Southburn School Celebrations

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31237, 8 December 1966, Page 7

Southburn School Celebrations

Celebrations next year to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the opening of Southburn School, near Timaru, will have a wider significance.

The close settlement of the school district dates from 1879-80, it being part of the original Pareora run taken up by the early South Canterbury runholders, William Hyde Harris and David Innes.

The run extended from the coast to the Hunters Hills between the Otaio and Pareora rivers, and the area where the school now stands to the hills was bought by Edward Elworthy, the balance being acquired by the New Zealand and Australian Land Company. Accommodation House

Holme Station and Pareora were originally one, having been taken up by Innes, who was allotted 25,000 acres south of the Pareora river from the sea inland on November 1, 1853. Innes joined Harris, who had taken up the Waikakahi Station, and they worked the two runs in partnership. They built the homestead, from which they worked Pareora, on the river at the place where State Highway No. 1 now crosses it. This homestead, which was afterwards abandoned, became an accommodation house under the

management of David Pollard. In 1864 Harris and Innes dissolved partnership. Innes retained Pareora and Elworthy entered into partnership with him. It was not long before they divided again, Innes taking what became the Lower Pareora and Elworthy the upper country (Holme Station). Opened In 1892

Innes had been only a year at Pareora when the freehold of the run was purchased by a firm which later became the New Zealand and Australian Land. Company. Harris, of Waikakahi, eventually supervised Flaxbourne and Stonyhurst. A great horseman, he was one of the original stewards when the South Canterbury (then Timaru) Jockey Club was formed in March, 1860. Before the opening of the Southburn School, children in the area attended the Pareora West School.

A meeting took place in the late Mr J. Blackmore’s house in the presence of the secretary of the South Canterbury Education Board, Major J. H. Bamfield.

Finally the school was built and opened on June 27, 1892. The school committee, which consisted of Messrs J. Drinnan (chairman), D. Scott, J. Blackmore, J. Bell and J. Ward, was required to guarantee a certain amount of money until the roll reached 20 pupils. Once Blackbum

The school opened with an attendance of 17, and the numbers gradually increased until during 1924 there was an average attendance of 39, with a roll of 46, thus attaining the status of a twoteacher school.

For the first three years, the school went by the name of Blackbum until a post office was established in 1895, when the name was changed to Southbum to avoid confusion, there having been a Blackbum Post Office elsewhere in New Zealand.

A committee, with Mr A. J. Ward as chairman, has been formed, and it has been decided to hold the celebrations during Labour week-end at the present school, which was built in 1954.