The Origins of Carlingford Public School

It was in March 1878 that the Council of Education decided that a Public School should be established at the place which was to become Carlingford. It was almost five years later that the school actually opened, and the site for the school was not acquired until 31/2 years after that. For eight years the Council and then the Department of Education grappled with the problem of selecting a site for the new school, a process which involved the compilation of an enormous number of reports and memoranda. The files on the new school became very thick and confused, partly because the local inspector, John Murray, was not one of the Department's most efficient inspectors, and partly because the affairs of Carlingford became entangled with those at North Rocks.

A public meeting was held in the St. Paul's Church of England school on 17 March 1882, with Frederick Cox in the chair and 40 parents and a few other people present. Edwin Harris and William Cox moved the key resolution, as they had at a previous meeting in 1881, and it was unanimously decided that the new school should be at Mobbs Hill. District Inspector McCredie reported that none of the North Rocks parents had attended the meeting, but that he knew they would have voted for the resolution. This was because they wanted to keep their own Public School (opened in January 1882), and believed they would lose it if the new school was placed on the alternate Allen site 800 metres closer to them. (See map on the right). Given this unanimity, the Department decided early in May to acquire a site at Mobbs Hill, and Inspector Murray was asked to complete the usual site and building forms. The following month Murray recommended that the new school be placed opposite the old church school, on part of a 7 hectare farm owned by John Williamson and formerly by his grandfather, William Mobbs. This was immediately approved and in August 1882 it was decided to name the school Pennant Hills South rather than Mobbs Hill. Unfortunately, the resumption of the site was to be held up and more changes of mind were to occur before the site question was finally resolved in 1886.

District Inspector McCredie had taken action in September 1882 to make sure there actually was a school when Pennant Hills Church of England School and North Rocks Public School ceased to exist at the end of 1882. At this time the Department was struggling against almost overwhelming odds to provide accommodation for the 60% increase in enrolments in government schools in the Department's first three years. The increase was the result of population growth, compulsory education, the extension of schools in the bush and the closing of church schools.

Many of these pupils were accommodated in school tents, but McCredie decided that the obvious solution for Pennant Hills South was to do as the Department did in many similar cases, to lease the church school premises. Arrangements were therefore made with Frederick Cox and the other trustees to lease the schoolroom and teacher's residence for 60 pounds a year. It was only then, on 27 October 1882, that the official decision was made to establish Pennant Hills South Public School in January 1883, as a formal conversion of Pennant Hills Church of England School. The remaining question was who should be the new school's first teacher? Inspector Murray recommended against Gow, since he had just failed his examination for a second class certificate and was therefore ineligible to be in charge of a school of the expected size. The parents sent in a petition in December 1882 asking for Gow to remain, "He having given general satisfaction to us", but McCredie had already recommended Gow and he was appointed on 22 December 1882.