Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Journal of the Nelson and Marlborough Historical Societies, Volume 1, Issue 2, November 1982

The Foundation of the Nelson Society

page 14

The Foundation of the Nelson Society

Campbell seems to have taken over the management of the day and Sunday schools of the United Christians from the time of his arrival in the settlement. He did some of the teaching. Campbell found the Ebenezer Chapel satisfactory for the continued accommodation of the schools. During 1843, in association with the United Christians and some new settlers, he set in train the process by which a grant of land for a new school was obtained from the colonial government. The result was the allocation of a site near the Eelpond in Bridge Street and the building of a school. The organisation which was formed in 1843 for the promotion of this project was the Nelson School Society. The first proceedings of the Society to be recorded were those that took place at the time of the opening of the school on 7th April 1844. The names and occupations of the officers and committee members of the new organisation are worth noting. The trustees were Campbell, A. G. Jenkins, his business partner, Dr Renwick who had travelled out with Campbell on the Thomas Harrison, T. J. Thompson, the surveyor, and W. Hildreth a major landowner in Waimea South. It is perhaps indicative of the social attitudes of Jenkins and Thompson that both of them were censured by their fellow cabin passengers on the Lord Auckland for fraternising with the working-class passengers in the steerage. Campbell was treasurer. The secretary was Wm. Stanton, the well schooled son of a bricklayer from Coventry. The committee consisted of the five trustees and four others who were: John McArtney, a tinsmith from Dundee, Wm. Gardner, a ropemaker from Glasgow, John P. Robinson, a wood turner from Birmingham and Samuel Kealley, a baker. Although not a purely working-class organisation like the United Christians, the Nelson School Society had a strong link with the working-class and a reasonably wide community base.

Even before the inauguration of the new school in Bridge Street, the Society had in October 1843, opened a branch school at Wakefield in Waimea South whither some of the United Christians had moved. From its beginning, the Society extended its activities to the rural areas and set out to establish a system rather than a single school. The foundation stone of the school in Bridge Street was laid on 21st February 1844, by William Fox, the recently appointed local agent of the New Zealand Company who had taken the place of Captain Wakefield killed at Wairau. Fox, later Sir William and a future Prime Minister, was making his first public appearance as the sponsor of an educational undertaking in a long public career in which he was initiator or supporter of many educational ventures including the Educational Bill of 1871. In his speech at the laying of the foundation stone he showed himself to be conversant with the work of such pioneer educators as Raikes, Wilderspin and Birkbeck. He also remarked with approval upon the Society's plan to associate a library with the school. From the outset, it seemed, the Society's aims were community-orientated and not narrowly confined to the elementary education of children. On 7th April 1844 the new school, which was a brick structure with a slated roof and included a teachers' room and library, was formerly opened by Fox. In his speech on this occasion Fox paid a warm tribute to the work of Matthew Campbell "to whose exertions is mainly owing the establishment of this and several smaller schools in the country districts, the whole conducted on the principles of the British and Foreign School Society". The allusion to schools in the country districts page 15doubtless related to various Sunday schools as well as the small day school at Wakefield. A cardinal principle of the British and Foreign School Society was that "the lessons for reading shall consist of extracts from the Holy Scriptures; no catechism or peculiar religious tenets shall be taught in the schools but every child shall be enjoined to attend regularly the place of worship to which its parents belong". This principle that sought to mitigate contemporary sectarianism commended itself to the community-minded leaders of the Nelson School Society. Apart from religious instruction, British and Foreign School Society Schools offered instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic and needlework (for girls), but the restricted nature of the curriculum of the Society's schools is indicated by the fact that up to 1839 the scriptures had been the only reading material used. John P. Robinson, the wood turner from Birmingham, was made headmaster of the new school. He is not known to have worked as a teacher previously, but he had been an active member of the Birmingham Mechanics' Institution and was house steward of that society. Robinson was a man of some education and distinction and later became the elected superintendent of Nelson Province.