Old Balmain Public School

The old Balmain Public School: from national school to parish school

The old Balmain Public School began as a national school designed to serve a growing neighbourhood. Architect Henry Robertson prepared a stone school building, and land was purchased from Adolphus William Young in March 1862. Governor Sir John Young laid the foundation stone that July. Pupils occupied the new schoolroom in November.

The school stood beside the area known as the Pigeon Ground, later Gladstone Park, and acquired the local nickname “Pigeon Ground School”. Its buildings grew with enrolments: additional classrooms followed in 1863, and a further wing was added in 1906.

In 1917, the Department of Education sold the building to the Catholic Church. It became part of St Augustine’s school provision and later bore the name Father Michael Rohan Memorial School. Peter Reynolds’s account follows these changes in both use and fabric. This place story concerns the historic building on the Jane Street side of the precinct, rather than treating every later Balmain Public School building as the same site.

• Peter Reynolds, “From Adolphus Street to Gladstone Park: Part 3”, Leichhardt Historical Journal 19, pp. 13–15 (PDF pages 15–17).