Pleasant talk on school history

THE history of Mount Pleasant Primary School was the focus of a presentation at the observatory last week.

Mount Pleasant History Group president Max Duthie delivered the talk, and said it was held in anticipation of the school turning 150 years old in 2024.

“This is a forerunner of those celebrations. It’s getting a pictorial jump on that,” he said.

“July the 21st was the day the school building down the hill was actually opened, and that marked the official beginning of Mount Pleasant Primary School number 1436.

“It had been a school prior to that for nearly 20 years, beginning with the Cornish Wesleyan Methodist above the oval in Barkly Street, and then as a secular day school on Tress Street.

“With the Education Acts of 1862 and 1872, it became a State school.”

Mr Duthie included more than 70 archival photos in last week’s slideshow, and said it’s important to highlight the history of the old school building, which continues to be full of little learners today.

“This is a very big event that’s coming. You don’t get many 150th anniversaries of buildings in Australia which are still existing,” he said.

“Mount Pleasant is the first organised white settlement as a suburb in Ballarat, and from that, it’s grown to what it is today.”

The Mount Pleasant History Group was established in 2017 as a branch from the Ballarat Neighbourhood Centre.