skip to content
Village of Hall and District Progress Association

The School

On these pages we will progressively tell the story of Hall Primary School in pictures and in words. We will draw from Laurie Copping's history of the school, and Elizabeth Kilby's compilation of memories and reflections of former pupils. We would also like your contributions. While this is a Centenary initiative, all the material created will also become part of the Hall School Museum (Online). While there is no longer an active school community, the original school building and it's fine collection remain as an enduring memorial.

The Story of Your School

Hall Primary School was closed by the ACT Government at the end of the 2006 school year, five years short of it’s centenary. The same Hall Progress Association that lobbied the NSW government to get the school established in 1911, worked hard to defend the school from closure, but to no avail. An earlier campaign to save the school from closure in 1959 was much more successful, resulting in new school buildings and a new Principal’s residence.

Hall village was proclaimed in 1882, and the village plan including substantial space for ‘public buildings’. At the turn of the century there were schools quite close by at both Ginninderra and at Bedellick; Ginninderra was the closer option for children from Hall. In 1903 the Bedellick school (Spring Range Road) was destroyed by fire, requiring those pupils to make the six mile journey to Ginninderra, some walking.

Petitioning for a new school in Hall began immediately, and persisted for the next seven years. In 1906 Charles Thompson, then teacher at Ginninderra “spoke in glowing terms of the fine stone building at Ginninderra, built at a cost of 1400 pounds, and of the well-established trees and shrubs” [Copping:1986:2]. He also pointed out that if Ginninderra were to be replaced, then some pupils would have to walk five miles or more to get to Hall.

In 1909, leading advocate for a Hall school James Kilby pointed out that twenty of the forty-five children at Ginninderra came from the Hall area. A parental petition argued that frequent flooding of Halls Creek endangered their children. More importantly Ginninderra school, which had operated since 1880, was surrounded by a few very large land holdings, while Hall was a public township with a growing population and ‘two stores, one hotel, one accommodation house, a Post Office, one saddlers shop, one blacksmith and wheelwright…….’.

In January 1910 approval was given to the District Schools Inspector to call tenders, and approval of the new school was formally announced in the Public Instruction Gazette of 31 January 1910.

The building was 20 feet by 20 feet with two outside toilets on the eastern side.

By December the building was completed and furniture supplied. The furniture consisted of:

  • Six long cedar desks
  • Six forms
  • Two blackboards and easels
  • Two book presses
  • One table, 3 feet by 2 feet
  • One Austrian chair

An 800 gallon tank supplied drinking water. On the verandah was a wash basin stand and 30 hat and coat hooks. The building was painted in standard government colour with the name ‘Hall Public School 1911’ on the wall to the right of the chimney.

Within two years of the school opening Charles Thompson was requested by the NSW Department of Education to supply a ‘history of the school’! His letter of reply says, in part:

“The school was opened on 30th January 1911 by C.W.Thompson with an enrolment of 37 pupils. The area of the school ground is 4 ac & care was taken in clearing the same to leave a number of native trees in the ground. This school was the first public building erected in Federal Territory after proclamation (emphasis added). The present enrolment is 30 and I am still in charge of the school. A photo of the building will be forwarded when procured.

I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your most obedient servant.
Chas. W Thompson”

(Photo of the new school in c.1912 from Hoskins Street)

HALL SCHOOL - TIMELINE

1903: Bedellick school destroyed by fire
1910: Application for a school at Hall approved; tenders called
1911: Hall School opened. Teacher in charge – Charles W. Thompson
1912: First ‘Empire Day picnic’
1915: Arbor Day; pines planted along Victoria Street side of the school
1919: ‘Peace Tree’ and thirty pines planted at the school by Red Cross Society
1933: Charles Thompson retired; farewell ceremony at Kinlyside Hall.
1933: Ray Harris appointed teacher in charge
1937: Ray Harris succeeded by Richard O’Sullivan
1957: Richard O’Sullivan succeeded by Keith Brew.
1957: Proposal to close Hall School. Resisted
1959: Weathershed enclosed as temporary classroom
1960: Hall upgraded to a Class 3 school, new residence and classrooms added
1960: Laurie Copping appointed Principal
1962: Water bore sunk; new toilet block built
1968: Further additional classrooms added
1971: Hall School Diamond Jubilee celebrations
1974: Federal Government takes over ACT education from NSW
1981: Laurie Copping retired
1981: Enrolments peak at 189
1986: 75th Anniversary. Governor-General opened the Hall School Museum
1997: Time capsule sealed. To be opened on the Centenary
2004: Governor-General dedicates the Museum to Laurie Copping
2006: Government announces closure of Hall Primary School
2011: Hall School Centenary

Some memories of Hall School

Extracts from ‘Around the Butt Tree-Schoolday Memories in Hall, 1911-1957’, compiled by Elizabeth Kilby.

Beryl Southwell

“There were six long desks with the pupils sitting on the forms without backs, four or five children to a desk. A fireplace was at one end of the room near the teacher’s table. Two blackboards stood on easels, and there were two presses for books, one on either side of the fireplace. There was one door into the building and five windows. A clock hung on the wall over the fireplace. A small water tank outside provided the pupils with drinking water”

Heather Berg (1924-28)

“On 8 February 1933 Mr Thompson retired after 38 years at Hall and Ginninderra and 50 years teaching in the area. A public farewell in Kinlyside’s Hall was attended by a large gathering of citizens and pupils to pay tribute to this devoted teacher who had given so many years of loyal services to the community An illuminated address and a wallet of notes was presented and many eulogized his qualities. A plaque was later unveiled in the school in honour of his faithful service”.
“My family lived on a farm at Ginninderra. The suburb of Evatt is now built on part of it so it was quite a distance to get to and from school each day……….We would reach the main road (now the Barton Highway) in time to hear Charles Thompson come rattling along the gravel road in his sulky. He would stop and pick us up and drive us to school. Later on, we thought that as we were taught by him all day we did not want to ride in his sulky as well, so we walked in the paddocks until we heard him drive by and hen we would walk along the road meeting other school friends on the way.

Some days we would see George Schumack filling in pot-holes on the road with gravel, with his horse and dray standing by. Our parents warned us not to stop and talk to tamps along the way as there were plenty of them with swag and billy can walking to Canberra looking for work.

I was paid a penny for washing the dishes at home and often before school would stop at Southwell and Brown’s store and buy a penny worth of dates – quite a handful. Then after paying homage to King and country we would be marched into school”.)

Mrs Grace Brown (nee Kilby)

“I remember walking to school from ‘Eneagh Hill’ on the day I was sent to enroll as a pupil at the Hall Public School on 7 March 1915.

Each day we would assemble out in front of the school, in lines, boys and girls separate, at 9.00 am. The teacher would examine our hands and shoes or boots to see if they were clean. We would also salute the Australian flag and repeat, “I honour my God, serve my King, and salute my flag”. We then marched into school singing ‘Under the Greenwood tree’. All classes were housed in the one room. The lessons for the morning were written up on two blackboards, Junior and Senior…………The school room was very cold in winter and hot in summer. A small fire smouldered in the fireplace and only the teacher benefited from that……..Most children walked to school. Many walked several miles coming in from as far as Spring Range, Glenwood, The Glebe, and Wallaroo, and I remember that many of them came in bare feet.”

M B S (Macks) Southwell

We lived on a property on the Spring Range , north of the village of Hall. It was about a three to four mile walk from home to school each day, depending on which route we took. Across the ‘One Tree Hill’ range the entire way was the most adventuresome………….The other route was along the Spring Range Road to the Yass Road, now the Barton Highway. We would meet other children along the way. There would be the Southwells from ‘Wattle Park’, the Moores from ‘Gledeswood’, the Morrises from ‘Homebush’ and others…………….As we made our way down the road in the early twenties we would be lucky to see two or three motor cars, as transport was mostly by horse-drawn vehicles – sulky, buggy, spring cart or wagon, but later in the 1920’s perhaps a dozen cars might pass us”.

(Photo of Hall school girls in 1920. Hall School Museum)