PAPAKURA SCHOOL DIAMOND JUBILEE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22877, 4 November 1937, Page 17

PAPAKURA SCHOOL

DIAMOND JUBILEE

TO-MORROW'S CELEBRATION

SPORTS AND FIREWORKS Papakura will celebrates the diamond jubilee of its public school to-morrow with a shorts meeting and bonfire on Prince Edward Park in the evening, together with a fireworks display. The first school was started in the early fifties in a small building situated on the present site of the Methodist Church. The first teacher was Mr. McQueen and later Mr. S. Falwell. The latter afterward-taught in the Presbyterian Church, built in 1859, which was used as a school till about 1870, when the present school was erected. Mr. IT. Worthington was appointed first headmaster of tlio present school. The Rev. J. Bates succeeded Mr. Worthington.

During tho school's existence there have been only five chairmen of the school committee, tho liev. T. Norrio, the Rev. Mr. McDill, the Rev. W. C. Wood, Mr. S. Evans and the present chairman, Mr. V. Hardwick. The later headmasters were:—Mr. Charles A. Robertson, 1883-84; Mr. Charles Cooper, 1884-90; Mr. Joseph Calvert, 1891-99; Mr. David W. Jones, 1899-1916; Mr. Joseph E. Elliott, 1917-35; Mr. Henry Binsted, 1935; Mr. Stanley J. Bishop, the present headmaster.

Papakura can boast of a Rhodes Scholar, Mr. William Meirion Jones, who was born at Papakura Valley in 1893, and attended the Papakura Valley School, the headmaster during this period being the late Mr. D. W. Jones, who afterward became headmaster of the Papakura School. Mr. W. M. .Tones was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship in 1914. During the Great War ho served in Egypt, Gallipoli and France. He resumed his studies at Oxford in 1918 and in 1922 graduated B.A. In 1927 he returned to New Zealand and took up work with the Department of Industries and Commerce, where he is at the present time.