Fitzroy State School No. 450
319-339 George Street, FITZROY VIC 3065 - Property No 256945
South Fitzroy Precinct
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Statement of Significance
This site was removed from the Government Building Register on 21 May 1998 and placed in the Yarra Planning Scheme. The Statement below was provided to the City of Yarra by Heritage Victoria on 25 May 1998.
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ASSESSMENT REPORT
NAME: Fitzroy Primary School. No. 450
LOCATION: George Street, Fitzroy FILE NO: 602333
LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA: Yarra City
CONTEXTUAL STORY
Fitzroy
The suburbs of Fitzroy and Collingwood were originally known as the parish of Newt own. On February 1838, a land sale was held in Sydney of 25-acre lots for an average of £7 per acre. These were further subdivided by the purchasers and re-sold. In 1842 the area was officially named Collingwood after a British admiral. The area east of Smith Street became known as East Collingwood. Up till about 1851 it was almost a rural area with a few cottages, a few hotels and factories and a few homes of larger landholders along the Yarra. Later it became an industrial centre with many factories, tanneries and other noxious trades on the Yarra as well as many workers cottages. The western area was re-named Fitzroy and by 1873 East Collingwood had become just Collingwood. Fitzroy, on the other hand, became a residential suburb with many early houses, elegant terraces and a layout incorporating some squares and public gardens.
The inner suburbs declined when the extension of the railway made the outer suburbs more attractive to professional and business men. By the end of the 1880s, Fitzroy was in decline. Large houses in Nicholson Street and Victoria Parade became boarding houses; some houses were sub-divided and rented by their owners. Slum-dwellers who had lived in Little Bourke Street were forced out and moved into South Fitzroy. North and South Fitzroy developed in different ways. North Fitzroy remained largely a residential suburb, while South Fitzroy by the 1890s was a rundown depressed area. In the 1930s the unemployed flocked back to Fitzroy and Collingwood in search of cheap rents. Waves of migration made Fitzroy and Carlton a half- way place for newly arrived ethnic groups. In the 1950s and 1960s, slum clearance policies demolished scores of houses in South Fitzroy and replaced them with high-rise tower blocks of Housing Commission flats. In the 1980s more than seventy ethnic groups were living in Fitzroy, and the suburb was transformed yet again by young, middle class newcomers, who wanted inner-city living.
The Architect
Bastow, Henry Robert (1839-1920) was born on 3 May 1839. He migrated to Australia from Bridport, Dorset. He practised as an architect and surveyor in Tasmania in 1863 and is known to have designed the Union Chapel in Hobart. 4 He took up an appointment with the Victorian Public Service on 30 April 1866, working as a draughtsman for the Victorian Water Supply and later as an architect and civil engineer for the Railway Department. In 1873 he was appointed to the Education Department as head of the architecture branch.
The introduction of free compulsory and secular education in Victoria in 1872 led to a wave of building of schools all over the state. As the architect in charge of the provision of school buildings, Henry Bastow left a huge legacy to the State in the form of hundreds of schools of every type and size. Bastow was attached to the Education Department from 1873 to 1883 when he and his staff were transferred to the Public Works Department as part of the State Schools Division. By 1885 he was Senior Architect. He then had responsibility for "the design and execution of all architectural works".
Bastow supervised the design of the new Crown Law Offices in 1892. He was retrenched on 30 April 1894, when reductions in the public service were made during the economic depression. He worked as an orchardist at Harcourt until his death on 30 September 1920.
HISTORY OF PLACE
The first school was a Wesleyan one opened in 1841. Hugh Templeton opened a private school in the Presbyterian Chapel in Napier Street. He then moved to Johnston Street where the school was known as the Collingwood Commercial Academy. He built a school on the comer of Greeves Street and George Street which opened on 1 October 1855 and was called the North Collingwood National School. Under the Board of Education from 1862, it became Collingwood Common School No. 450.
The Education Department took over Common School No. 450, renting the building which was on land owned by Hugh Templeton's son, Thomas. In 1874 a new building was constructed on land bought by the Department for £1800. The architect was Henry Bastow, Chief Architect for the Education Department. Caretaker's quarters were constructed in 1888, and extra land acquired for playground space in 1914 and 1961. A new infants' school was completed in 1970.
DESCRIPTION OF PLACE:
The George Street Fitzroy Primary School No. 450 is a double-storey brick building with decorative string courses and arched window mouldings. Front and back window openings have been enlarged: there are only a few arched openings remaining. It has been extended at the rear in brick with square multi-paned window units and concrete lintels. The slate roof is intact over the original section but has been replaced with tiles elsewhere. A comer entrance is marked by a turreted roof form.
The interior has been considerably altered. False ceilings have been installed in most classrooms. There is a polished timber honour board in the front hall.
COMPARISON:
The George Street Fitzroy Primary School No. 450 is an example of a Large Later Urban Gothic school constructed in 1874. It has had some: windows altered to the square headed type. It is the prototype for the asymmetrical plan schools.
The Historic Government School survey places George Street Fitzroy Primary School No. 450 in the category 4.1, Large Later Urban Schools. There are 34 examples of this type. Of these, 18 were on the Government Buildings Register and another is recommended by the survey. The most intact examples are Camp Hill (1877), Glenferrie (1877, 1881), Queensberry St. Carlton (1880-81) and Cremorne Street Richmond which have been transferred to the Victorian Heritage Register.
RECOMMENDATION
George Street Fitzroy Primary School No. 450 does not warrant inclusion on the Victorian Heritage Register as it is not of State Significance and more intact examples of its type have been recommended for transfer to the Victorian Heritage Register. The building is however a representative example of a Large Later Urban school design and of local significance. Although substantially altered it is important as the prototype for asymmetrical school plans. Also of interest is the form of the school and the tower situated on one corner. It is important for its contribution to the social history of Fitzroy. Fitzroy Primary School No. 450 has been removed from the Government Buildings Register and included in the Heritage Overlay of the relevant Local Planning Scheme.
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Fitzroy State School No. 450 - Physical Description 1
An early image of the new government school of 1874 shows a similar building to the main wing of today's complex except for changes that have enlarged windows and added chimneys, presumably in the 1914 development of the site. It was a two storey red brick school with an assymetrical but ordered faþade, arched windows, a slate covered hipped main roof, cast-iron finials, and a bell cast turret at one end. Cemented string and impost mouldings divided the storeys and linked openings. Louvered gablets provided roof ventilation. A timber picket fence lined the boundary. Since that date, the school has an added 2 storey wing, large new multi-pane window groups, and new chimneys.
Fitzroy State School No. 450 - Integrity
Fair
Heritage Study and Grading
Yarra - South Fitzroy Conservation Study
Author: Jacobs Lewis Vines
Year: 1979
Grading:Yarra - Fitzroy Urban Conservation Study
Author: Allom Lovell & Associates
Year: 1992
Grading:Yarra - City of Yarra Heritage Review
Author: Allom Lovell & Associates
Year: 1998
Grading:Yarra - City of Yarra Review of Heritage Overlay Areas
Author: Graeme Butler & Associates
Year: 2007
Grading: Local
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