The Industrious Heart A History of New Plymouth / 7:5

7:5

'Have you', she asked parents, 'still some rags of the Dark Ages attitude clinging about you? It is no favour we beg from the Board, but our legal due. How much have your girls got? You stuff them into a miserable parody of a school building .... You are stifling your girls because you will not take the trouble to be interested.' The board chairman countered that the board could not provide buildings without money. There should be some improvement during the coming year; if not, he thought it would be necessary to appoint a new board of governors. Protests such as this were effective. The board had acquired property in Mangorei Road, and in 1916 the first building was erected and occupied, and all the 98 girls were being educated there. The principal, Miss J. R. Barr, reported that the school could now offer girls as sound an education as was given in any high school in the Dominion. Within the next decade the roll had risen to more than 300 and the school was the largest of its kind outside the main centres. Since then buildings had been redesigned and added to, but not fast enough to keep pace with demand. There was serious overcrowding with the roll at 1160 in 1964, which was relieved somewhat by the opening of the Spotswood co-educational college. In all fields of endeavour the Girls' High School has a record of which the city is proud. Among the famous who received their education there was Jean Sandel, who later became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. She achieved great distinction as a surgeon in Britain, and later returned to her home town where she worked at the New Plymouth Hospital for many years until her death in 1974. June Opie was another prominent figure. When she left the school she became a primary teacher specialising in speech therapy. She con- tracted poliomyelitis while in Britain in 1947 which confined her to a wheelchair. In spite of this handicap she completed her Bachelor of Arts degree, wrote a best-selling autobiography, 'Over My Dead Body' , and travelled widely on the Continent, becoming world-famous for her appearances on television and radio and in lecture halls.
Miss H. C. Thomson, a former deputy-principal, remembers her as 'a vigorous, enthusiastic and capable leader as a schoolgirl, who in later life faced her problems with tremendous courage and determination, developed many new interests and retained her charm, enthusiasm and wit' . Other pupils later in life earned distinction in the church, the professions and in business in many countries. Boarders were first accommodated in 1914 when seven pupils lived with private families, until a house was acquired in Devon Street East in 1916. Later a house in Ronald Street, Strandon, was used until the present boarding hostel, Scotlands, built in 1928 at a cost of $20,000 to house 180 girls, came into use. Prominent in the establishment of Scotlands was the Old Girls' Association, formed in 1907 by Miss Elsie Andrews and Miss Clarice Douglas. The association has continued to contribute money, books, prizes and equipment for the school, as has the Parent-Teacher Association established in 1957. The Girls' High School has had nine principals since 1913. Longest serving and perhaps one of the best remembered was Miss A. R. Allum, who served in that position from 1943 to 1968. In addition to being a great educationist, she had intense humanitarian interests. At the 1959 prizegiving she said: 'Pupils are not equal in intelligence, any more than they are equal in height, beauty or athletics, and the sooner this is recognised the better. The ridiculous insistence on equality must result in a levelling down, because it is impossible to level up.' A sentiment which doubtless was not favoured with enthusiasm by the burgeoning women's lib movement. Other long-serving principals include Miss D. N. Allan (1925-1943) and Miss J. R. Barr (1916-1921). In the 1950s the residential areas of western New Plymouth were expanding rapidly; the rolls of both the Boys' and the Girls' High Schools were causing problems, and there was obvious need for a new high school. Land was acquired and plans drawn up for Spotswood College, a co-educational institution. Controversy arose over Education Depart- ment suggestions for an 'exploded' type of school made up of single- storey blocks. The high school board decided that such a construction would have been unsuitable when the projected size of the school and the unavailability of flat land was considered. The board refused to accept the department's plans and as a result the 'Nelson-type' two-storeyed block arrangement was decided on. Giant earthmoving machines, the first of their type seen in New Plymouth, spent many weeks preparing the site for the builders, and on February 2, 1960, Spotswood College opened with an official roll of 139 third-formers. First principal was A. L. McPhail, and the first pupil to be registered was his daughter Ann McPhail. The roll continued to expand and by 1969, when there were 1180 pupils registered, a 'unit organisation' was established. It was the first school in New Zealand to be divided into two separate departments. McPhail remained as principal; deputy-principal of Spotswood East was A. Hutchinson, and the same title was given to J. Barrowman in Spotswood West. The next few years saw extreme difficulties in staffing and accommodation and by 1976 the roll had increased to its peak of 1474. In 1978 McPhail resigned, his place being filled by E. E. Thomas. The New Plymouth Technical School (now the Taranaki Polytechnic) was opened by Sir George Fowlds, MP, in 1905, and in 1907 the Education Department erected a brick building on Poverty Flat in Lemon Street, which, with modifications, was used for 70 years. The school was then controlled by the education board through a board of governors,

and with the development of a curriculum comprising general, commercial and other vocational courses, soon proved its worth. In 1927 the Technical School amalgamated with New Plymouth high schools (boys' and girls'). The Taranaki Polytechnic Council, an autonomous body, was appointed in 1973. At that stage classes were conducted in various buildings in the town and a need was seen for centralisation. Land was acquired adjoining the Boys' High School, comprising two blocks of great historical significance. It was Crown- granted in 1858 and was given the name Somes Park (not to be confused with the present Somes Park near the city boundary on Junction Road). It was farmed by Ernest Larwill Humphries, a chemist, whose son, Thomas, became the province's chief surveyor and later Surveyor-General. In 1940 the land was bought by the education board, which had previously leased it for agricultural courses, when it became part of the hostel grounds. In 1970 the land was repurchased by the department for the Polytechnic's present premises. The multi-million dollar complex was completed in 1978. Among the wide variety of courses covering all aspects of tertiary education, one was unique: the development of Kapuni and Maui gas and condensate reticulation required welding techniques unknown in New Zealand and expert tutors were employed to teach these skills. In 1980 the Polytechnic had more than 70 full-time and many more part-time instructors to serve the growing needs of Taranaki local tertiary education.
'A nation trained in Godless schools must become a Godless nation.' This was the reaction of Bishop Patrick Moran, of Dunedin, to the secular clause of the Education Act of 1877, a reaction shared by Catholics in many parts of the country. By the time the Act came into force there was a chain of Catholic schools in most New Zealand towns and settlements. Not so in New Plymouth, where the founders of Catholic education faced quite incredible difficulties and hardship in their efforts to establish their own school. Mother Mary ofSt Michael of the Sacred Heart had founded convents and schools in Napier, Nelson and Christchurch before she arrived by steamer in New Plymouth on 10 November, 1883. She had answered a call by the New Plymouth Parish Priest, Father Chastagnon, to start a convent in the town, and who would accept sisters of no other order than that of the Sacred Heart. He added that he would put land and $2400 at her disposal. Mother Mary was accompanied by three sisters of her order, and first lessons were given in a little wooden church on the site of the present New Plymouth Bowling Club's green on the Eliot Street- Courtenay Street corner.
From the start there were problems: 'We are totally installed in the little old church where one room has been set aside for young girls partitioned off by paper partitions, and this will also serve as our high school. There is absolutely nothing which could be used to build up a boarding school for girls of the upper and middle classes' , she wrote to Bishop Redwood in Wellington. She asked the bishop for financial aid, to which he agreed, and plans were drawn up for the large wooden convent which for 80 years dominated the town's skyline between Devon and Powderham Streets. On January 13, 1884, Bishop Redwood laid the foundation stone, under which a bottle containing copies of local papers, a few coins, a medal of the Sacred Heart and a parchment bearing witness to the stone was placed. They were unearthed in 1970 when the convent was demolished, and are now treasured in the Roman Catholic archives in Hastings. With the laying of the foundation stone, the next problem was finding the money to build. Some loans and gifts came from Nelson and Napier, but the most interested party of all, Father Chastagnon, now declared that the resources of the parish were insufficient to provide the $2400 he had promised. However, he succumbed to pressure from Mother Mary and finally permitted a bazaar, with all articles for sale to be the work of the sisters, and the profits to be divided equally between his treasury and the convent fund. There is no record of the amount raised by the bazaar. Worked started, and although the building was not completed, on September 1, 1884, the convent was taken over by Mother Mary and her sisters and pupils moved in. 'About 100 children, some of them Protestants, attended the school, and more than including fifteen boarders, attended the paying classes. Troubles arose with the builder and architect which led to court cases through a bad faith of a dishonest contractor backed by local Freemasons who were determined not to have a teaching Catholic sister in their locality, the Foundress was involved in a protracted law suit which cost her something like £2000 ($4000). All the convents helped her but nothing save her trust in God could relieve her of several months of deep anxiety. Mother Mary's reaction to this financial loss is on record among her letter, the originals of which are held in the Hastings archives: 'Whatever may come now, it is stark poverty that faces the sisters ... this is a signal of grace to us. May God be blessed for it. Injustice has triumphed. ' Help came from surprising quarters. One day in 1885 a knock at the door of the sisters' mission in Christchurch was answered to reveal the figure of a goldminer who asked to see the Superior. He was not a Catholic but had heard of the problems being encountered in New Plymouth and wished to donate to the Sisters the results of his efforts in the goldfields-$2000. The surprised Superior urged him to think again but he insisted that he wanted none of it himself. 'I give it for the love of the crucifix you wear,' he said.


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