WAKEFIELD SCHOOL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 2 October 1943, Page 2

WAKEFIELD SCHOOL

CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS PROGRAMME FOR NEXT FRIDAY The 100th anniversary of the founding of the first school at Wakefield will be celebrated on Friday, Bth October. Although a small household school for infants had been previously organised in Wakefield by Mrs E. Baigent to educate her own six children and several of her neighbours’, it was not until Bth October, 1843, that the first real school was established there. Following representations from Mr E. Baigent and other settlers, Mr J. T. Smith, a clerk of the New Zealand Company, vvas induced to open a school in Wakefield. This was a church school, under the auspices of the Church of England. The first school house was a cob building to which a wooden building was later added. Mr Squire followed Mr Smith as master of the school and vvas in charge until the late ’so’s, when the school came under the control of provincial educational system. When the New Zealand system came into force in 1857 the school vvas included in that scheme. THANKSGIVING SERVICE AND PICNIC To mark the occasion of the centenary, a thanksgiving service for the school children will be held in the old church school building some little distance from the present school. A treeplanting ceremony will be followed by school sports and a picnic at the recreation grounds, and, in the afternoon, the children will see a screening of the film “100 Crowded Years,” depicting the history of education in the Nelson province during the century. More complete centenary celebrations will be held later in the year, the committee responsible teeling that the short time available had been insufficient to organise a suitable centennial programme to observe the occasion in a fitting manner on the actual date of the anniversary. At a meeting held in Wakefield this week the following committee was appointed to arrange the centenary celebrations: —Mr W. Martin (chairman), Mr A. Webley (secretary),- Miss E. Wells, Miss M. H. Scott, Mrs M. J. Lark. Canon F. J. Daynes, Messrs J. G. Wilkens. C. C. Hooper, D. MacPherson, G. Robertson. G. Nuttall, F. Eves and C. C. Watkins. The committee would be glad to receive any old photographs or information relative .to the history of the Wakefield School.