The last decades of the 19th and first decades of the 20th century saw the establishment of the educational base that would determine Armidale's future.
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By 1923, Armidale had established an articulated school structure that was remarkable for its time and would be familiar to Armidale residents for the next 50 years.
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In public education, there were three primary schools:
- Armidale Superior Public School (1865) later Armidale Demonstration School, later still Armidale City Public School
- West End (1890), later West Armidale Public School, later still Drummond Memorial School
- North Armidale (1900) late Ben Venue (1914).
These primary schools, along with those in the surrounding districts, fed into the newly established Armidale High School (from 1920, buildings completed 1923). With time, a number of Church hostels would be established to provide boarding accommodation for those attending Armidale High.
The Roman Catholic school system covered what is now St Mary's Primary School (from 1848), St Ursula's College (1882) and De La Salle College (1906). Both St Ursula's and De La Salle provided boarding facilities.
The two Anglican boarding schools were the Armidale School (1894) and the New England Girls' School (1895). In addition, the New England Ladies College had been established in 1887. Later this would become the Hilton School, later still the Presbyterian Ladies College.
Armidale also had its first tertiary institution, St John's Theological College, established in 1898 to provide training to prospective Anglican clergy. This college would move to Morpeth in 1926.
These developments brought considerable economic and cultural benefits to the still small city. Boarders and the staff required to teach them brought economic benefits, as did construction associated with new school buildings.
The growth in the city's educated class would feed into cultural and community activities and later into moves to bring new educational facilities to the city.
The developments could not have happened without the combination of the city's role as a religious and administrative centre with the railway that made it easier for people to get to Armidale. But what the railway gave, it also took away.
I will look at this in my next column on the story of the rise, fall and slow recovery of Armidale.
