TERRACE SCHOOL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18465, 2 August 1934, Page 12

TERRACE SCHOOL

LACK OF PUPILS WELLINGTON LANDMARK The Terrace School, one of Wellington’s oledst and once most important primary educational institutions, has now no move pupils than a small country school. A roll that was 700 has shrunk to about 150. One of the two storeys of the imposing wooden building close" to the centre of Wellington, although out of the busy streets, is completely unused. The Terrace School is unique in Wellington, and probably there is no other primary school in New Zealand that has become identified with the community in such a way as it lias. Its reputation 20 and more years ago was more like that of an old secondary school, and the success of its pupils in scholarship and in their Occupations has been remarkable. The present position of the school is a symptom of the change that has taken place in Wellington as a city and in domestic life everyhere. WHOLE FAMILIES ATTENDED One of the prides of the Terrace School is a large honors board bearing the names of winners of scholarships which in former times were the chief means to free secondary education. The first entries are dated 1879 and the last 1923. On it tire names so well known in Wellington as Denton, Bcthunej Y'an staveren, Ballinger, Nicholls, and Lyon, uid if the complete rolls were inspected there would be seen many other names fas, for instance, Seddon, fitout and Myers) that are household words throughout New Zealand —entered not once but repeated again and again, beause whole families (families were large 30 years ago) attended the Terrace School and sometimes move than one generation has been represented. SHOE A,STIC SUCCESSES In its heydey, between 25 and 45 years ago, the school drew pupils from all over the city, and parents bad good reason for desiring their children to be taught there, for no other school had the same success. Besides the regular list of scholarship winners every year, five Rhodes Scholars obtained their primary education at the Terrace School. They were: P. W. Robertson (1905), the late Allan Macdougall (1909), H, A. Mackenzie. (1917), N. M. Richmond (1919), and J. F. Platts-Mills (1938). The Terrace School was established in 1875 practically on the site in Clifton terrace, overlooking the city and harbor, formerly occupied by Wellington College. It was started under Mr. John Young, who resigned nine years later, and Mr. George MacMorran took charge. The building was destroyed by fire while occupied by volunteers during the visit to Wellington of the Duke and Duchess of York in 1901, and was replaced with the building now standing. Mr. MacMorran retired in 1919 and his death followed a few years later. The institution lias. been controlled by several prominent masters since then, hut the inevitable drift of population has deprived it of its lifeblood—enrolments.