The following text is taken from “The History of St. Lucia” complied by Councillor Judy Magub.

“Ironside School had several name changes at the beginning of its existence. It was officially opened as a public institution on 10 October 1870 and was named Toowong School. It kept this name for ten years before a state school was opened in Toowong and then became Indooroopilly State School. Then a state school was opened in Indooroopilly and a new name had to be found – Indooroopilly Pocket School. Confusion continued to reign however, and the name Ironside was adopted. (1)

In 1870 the Head Teacher, William Arthy, taught youngsters aged 5 to 14 in one room. (2) Forty-two students were enrolled in 1870 but as attendance would not be compulsory until 1875, absences could be frequent. A letter from Mr Arthy to the Schools Inspector dated 10 November 1871, explains the reasons for the absences that Tuesday:

5 Merry’s – illness

3 Pitty’s – Mother confined

5 West Milton children – if one stays away they all stay away

3 Carmody – planting sugar cane

2 Lushes – sick

1 Manson - sick

“The sickness”, explains Arthy, “was colds caught no doubt on the previous Sunday which was very wet.” (3)

In those very early days the school consisted solely of a building some forty feet long by eighteen wide with a shingled roof, but, at the end of the century, another classroom would be added and a galvanised iron roof installed.

After William Arthy’s departure in 1876, seven other Head Teachers would be in charge, until the appointment of John Croston in January 1901 (4) – when Lloyd Rees would arrive at the school as a pupil.

“The school stood alone, on a hill in the bush”, Rees would write in his autobiography, “recruiting pupils from St Lucia, Indooroopilly Pocket and Ironside.” Soon after Rees’ arrival the Head Teacher, John Croston, “died suddenly, one morning taken ill conducting scholarship class” (5), and was replaced in October 1904 by Joseph Wagner, who would stay at the school until October 1932, its longest-serving Head Teacher to this day.

“Joe was an interesting man”, wrote Rees, but “on occasions the love of his farm would lure him from his duties as a teacher and he would set us some work to do and make for his beloved plot. We would immediately post sentries and proceed to have a whale of a time…..This not to say serious work wasn’t done,” Rees reassures us. “Quite a number of my fellows went on to scholastic careers. Two among them were Wagner’s sons – Jack, now a noted Brisbane doctor and Eric, a partner in the engineering firm of MacDonald, Wagner and Priddle.”

St Lucia in those days was “a bad area for snakes, and it seemed necessary….to kill them whenever possible” and, wrote Rees, “in the areas of modest homes and far-flung farms and dairies, the children very rarely wore boots or shoes to school; a few of the girls, perhaps, but the boys never!” (6)

In 1932 Edward Stinson replaced Joseph Wagner and Joan Haig, a pupil at the school then, remembers how the new Head Teacher, “who had been gassed in the War, had to go outside from time to time for air.” (7) In 1936 a new building was opened, replacing the other, and John Murray, Head Teacher from 1946 to 1964, would recall “how relief workers and shovel made what is now the oval – no easy task on that unfriendly, stony ridge”. (8)

After the Second World War and the ‘baby boom’, the school population increased by leaps and bounds. (9)

By 1955 class sizes had grown to 49 despite the building programme and more teachers. After 1961, however, with the end of the baby boom and increasing numbers of undergraduates in the area, numbers of pupils began to fall: to 850 in 1971 then 783 in 1991. Staff and parents would put tremendous efforts to improve the school, and in 1976, Claude James (Head Teacher from 1964 to 1976) would declare: “If there is a teacher’s paradise, it is Ironside”. (10)

Today the school’s buildings are modern (with superb library, built for the centenary), and the grounds well developed (including an excellent swimming pool built in 1958). Teaching methods and curriculum contain a whole range of subjects unimaginable in earlier times, and the student body is multicultural and multilingual. Today, though, few pupils come to school barefoot, snakes are few and far between and no one swims in Sandy Creek, be it summer or winter!

Sources”

(1)Ironsides State School Diamond Jubilee, October 193name is (The school’s name is spelt this way in the title).

(2)Joan Hogarth, Ironside State School, 1870-1995, p.11.

(3)Ironside State School Centenary 1870-1970, back page.

(4)Ibid., pp. 36-37.

(5)Lloyd Rees, Peaks and Valleys, Collins 1985, p.22.

(6)Lloyd Rees, The Small Treasures of a Life Time, quoted in Ironside State School Centenary, pp. 49-52.

(7)Interview with Joan Haig, 3 February 1998.

(8)Hogarth, op. cit., p.27.

(9)Ibid., p.41.

This text is taken from a document supplied by the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, titles]d “St. Lucia and Long Pocket – Early Educational Arrangements.”

  1. The first attempt to arrange locally for the education of the children of this district was made about the year 1864, when at Mrs. Smith, the wife of Mr. Jesse Smith, a farmer occupying the land adjoining the water trough and tank opposite Guyatt’s store, acted as teacher. She was not a qualified teacher. No provision was made for a school building; the children used to assemble Mrs. Smith’s house. Mrs. Smith was not equal to the task and did not continue for more than a few months.
  2. Later, the parents of the children residing in the district assembled and erected a small building on the Government Road in front of the site on which the Ironside State School now stands. The parents in question were – Mr. M. O’Neill, Mr. John Carmody, Mr. Watt, Mr. J. Skinner, Mr. Pitman, Mr, Eaton, Mr. Deller, Mr. Petty, Mr. Middleton, Mr. C. Lane, Mr. Behan, Mr. J. Redhead, Mr. C. O’Brien, and Mr. Gayner.
  3. In regard to the old residents referred to above –

(a)Mr. M. O’Neill subsequently lived in retirement at Toowong Terrace, where he died in .

(b)Mr. John Carmody removed later to Phillip Street, Spring Hill, where he died in 1892. Carmody’s Road, St. Lucia, is called after him.

(c)Mr. Watt went to Redland Bay. He was subsequently employed in connection with the Gatton Agricultural College.

(d)Mr. Skinner transferred later to Gatton, where he continued to engage in farming.

(e)Nothing definite is known as to the subsequent careers of Eaton, Deller, and Middleton.

(f)Mr. Petty removed to Enoggera.

(g)Mr. Lane and Mr. Redhead are still alive and reside at Long Pocket, Indooroopilly.

(h)Mr. Gayner removed to Boggo, and Mr. C. O’Brien to Moggill.

  1. The school was at first placed in charge of a Mr. Fanning. He was a trained teacher who was brought out to Queensland by the late Bishop Quinn. He was addicted to drink, on which account Bishop Quinn had to dispense with his services.

Mr. Fanning remained in charge of the school for about eight months. During that period he was accommodated free of charge by several families in rotation, - staying one week at each place. Each child paid a small weekly school fee. The children made good progress during Mr. Fanning’s time.

  1. The first pupils of the school included:-

Mary Ellen Behan (now Mrs. P Nolan, North Pine); Susannah Behan (now residing with her sister at North Pine); Mary Carmody (now Mrs. C McCaffrey, St. Lucia);Bridget Carmody (now Mrs. M. Reardon, Fortitude Valley); Ellie Lane (now Sister Mary Victor in charge of the Sisters of St. Joseph in South Australia); Ellen Pitman (now Mrs. McCabe, Fortitude Valley); John Pitman (now at Gatton) and two other members of the same family.

  1. When Mr. Fanning vacated the post, the school was taken over by Mr. and Mrs. Turner, who continued to work for two or three years. Mr. Turner was previously a painter living at Taringa.
  2. The present State School (-ow known as the Ironside State School, was established about 46 years ago. Mr. Arthy was the first teacher of the State School.

Old Church adjoining Ironside State School.

  1. This church was built by the “Bible Christians” about the year 1866. These included Mr. Middleton, Mr. Dart, Mr. Lusch, and others. The church was afterwards removed to Taringa. The State School was conducted in the church building for a time before the school was opened.