Collection offers glimpse into early bush classrooms
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 128 No 4, 9 June 2023, page no.30
A newly digitised State Library of Queensland collection follows the adventures of three pioneering teachers from the same family during the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Thomas Hodgens: Ireland to the Sunshine Coast
Thomas, already an experienced teacher, and his wife Maria, arrived in Queensland from Ireland in 1888. Thomas quickly gained a position as provisional teacher at Mountain View School, before receiving a transfer to Gowrie Little Plain School near Toowoomba the following year. Thomas and Maria’s three children were born during this time.
After five years, in 1895, Thomas took the head teacher position at Tewantin State School, a position he held until 1916. Thomas apparently loved life by the water and was a much-respected member of the community.
Fred Hodgens: Teaching on the outback circuit
Fred was born at Gowrie Little Plain in 1889. In 1903 he became his father’s pupil teacher at Tewantin, and in 1908 was appointed head teacher at Myrtle Creek Provisional School near Maryborough. By 1910 he had transferred to the Charleville district as an itinerant teacher, travelling around a designated circuit in a specially built buggy, along with a boy who set up his tent and took care of the horses.
Fred had to pass through every district with school age children four times a year, travelling in remote country with very little in the way of tracks, and persevering through floods and droughts.
At each destination, he would set up his crude camp classroom, assessing work given on the previous trip and assigning tasks for the succeeding months. After a year, he was transferred to Augathella and continued there for the next four years on a different circuit.
Despite cars and motorbikes becoming more available, Fred always drove his buggy. In 1915 Fred resigned and enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) to serve in World War I. Fred returned from the war and continued teaching in South East Queensland until 1956.
In 1922, with the improvement of the postal system, itinerant teachers were phased out in favour of schooling via correspondence.
Grace Simpson: The woman for the job
Grace was born in 1902 in Charleville, but spent much of her childhood in the Beerwah district. In 1916, at 14, she became pupil teacher at Coochin Creek Provisional School (later Beerwah State School) on a salary of 20 pounds a year.
In 1925, by now a classified teacher, she was transferred to head up a single-room school at Norwood on the Binjour Plateau. On her arrival, a member of the school committee exclaimed, “We asked for a man. We have boys here who could throw you out the window.”
Grace made a success of it, staying on for six years and teaching roughly 30 children across all grades. With the help of her students, the keen gardener surrounded the little school building with garden beds.
Grace initially travelled home on the train for holidays, but her father eventually purchased her an Overland car to make the journey easier. In 1931, she returned south for good, marrying Fred Hodgens, whom she had met before her posting to Norwood.
See the Hodgens and Simpson family photographs at onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au
Photo credit: Hodgens and Simpson family photographs, State Library of Queensland.