The college’s catchment extended from Maitland to the Queensland border. North coast students were especially important, as they would be to the later university.

In most cases, they were the first in their family to undertake any form of higher education. Many had barely travelled outside their home towns. The great majority were quite religious and came from socially conservative families and communities.

Many parents had reservations about education and risks, especially for girls. However, teaching was also seen as respectable, a means for social advancement.

For some, such as writer Shirley Walker who studied at the teachers’ college during World War II, the college was a way of leaving the claustrophobia of home and community. 

Getting to Armidale could be an issue because of the poor east-west transport links.

Les Sullivan from Kempsey was awarded a scholarship to the college in 1941. To solve the problem of getting there, his parents booked him onto the twice-weekly Woodward and Purkiss coach service to Armidale.

“Bidding my parents a teary farewell with an admonition from my mother, ‘Don’t do anything you’d be afraid to tell us’, ringing in my ears, I boarded the large open-style stretched tourer (probably a Studebaker or Hudson) for the 120 miles (190 km) gut-churning, dust-eating, corrugated ordeal,” he said.

“I had always been prone to carsickness so it was not a journey I was looking forward to. I can still see the sign at the bottom of ‘The Big Hill’ warning of 12 miles (17 km) of winding road. I was too sick to enjoy the tea stops at Bellbrook and Jeogla and just prayed for the ordeal to end.”

Coming home was easier. The large number of north coast students made it possible to book charters to the main destinations. Even so, as late as the 1930s, it was sometimes easier for one student to return home via rail to Sydney and then steamer to Woolgoolga. There he would be lowered onto the long wharf in a wickerware basket along with his luggage.

But what type of college did the students find upon arrival? A 1935 description from the Sydney Morning Herald described the completed main buildings and initial playing fields. The journalist was totally impressed with the space, the facilities and standard of teaching.

For most of the northern students, it would have been the largest and most impressive building they had ever seen, and by a considerable margin.

Jim Belshaw’s email is ndarala@optusnet.com.au. He blogs at newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com.au and newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au