools in January 1942, and although most schools reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended. Slit trenches, for protecting the students from Japanese air raids, were also dug at Queensland state schools. The swampy origins of Gregory Park meant that, instead of digging slit trenches, heaped sandbags were used to form six above-ground trenches, each long. Students, parents and staff were all involved, with women sewing the sandbags shut. However, the school had to threaten that, as they could only teach as many children as there was shelter space for, those children whose parents had assisted with the shelters would have priority to recommence attending school.
Changes continued to be made after WWII. Although enrolments declined, from 976 in 1951, to 563 in 1973, smaller classroom sizes meant new additions were still required. In 1951, of land was removed from Gregory Park and added to the south end of the school. By 1951, palm trees existed along the school's rear boundary with Gregory Park, and there were also mature trees along the northern end of the Bayswater Street frontage, and one at the south end of the school near the Haig Road pedestrian crossing. By 1960, a tree existed in front of Block A, north of the front entrance; with another just southeast of the same building. A three-classroom timber building was added at the north end of the school by. Part of the open play space in the undercroft of Block A was also enclosed as temporary classrooms in 1957.
A timber and brick wing, with timber floor trusses, was also added to the west of the southern wing of Block A in 1959–60. This had a library on the first floor, two rooms underneath, and a verandah on the north side. The extension is visible in a 1960 aerial photograph.
By 1960 cricket practice nets existed in the very southwest corner of the school, but new nets were later built northeast of the tennis courts –13, partly in Gregory Park. Asphalt was laid behind and in front of Block A. In the mid-1960s Block B was altered to become a Technical College. Partitions were removed on the upper floor to create one large room with smaller rooms on the now fully enclosed verandah, while the ground floor was altered for use as an optical mechanics room and watchmakers room, with additional storage created within the verandah. Both Block B and Block C apparently became surplus to requirements after Grade 8 was moved to high school, and both blocks were used as technical colleges until 1973. They were later used by the Guidance Training Section for Primary and Secondary School Guidance Officers, to the end of 1988, and in 1989 were being used for aerobics classes, and by the Parents and Citizens Association, and the Arts Council. In 1991 toilets were constructed in the ground floor verandah. Around this time the dressing sheds at either end of the swimming pool were removed, and a new amenities block was built to the east of the north end of the pool.
Some minor changes were made to Block A from the late 1970s. The former cloakrooms on the first floor - by now a health room and staff room - were extended eastwards into the corridors of the north and south wings, and the undercroft area of the entrance bay was also converted to three storerooms. By 1978 a tuckshop and a projection room had also been added to the southern end of the former open play area of the undercroft.
Around 2000, the classroom configurations of Block A were changed. On the first floor, one classroom wall of the southern wing was removed to form one large and one smaller classroom; while the walls between the three classrooms of the northern wing were removed to create two classrooms divided by a folding partition. The four classrooms of the central wing were converted into two classrooms divided by small rooms containing wet areas and storage. On the second floor, the three classrooms of the southern wing were converted to two classrooms divided by a folding partition. Later, a covered concrete extension was added behind Block A's central wing, extending east from the 1930s retaining wall.
For the school's centenary celebrations in 1989, a 1:15th scale model of first school building was built ; a Centenary quilt was produced, and a Centenary Courtyard was created, south of the main entrance. There were 686 students enrolled in mid-2016. In 2017, Milton State School continues to operate from its original site, and its Depression-era brick school building is a local landmark. The school is important to the area as a focus for the community, and generations of students have been taught there.