Toogoolawah School

Toogoolawah School comprised of German speaking parents and children, similarly sized to the Lowood school, with prosperous agricultural farmer parents, and established soon after the railway reached the town.

Railwayman and town stalwart, George Launder, was the first secretary of Toogoolawah School Building Committee. T.J Cleman was its treasurer. Led by James H. McConnel who donated the necessary land, the first meeting was held in August 1904 and the Committee applied for a school on the 1st of December 1904. The building measured at 24-by-16 feet with a seven-foot verandah and set on low stumps, which was completed by Harry Judd of Esk in April 1905 with Ann Scott, who had previously taught at Cressbrook and Ottaba as a teacher. By September 1905, there were forty students attending the school and a play shed was erected in December that year.

The district population increased rapidly when Nestle took over the Condensed Milk Factory in 1907. Miss Scott taught through the growth period at Toogoolawah when the school was overcrowded, with ninety students in a building built for forty-eighty. By February 1909, Nestle had bought the condensery, another section of Cressbrook estate was already for auction to selectors, a sawmill employing forty labourers was ready for opening, and fifteen cottages were being built in the town. The school enrolment was 87 and an assistant Teacher, W. Butler, was appointed. At the same time, a teacher’s residence and additions to the school measuring 49 by 20 feet with a nine-foot-verandah front and back were approved.

During construction, classes were held in the Undenominational Church. A. Menizes, Toogoolawah builder and undertaker, build the new school and converted the old one to a teachers residence for 956 pounds. The buildings were ready for occupation at the beginning of the 1911 school year. The school was overcrowded again by 1919 when further additions were approved, costing 1141 pounds and occupied on the 19th of April 1920.

By 1929, school enrolments had reached 260 with seven teachers. Students came by train from Coominya, Esk, Linville, Harlin, Colinton and Moore to study Rural School subjects. Enrolments fell during the depression as the timber industry contracted locally and Nestle’s Condensed Milk Factory closed.