The following information on Camden High School was produced in 1989 as a result of a class project for 7B History. Sam Byrne, with the assistance of his family, decided to do a history of the school site and the project was so comprehensive that it became an obvious project for a computer publication. Eleven years later its on the net!
Camden High School was officially opened in 1956. At that time the school occupied just under a quarter of the town block bounded by John, Exeter, Elizabeth and Mitchell Streets. More land has gradually been added to the site and it now occupies almost two thirds of that town block. The extra land was required to enable the increasing number of pupils and of course buildings, to be accommodated. The school having developed in this way, was not very well laid out. Miss Davies, whose house had gradually been surrounded by the school, was critical of the lack of space from the very beginning.
It seems a pity that a larger site was not chosen, for in 1955 there was a lot of vacant land available very close to town. Flood liability also restricted the usage of the original site.
The original site
The school site is part of the original grant of 5000 acres made to John Macarthur in 1804. John Macarthur did not want a township built, but after his death his sons, William and James, approved of the development of a small village. The plans, drawn up in 1836, showed the streets laid out much as they are today. The town block, on which the high school was situated, was divided up into twenty blocks which fronted Mitchell and Exeter Streets. Each building block was ten acres square, each side was 660 feet long or about 200 metres. Although very few of those original blocks are still intact, that old plan has been important in later development. For example, the original high school site had 14 straight boundaries, 10 of which ran along boundary lines from the original plan.
The original site of the Camden High School was a block of about 2 1/2 acres on the corner of John and Exeter Streets. It took in all the land between Miss Davies' property and John Street, except for one house block fronting John Street, which was the last of the row of houses which extended down from the Uniting Church.
It is believed that this original block or part of it, was formed by Mr Thomas Hobbs from about 1840 to 1860. There was a shop, fronting Exeter Street, next to Miss Davies, which his widow Mary Hobbs ran after his death. The Biffin family later took over the business. There is a low brick wall in that corner which is all that remains of the shop today.
Later, from the early 1900's, Miss Davies' father used this land as a calf paddock for their dairy farm across the road. Miss Davies remembered an old barn where the Assembly Hall or Donut now stands. The rain water from that barn was stored in an underground well which workmen rediscovered when they were preparing the foundations for the Donut building in 1965/66.
1900s-1930s
Mr. Davies leased the paddock from a Mr. Lakeman who lived out Brownlow Hill way. It turned out that Mr. Lakeman didn't officially own the paddock as he had accepted it as payment for an old debt, and this transaction was never registered. After Mr. Lakeman's death, the registered owner of the land was traced. Eventually the Department of Education purchased the block from Mr. A. McEwan and others in June 1934.
The Department used the site as a paddock playground for the Central School which was located on the opposite side of John Street, where the Primary School now is.
In the late 1930's, there were two tennis courts behind the John Street houses, about where the main quad is now. Also a long narrow strip fronting Exeter Street was used as an agriculture plot from time to time.
1950s-1960s
As the population increased it was decided that a high school be built on the site and that the Central School which had taught to Year 9 be converted to just a primary school.
The new high school was opened in 1956, and the layout of the buildings was as shown in the plan. The buildings that were to become Mr. Cossar's wooden buildings were transported from the Primary School in 1956 and they made it in the Camden News. In 1957 other portables were brought across. These were probably removed when the "English Wing" (Room 1 & 2 and above) and the "Textile Wing" were added during 1957/58.
In June 1960 a 100 ft. by 132 ft. piece of land was resumed from the rear of the properties of Mr. Skinner and Mr. Stuchey, whose properties front on to Mitchell Street. This was where the "New Wing" and "Boys Quad" were built soon after. In that year the Assembly Hall was built at a cost of £18,000 . The school had to raise £6,000 of that, and some of it was obtained from a bank loan guaranteed by Keith Whiteman, Allan Boardman, Wes Clifton and Perry Furner, all prominent local businessman of the day.
The Calf Paddock
From the early 1900's Miss Davies' father used this land as a calf paddock for their dairy farm across the road. Miss Davies remembered an old barn where the Assembly Hall or Donut now stands. The rain water from that barn was stored in an underground well which workmen rediscovered when they were preparing the foundations for the Donut building in 1965/66.
1960s-1980s
In 1966 the Donut was built on the site of the school tennis courts. Mr. Patterson was the last Principal to occupy the Principal’s cottage which had been built on school property facing John Street. The garage concrete floor can still be seen there. In 1974 the Principal’s house was sold and removed.
In 1977 two properties in John Street were purchased and in 1979 the last two remaining houses in that street were acquired. One of these houses belonged to Mr. Williams, who operated his business as a bag merchant on the site. There are not many bag merchants operating these days.
There have been no changes to the area since that time. The gradual expansion of the site has resulted in the high land being used as a play area, while the lower flood area is covered with buildings.
It is a pity that an extra 30 metres (100 ft.) of land had not been resumed from the Skinner and Stuckey properties in Mitchell St. as this would have resulted in a much more regular and usable school block.
Agriculture and Domminish Blocks
Both these blocks of land are on the other side of John St., and both adjoin Camden Public School. They are on land which Joseph Doust, an original alderman of Camden, had bought in the North Cawdor subdivision of the original Macarthur grant.
Until 1958, the “Ag Plot” was the Council Works depot. The brick building on the plot was the depot shed. In earlier days works depots only had a few horses and drays and very little machinery, as councils did not provide the services they do today. In those days Oxley Street went right through to Exeter Street. The works depot moved to the "gas works site" in 1958 and the “Ag Plot” was started.
The Domminish block on the corner of John and Exeter Streets was resumed by the Department in about 1984. Until about 1981 there was a small timber cottage, supported by a brick chimney, on the block. The house stood on wooden pews and had old wooden shingles under a tin roof. The house was about 120 years old and was owned by Elma Domminish, who used to work in the council depot. His daughter is Mrs. King, who worked in the school library.
From 1986 a number of demountable buildings were placed on the block. Both these blocks are totally flood prone.
The Final Purchase
The Department purchased the block from A.G.L. in 1981 and it was then occupied by demountables until the issue of the gas works site forced the Department to remove all students and teachers from this site in 1997(?). All of the buildings on the gas work block were above the flood line.
The 1981 purchase was the final one made by the Department in the main school block and it brought the overall area up to 2.6 Ha, or 6 &1/2 acres.
Church House
The cream house which is next door to the school yard in Elizabeth Street, was part of an original Wesleyan timber church which was built in 1844. It seated 150 people.
In 1858, a new and larger brick church was built next door on the Exeter Street side on what was now school property. In 1888 material from that second church was used in the building of the present Uniting Church on the corner of John and Mitchell St. George Furner, a former mayor of Camden built that church and a descendant of his, Percy Furner, who ran a hardware store in Argyle St. until recent times, owned the old church house.
"The Back Grass"
This part of the school was the area near the corner of Elizabeth and Exeter Streets. The earliest information obtained indicates that in 1844 half an acre of land was granted by James and William Macarthur for a Wesleyan Church. The land granted was in Elizabeth Street, and was the rear halves of the end two blocks in Mitchell Street. (It is interesting that the original plan was changed so soon after it was drawn up.)
The cream house which is next door to the school yard in Elizabeth Street, was part of the original timber church which was built in 1844. It seated 150 people.
In 1858, a new and larger brick church was built next door on the Exeter Street side on what is now school property. In 1888 material from that second church was used in the building of the present Uniting Church on the corner of John and Mitchell St. George Furner, a former mayor of Camden built that church and a descendant of his, Percy Furner, who ran a hardware store in Argyle St. until recent times, owned the old church house.
The rest of this corner of the school was owned by Whitemans who also owned almost all of Edward St and the river flats. This block had houses all the way down to Exeter St, and behind the houses next to Miss Davies property was a small paddock which Miss Davies said, they sometimes used to cultivate.
From about 1930, there were 2 tennis courts side by side on this paddock. They were hired out for general use, as there were no public courts available until the courts near the Bowling Club were built in 1948.
Exeter Street
Mr. Fred Cowell, the grandfather of Tracey Cowell (Captain 1988), moved into one of the Whiteman's houses in 1940. He said there was only one decent tennis court there then, which is the lower court that is still there. Mr. Cowell and his brother who lived next door, built the present top court across the rear of their blocks in 1945. In 1958, the "paddock" which had these tennis courts on it was sold to the school.
The school does not seem to have made much use of it until the Donut was built on the school courts in 1966.
In 1959, Keith Whiteman died and the family gradually sold the remainder of their holding to the department and two other purchasers. These sales, occured between 1961 and 1969. The last property purchased was in 1972 from McAleer Motors, which had earlier bought it from Whiteman's.
In 1966, Alderman Cyril White of Camden Council purchased the second house from the Exeter St. corner and moved it to his property in Cobbity where it still stands.
This is the area of the school that linked the other two sections. The total area of this section was about 1.4 acres and it was owned by Camden Council.
Miss Davies said she could remember when the area, which used to extend through to Mitchell Street, was used as the holding paddock for the police horses. Policemen used to come into her back gate to pump water from her well for their horses.
In 1911 Camden Council built a gas works at the high end of the block. The gas works were built mainly to supply street lighting. Both Miss Davies and Mr. Clift Doust had described the way the town lamplighter used to ride around the town on his bike with his ladder over his shoulder at dawn and dusk.
The gas works consisted of the retort section where the coal was baked, a building next to the retorts where the gas was condensed and purified before it was transferred to the gas holder. The gas holder was like a big upturned mug about 6 metres across which rose up out of the ground as the volume of gas stored, increased.
Besides coal gas, tar, coke and ammonia were bi-products of the process. The tar was used by council on the roads and on sanitary pans, some coke was used in the process and the remainder was sold. The ammonia, in later years, was treated and put into the sewer. These by-products were partly what forced the Department to look for a new home for Camden High School in 1996.
