Morayfield State School is a heritage-listed state school at 196–230 Morayfield Road, Morayfield, City of Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Richard George Suter and built in 1873 by Robert Monteith. It is also known as Caboolture National School and Caboolture South State School. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 10 October 2014.
History Morayfield State School opened in 1873 as Caboolture National School within a small timber building designed by architect Richard George Suter. It was built on a large site south of the Caboolture River to service the sparse but growing rural population. As settlement increased, the school expanded to have many other structures and landscape elements, including a play shed (1903) and shade trees. The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment and, as such, has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
The former Moreton Bay Penal Colony was opened to free settlers in 1842. Initially, thanks to river access, the Caboolture area was used for timber-getting, especially red cedar. In the 1860s it developed as an agricultural area, and was one of the first districts in Queensland where sugarcane was grown on a substantial scale. Queensland's first commercially milled sugar was produced in 1864 at Ormiston, southeast of Brisbane, by Captain Louis Hope. George Raff, a prominent Brisbane merchant and politician, began planting sugar in the mid-1860s on his plantation southeast of Caboolture, and south of the Caboolture River, called "Moray Field" (Morayfield Plantation). Raff was successful and expanded to a substantial operation. Raff's plantation produced sugar until the mid-1880s; another local sugar plantation, also south of the river and operating from the mid-1860s to 1872, was "Oaklands", (Oaklands Sugar Mill) established by Captain Claudius Buchanan Whish. Both plantations used South Sea Islander labour.
Caboolture was initially only a stop on the road to the Gympie goldfield from the late 1860s, but growth in the area was sufficient to warrant the establishment of a government school, "for the convenience of the farmers" families up the river, and the children of the employees at Mr Raff's plantation. In April 1872 the Brisbane Courier advertised the Queensland Government's reservation of - adjacent to the Gympie Road between Brisbane and Caboolture - for the Caboolture National School. Although the site selected was south of Caboolture, and south of the Caboolture River, it had the advantage of being next to a permanent water source – the lagoons on Sheep Station Creek.
Caboolture National School was established as one of an expanding network of state-run primary schools. The provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. In 1848 the New South Wales Government established National Schools. This was continued by the Queensland Government after the colony's separation in 1859. The Education Act 1860 established the Queensland Board of General Education and began to standardise curriculum, teacher training, and facilities. The State Education Act 1875 provided for the further key initiatives of free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction to administer the Act. This move standardised the provision of education and, despite difficulties, colonial educators achieved a remarkable feat in bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.
The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school's construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a major community focus for social interaction, a symbol of progress and a source of pride with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and halls used for community purposes reinforced these connections together with fetes, markets, public holiday celebrations, school break-up days, fundraisers, polling days, sporting events, reunions, and dances, all held within the schools' buildings and grounds.
From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber framed, taking advantage of the material's abundance in the state and the high number of builders skilled in its use. This also allowed for easy and economical construction and enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Due to the standardisation of facilities, schools across the state were developed in distinctly similar ways and became complexes of typical components. These components included: the teaching building/s, the school yard, the sports oval, the head teacher's residence, and a variety of landscape elements such as sporting facilities or play equipment, playsheds, gardens and trees.
For the Caboolture National School (Caboolture State School from 1875), Robert Monteith's construction tender of for erection of a teaching building and a head teacher's residence was accepted by the government in October 1872. Both buildings were completed in 1873 and the Caboolture National School opened 4 August 1873. By December 1873, 34 children were on the school roll.
The Board of General Education preferred that national school buildings were single storey, but had no other architectural stipulations. Consequently, the buildings varied depending on the architect responsible. The teaching building at Caboolture National School (designated as Block C in 2014) was designed by Richard Suter (1827–94), a private architect commissioned from 1865 by the Board of General Education to design school buildings. From 1868, Suter was responsible for most of the Board's buildings. Although Suter's Brisbane school buildings were of brick construction, in rural areas he designed timber-framed school buildings. In his timber school designs, Suter incorporated an "outside studding" construction technique he was developing, whereby a building with timber stud framing was clad only internally, creating a distinctive exterior of exposed framing similar in appearance to half-timbered construction. Suter is credited with being the first to use this technique in Queensland. Outside studding for school architecture was continued by Suter's successors for another 50 years.
As in other Australian colonies, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings to help to ensure consistency and economy. Prior to, and during Suter's first years, schools were individually designed but conformed to the space requirements set by the Board. In 1869 a "recommended plan" for provisional schools was created by Suter that was generic and could be used on any site. It was a lowset structure with gable roof, rectangular in plan with a small porch. An "improved plan" developed in 1873 addressed criticisms by Inspectors that the heat inside classrooms was "unbearable". It consisted of a single large room with a front and back verandah, providing weather protection and sheltered play and teaching space. It was the beginning of a distinctive design, where the circulation to classrooms was via a verandah, continuing until at least the 1960s.
Although Suter did not intend this plan to be used broadly, the Board of Education, who were faced with an increasing population and limited budget, disseminated it throughout Queensland. As a result, Suter's designs had wide distribution. This had considerable impact on the spread of outside studding as a building technique in Queensland and may have been the main influence in its quick acceptance and use as a vernacular building form throughout the colony.
The reuse of designs diminished the need to pay Suter additional architectural fees and the relationship between Suter and the government became strained. Suter continued as approved architect until 1875 when he was replaced. Around 65 timber school buildings were constructed to Suter's standard type. Of these, only three (Waterford State School, Morayfield State School, and Mutdapilly State School) are largely intact.
The classroom building at Caboolture National School was typical of Suter's improved plan. It was a lowset timber building with outside studding. It faced east with a verandah on the east and west sides and accommodated one large room . The gable roof was clad with hardwood timber shingles and the interior was lined with pine tongue-and-groove timber boards. The timber roof framing was exposed internally and the windows were small and few in number.
Suter's standard designs were continually refined by his successors in response to changing needs and educational philosophy. Suter's designs were not without problems - in particular, they were criticised for lack of ventilation. Later school architects focussed intently on improving climate control, lighting, and ventilation and were particularly innovative in their responses.
During the 1870s and early 1880s the Caboolture/Morayfield area continued to develop as an agricultural region with a gradual increase in population. The Caboolture Divisional Board (later Caboolture Shire Council) was established in 1879. In 1876 and 1885 there were unsuccessful calls to have the school moved north of the river to Caboolture, which was now more populous than Morayfield. This may have been because a wharf was located on the north bank of the river. In 1888 the North Coast railway line to Brisbane was constructed, with its terminus in North Caboolture, leading to the establishment of North Caboolture State School in 1889. Caboolture was chosen as the terminus, rather than Morayfield, because the water supply at Lagoon Creek was considered more suitable for locomotives. The Caboolture State School was renamed Caboolture South State School in 1889 and later Morayfield State School in 1907.
Building work continued at Caboolture South State School. By the rear verandah of the Suter building had been part-enclosed to form a hat room, a typical alteration to school buildings. Both ends of the rear verandah were semi-enclosed hat rooms by 1933.
In 1903 the school committee applied to the Department of Public Instruction to build a playshed and it was completed later that year. The local community contributed one third of the cost.
The Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, as well as classrooms, they provided plans for playsheds; free-standing shelters that provided covered play space and were often used for unofficial teaching space when needed. They were timber-framed structures, generally open on all sides, although they were sometimes partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets. The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron and they had an earth or decomposed granite floor. Fixed timber seating ran between the perimeter posts. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between s and the 1950s. They were built to standard designs that ranged in size relative to student numbers. School sites were typically cleared of all vegetation and the provision of all-weather outdoor space was needed. The playshed at Caboolture South State School was built to a standard design by builder Thomas Heron for . It was a timber framed, open-sided structure, , with 6 posts supporting a hipped roof and was built to the north of the Suter building.