Clyde Quay School over time

Clyde Quay School over time

As Clyde Quay School embarks on renovations to its school buildings, it’s timely to reflect on the long history of the school itself. By Joanna Newman, convenor of the Mt Victoria Historical Society.

Its name is carried over from the days when it opened on Clyde Quay in 1889.  One of the first entrants was James Elliott (whose elegant brick house stands beside KFC on Kent Terrace). He remembered that there was a: 

“clear space across the road from the school beside a great and unsavoury open wood-lined sewer which emptied itself near by into the sea. . . .  It was a disgusting practice of some of the bolder boys to fall deliberately into the evil-smelling and turgid drain, and return to the class-room as popular as a polecat in a drawing-room. The unsavoury boy would be promptly sent home to be dried and cleaned, happy . . .”  

In 1889, there was still a lot of empty land south of where the current school is.  Originally, it was a gully with a small stream running off Mount Victoria then, later, the site of a large market garden.  Just after the turn of the 20^th century, the Council bought slices of land off a big three-acre property (attached to the house across the road, now 46 Brougham Street) to create lower Elizabeth Street. 

The school outgrew its Clyde Quay location, and in 1921 an Infant School for Clyde Quay opened on Elizabeth Street. When construction started on a new building in 1923, there were initially challenges building firm foundations, but it opened for the 1924 school year.

In 1935, Clyde Quay School closed on its site opposite the Quay, and fully moved to Elizabeth Street. The new Centre Fire Station was built on the land it vacated. A beautiful example of Art Deco design, its architect was Cyril Mitchell, who had attended Clyde Quay School as a child.