NRS-16851 | Visitors' Books [Hebden Public School]

The Public Instruction Act, 1866 authorised special religious instruction by visiting clergymen and their delegates (Public Schools Act, 1866, s. 19), and regulations under the Act authorised members of the public to visit schools during ‘the hours of secular instruction’ to observe teaching methods, teaching material and equipment (Regulations adopted by the Council of Education on 27 February 1867, s. 84-85). The regulations required every teacher to keep a visitors’ book ‘in which visitors may enter their names and if they think proper any remarks. Such remarks the Teachers are by no means to erase or alter.’ (Regulations … s. 86).The purpose of the visitors’ book was to create a record of the persons other than pupils or teachers who attended the school during business hours. Visitors’ books were divided into three columns – date, name and remarks. The remarks usually recorded the purpose of the visit which included religious instruction (by far the most usual purpose for visiting a school), school inspection, medical inspection, departmental officers visiting on business e.g. to inspect the buildings or equipment, and guest speakers. Occasionally visitors (particularly Inspectors) remarked briefly on the conduct or the ambience of the school.Until 1964, the most frequent visitors to the school were the clergy and church-workers who provided religious instruction to the pupils. No such visitors are recorded after 1964, although it is possible that their visits may simply have begun to be recorded in a separate volume. From 1924 until 1945 annual totals for clergy visits have been entered into the book. The Inspectors of Schools regularly sign the Visitors’ Book. Until 1922, and again from 1927 till 1930, they have also recorded the number of pupils present on the day of inspection. Attendance Officers also sign the Visitors’ Book on occasion.On the 13th of July, 1927, the school was visited by the Bishop of Newcastle, and on the 22nd October, 1935 (the Silver Jubilee year) two members of Patrick’s Plains Shire Council presented the school with a photograph of H.M. King George V. Very few other occasional visitors are recorded before 1950. From 1951 onwards Physical Education instructors, police lecturers and safety lecturers begin to appear in the record, as do School Counsellors and representatives of the Department of Health, but the overwhelming majority of signatures are still those of the clergy. Beginning in 1955, however, these volumes also contain the signatures of the visitors to the annual Education Week Open Days. Officers of the Public Works Department and the Furniture Branch are recorded as visiting the school in 1964, 1967-68 and 1970-73 in connection with various works of maintenance and improvement then being projected or carried out on the building and grounds, and the latest entries are made in October, 1973, a few weeks before the school’s final closure, by two officers of the Finance Division, Department of Education.