The Old King's School is a heritage-listed former campus of The King’s School, rehabilitation centre and office complex at O'Connell Street, Parramatta, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by various architects, including Ambrose Hallen, Blacket Brothers, Moorhouse & Isaacs and Power Adam & Munnings, and built by various contractors including C. A. Millyard and W. Noller. It is also known as The Old King's School and part of the site as Laurel House. It is now the Bayanami Public School. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
History
Aboriginal and early colonial use
Research has demonstrated that the presence of large and cohesive Aboriginal groups in the township of Parramatta represented a conspicuous and enduring aspect of the post-colonial periods of Parramatta's development. Parramatta was their traditional hunting and fishing grounds and this aspect of traditional use can be interpreted still in Parramatta Park through features such remnant indigenous plantings, scarred trees and the proximity to the Parramatta River and riverine features such as the anabranch of the Crescent and the "Island", a billabong type feature near the George Street gatehouse.
Part of the site which the school was to occupy had previously been part of the Government Farm at Parramatta.
The site which the school was to occupy comprised just over of a grant of which had been made to William Bligh by Governor King in 1806 just before Bligh took up office as Governor of New South Wales. The grant was one of three given to Bligh by King and was named Mount Betham. Its purpose was "for a private residence" at Parramatta. In return, on taking up office, Bligh granted land in the Colony to King. Little is known of the use to which Mount Betham was put by Bligh and later by those who administered his affairs.
However, a return of the lands held by the Governor in 1807 records that of the which comprised his three grants, there were only under cereal cultivation, of orchard, fallow and in pasture. An 1811 map of Mount Betham shows part of the area as "under cultivation".
In 1811 "the Farm called Mount Betham, situated near Parramatta, fit for the establishment of a Dairy and Garden" was advertised to let. The outcome of the advertisement is not known. In 1814 Governor Macquarie alerted the British government to a "violation of Standing Orders" and suggested that Bligh be asked to surrender his lands. In 1819, on instructions from London, Macquarie issued an order that Bligh's grant of Mount Betham be declared null and void. The lands were then divided and granted for other purposes.
That part of the Mount Betham grant which was later to be used for the King's School was granted to the Agricultural and Horticultural Society in the 1820s. During their occupation of the site the land had been cleared and fenced and the Society had erected suitable buildings, formed a water tank, trenched and manured and furnished the necessary stock for grafting "for the purposes of introducing the growth of the finest kind of fruit trees into the colony". The extent of the Society's buildings on the site is not known.Peddle Thorp 1995:35
The Agricultural Society of NSW was formed on 5 July 1822 under the patronage of Governor Brisbane, and its early office-holders were powerful citizens in Parramatta. The first president was Sir John Jamison of Regentville. Interests of the large landholders who had amassed enormous acreages through Government grants and personal fortunes were protected by the Society. The Society said that poor moral standards stood more in the way of agricultural success than lack of capital or decent land. The Society appeared to foster God-fearing beliefs but in fact its philosophy was economic rationalism. In 1824 the Society held its first show at Parramatta, which was a great success.
Governor Brisbane was a president of the Society and in the 1820s granted an experimental garden at Parramatta for the promulgation of various species of plants and trees for scientific research. The Horticultural Society was a separate body, becoming united with its Agricultural counterpart in 1826, under the leadership of Sir John Jamison. An 1828 article in a magazine called "The Blossom" alludes to a certain amount of criticism by the horticulturally inclined of this leadership but Jamison was a "mover" and had managed to organise a committee of management for the Society's garden in Parramatta (on this site), something not previously achieved. In 1832 the trees and plants so carefully nurtured in the garden were put up for sale and it seemed the Society had become more festive than practical. The Sydney Gazette put the blame on the Society's neglect of small settlers. The Society disbanded in 1836.
The King's School
By the 1830s private nurseries had been established and their task was effectively over. In January 1833 the Agricultural and Horticultural Society offered the land which they had occupied for a nursery on the north side of the river as a site for the school. The "house and ground lately in possession of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society" was officially handed over to Mr Forrest, the first master of The King's School on 2 January 1834.
Plans for establishments of higher education to be known as 'King's Schools' in New South Wales emanated from Archdeacon William Broughton, himself a former scholar of The King's School in Canterbury, England. His plan was to have day boys at Sydney and boarders and day boys at Parramatta.
The schools were to provide "a good classical, scientific and religious education to the sons of parents in the middle and higher ranks of life". There would be no religious tests but the instruction would be Anglican. The building at Parramatta would be paid for by the Colonial Treasury but should be of the "plainest and most economical description".
The education offered by the Kings School has remained true to this original ambition to provide instruction in the Classics, science and religion, and the school today continues a strong tradition in the Classics. The original masculine, sportsmanlike, even spartan character of the school has also continued, and the school retains its traditional links with major pastoral districts in NSW and Queensland such as western New South Wales, southern Queensland and the Hunter Valley from where many of the school boarders come.
Robert Forrest was recommended to the Colonial Office for the Headmastership of The King's School by Bishop of London Charles James Blomfield. He was appointed and arrived in Sydney in January 1832. The King's School was opened in temporary rented quarters at "Harrisford" in Parramatta in February 1832 with three day boys. By the end of the year there were 41 boarders and 12 day boys enrolled and additional cottages were rented for the boarders.
The Trustees of the Clergy and School Lands' Corporation who administered church property at this period commissioned John Verge to prepare plans for the School at Parramatta. In December 1832 Verge forwarded two designs for the school, one Gothic and one Grecian. The estimated cost of both was in excess of £3500. These were deemed too expensive.
However, the Archdeacon and his fellow trustees were not unmindful of the connection between the architectural style of a building and the status of the activities it contained. They wrote to the Colonial Secretary pointing out the need for "some architectural pretension to vaunt the importance of education". The matter was referred to the Colonial Architect, Ambrose Hallen in which he criticised Verge's plans and then submitted plans of his own with an estimated cost of £4000, considerably in excess of all previous plans. John Verge was paid for his designs but as these do not survive it is not known to what extent, if any, these influenced Hallen's subsequent design.
Tenders were called for the construction of the school in October and November 1833 for a plain building estimated to cost £2000. In January 1835 Ambrose Hallen was replaced as Colonial Architect by Mortimer Lewis. The building was completed for occupation in January 1836.
In 1836 the school comprised the two-storey main building with a shingle roof and two single-storey wings, that on the east for the accommodation of the Headmaster and that on the west for various domestic offices. The main building comprised two large rooms on the ground floor supported by a transverse corridor, with both rooms floored with stone slabs.
The room on the eastern end served as the schoolroom and that on the western end as the dining room, with a flight of stone stairs leading to the two dormitories above. Rooms which may have formed part of the west wing included the housekeeper's room, closet, kitchen, scullery, storeroom, larder and servants' quarters. There is also reference to a back stair and to a "court" (presumably at the back of the building flanked by other out-buildings). A covered way round the court had wooden columns and shingles. Also included among the out-buildings were water closets and privies.
A hammer-dressed drain was provided from the pipes of the water closets and privies and the main drain was carried beyond the building. Washing facilities were primitive. The boys washed in a wooden tub at the back door and other ablutions were carried out in the river. Water for domestic use in the school came from the river and was stored in an underground brick tank in diameter and deep with domed top (this is located under the floor of the later dining hall just in front of the stage in what is now the NSW Heritage Office's library). The earliest known illustration of the school, painted in , shows two buildings to the north-east of the headmaster's residence which may be stables and privies.
Little is known of any additions or alterations to the school buildings in the period from 1836 until its closure in July 1864. In 1838 the salary for the Headmaster provided by the government was discontinued and from that date the school had to be self-funding. W. W. Simpson was declared bankrupt in 1842 after a scarlet fever epidemic had temporarily closed the school with a consequent loss of income from school fees. The school re-opened with only twelve pupils but revived by the end of the decade with about sixty boarders enrolled. By 1856 substantial sums were required for additions and repairs to the school. The government were petitioned by the parents for assistance but were refused on the basis that government assistance had ceased in 1838.
William Branwhite Clarke, MA of Cambridge was clergyman, headmaster of The King's School, a poet and a renowned geologist. In 1841 Clarke founded in Sydney, the Church of England Clerical Book Society which, due to his generosity, possessed the largest collection of scientific books and journals in Australia. Clarke presented a lecture to this Society in October 1841, which had considerable appeal and influence on school master, William Woolls. The lecture was a formal affair, attended by his Lordship the Bishop. Clarke chose his topic, "The Legitimate Objects and Benefits of Natural History and Science". A full account of it was published in The Sydney Morning Herald.