Broadfield School Centenary

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31802, 5 October 1968, Page 17

Broadfield School Centenary

When the Broadfield School celebrates its centenary at Labour Day Week-end, about 250 former pupils, teachers, and committee members will attend. The earliest will be Mrs M. M. Thompson (nee Campion) who was a pupil in 1894. She will cut the centennial cake.

Broadfield has arranged compact celebrations. Mr C. C. A. McLachlan, M.P. for the district, will open the function, the school bell will be rung, the flag raised, and a commemorative plaque will be unveiled in a garden plot After the roll call and photographs, the assembly will move from the school to the Lincoln Community Centre for a midday banquet and there will be a ball there at night On the Sunday afternoon there will be a combined centennial service at the Springston School which is also celebrating its centenary the lame week-end. The Broadfield School was never a large one because it served a compact community

and neighbouring districts were well served but it has functioned effectively for a century and survived economic conditions and changes in educational structure which closed other schools. The original three-acre ground was bought for £3O from Mr Samuel Early and the original building, used for most of the school’s life, distinctly showed the marks of improvements clear joints for additions, the ceiling hole of the first portable stove chimney, and marks on the floors. There was an influx of pupils in 1887 when the Shands Track Denominational School closed temporarily. Broadfield’s roll went up to 74 in 1888 but dropped back to 57 when the Shands sTrack School reopened. | One of Broadfield’s greatest : claims to fame is that it had a swimming bath in 1897, one I of the first provided at a country school. Probably for this reason it has had a reputation for 70 years for the success of its swimmers. Pupils from Broadfield took high academic posts in England and the United States, many became prominent in local body work in various parts of Canterbury, but as Mr G. Stockwell said at the

jubilee celebrations: “Its principal achievement Is the education of a large number of ordinary individuals whose work as primary producers never brings them into public prominence but is, nevertheless, the basis of New Zealand’s prosperity and the happiness of her people.”