Education & Schools: An overview

Almost everyone has attended school and many have enrolled at more than one school but finding the records can be a very time consuming task. Q-SPI endeavours to make the job of searching for Queensland pupils easier by bringing together in one index pupils’ names from many sources. Dates range from 1865 (note: a 30 year closure on names exists). Schools from which names are sourced range in size from large city campuses with admissions in the thousands to country one-teacher schools with an enrolment of just hundreds. Some schools have long ceased to exist — others are still functioning. Sources from which the names are drawn are as diverse as the actual schools themselves — admission registers, school histories covering a significant anniversary, local histories that do not specifically focus on the school but include a pupils' list as part of their story. Many sources provide additional family information including age at admission, parents’ names, occupation, religion and address — all very useful to the family historian and genealogist. In the latest digital versions research is aided by QFHSdatasearch, a generic interface designed to search genealogy databases by fields, keywords, Boolean selection, sorting and wildcards.

The Queensland Teachers' Index (QTI) 1907-1911 is a supplement to the Education and Schools series. The QTI is an alphabetical index to teacher admissions, promotions, transfers and resignations in Queensland from 1907 to 1911 and includes pupil teachers through to the Director of Education. The listings include name, standing, school/s, type of entry, date and page reference in the relevant Education Office Gazette (> 6,900 references). Teachers listed in the Gazette for this period are high in relation to the numbers employed — a total of 2,402 teachers (1153 male and 1249 females) at the end of 1906. In 1907 there were 1,120 staff changes listed in the Gazette: some teachers being transferred five, six and seven times.

State School Committee Members in Queensland (SSCMQ) 1890-1899: An Index to appointments and resignations in the Queensland Government Gazette (QGG). Indexes approximately 8,000 names from notices in the QGG. Entries cover over 400 different Queensland schools, including South Brisbane, Bulimba, Bundaberg, Charleville, Charters Towers, Cairns, Mackay, Townsville and Warwick, and lesser known schools such as Black Jack, Darkey Flat, Gramzow, Little Cabbage Tree Creek, Lord John Swamp and Postman's Ridge. The duties of School Committees were, in general, to see that the non-sectarian principle of the system was maintained inviolate and to take care that all the Board's regulations and instructions were faithfully and efficiently carried out, to keep the school building in repair, making sure it is used for proper purposes, providing sufficient quantities of furniture, to use their influence with parents to induce them to send their children to school and to report the conduct of the teacher to the Board. They formed a key role in keeping the schools functioning satisfactorily. If members died, resigned, left the district or ceased to act then additional members were appointed and the Department notified.

The 1876-1889 SSCMQ index covers approximately 4,600 names from 1876 when the notices commenced to 1889. Entries are sourced from about 340 different Queensland schools, including South Brisbane, Bulimba, Bundaberg, Charleville, Charters Towers, Cairns, Mackay, Townsville and Warwick and other lesser known such as Alsatia, Boggy Creek, Frederick, One-Eye Waterhole, Postman’s Ridge, and Te Kowai.

Abbreviations

Unless otherwise stated, these resources are Queensland in content. Abbreviations have the meanings as shown: '+' postage extra; AUD$ Australian currency, CD CD-ROM, Edn edition, FA post free Australia-wide, GST goods & services tax (Australia), M microfiche, MIs monumental inscriptions, NA not available/applicable, P print (books, hard copy), '.pdf' portable document format, P&P postage & packing, Pub published (yyyy), R microfilm reel/s, TBA to be announced/advised.

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