Subiaco Primary School
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Subiaco Primary School (SPS) was originally called The Subiaco Government School, and was the first state school in the rapidly growing suburb of Subiaco. The first classes were held in temporary classrooms located on the corner of Bagot Road and Rokeby Road, where the Evelyn H. Parker Library now stands. The library is named after Miss Parker, who taught at the school from 1952 until 1967, prior to becoming Mayor of Subiaco in 1975 (The first female Mayor of Subiaco [1]).
On May 12 1897, the first of the still standing red brick buildings was opened to almost 400 students. Five weeks later, the building was seriously damaged in a fire. It was another 4 years before the local Subiaco Fire Brigade was opened.
The first Headmaster, Sidney Grace, was originally from Victoria. He enthusiastically encouraged the students of Subiaco Primary School to play Australian rules football.
Under his direction, the school grew at an astonishing rate, requiring the construction of a number of additional buildings to cater for the large number of school children, particularly of the younger age groups. This growth can be attributed to the recession in Eastern Australia and the lure of gold from the West.
The school now consists of a number of red brick building ranging in age from the original building, to more modern buildings constructed in the mid 90's, a 25m pool, 1 large and 1 smaller playing field and an area of large Moreton Bay Fig trees on the southern boundary of the school, bordering Hamersley Road, called the Blackies. The old oiled, black, wooden buildings that were used for either storage or some classes have been either demolished or moved to different locations.
[edit] References
http://www.subiaco.wa.gov.au/template.asp?navSelect=11&mainNavID=11&pageRecID=319
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- Street map from Street Directory, MSN Maps and Multimap.
- Satellite image from Google Maps, WikiMapia and Terraserver.
