Buderim Mountain State School is a heritage-listed state school and war memorial at 8–42 Main Street, Buderim, Sunshine Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Department of Public Works (Queensland) and built from 1936 to 1948. It was also known as Buderim Mountain Provisional School. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 3 May 2019.
History Buderim Mountain State School was established in 1875 as Buderim Mountain Provisional School on a nearby site before moving to its present site in 1887 in the centre of town. The school retains two 1950s teaching buildings that were standard designs notable for their abundant provision of natural light and ventilation - Block B (1951, extended in 1954) and Block C (1959). An important feature of the school is its mature trees, including its extensive pine forestry plot and arboretum planted in trenches that were dug during WWII, as a war memorial in the late 1940s. The arboretum, sports grounds, and memorial gates are components of a broader "War Memorial Community Centre", established in 1945 by the Buderim community as a "living memorial". The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activities.
The traditional owners of the Maroochy District, within which Buderim is located, were the Gubbi Gubbi language group, including the Nalbo, Kabi Kabi, Dallambara, and Undanbi. The mild sub-tropical climate and rich volcanic soil of the region supported abundant vegetation and food. Europeans first explored the Maroochy District in the 1820s. The native forests became a steady source of income for settlers during the 1870s and 1880s, but Maroochy settlers needed to be versatile to ensure their selections remained economically viable. By the mid-1870s, sugar cane was grown extensively in the area, with planters utilising South Sea Islander labour. Buderim Mountain sugar planters John Fielding and his son-in-law Joseph Chapman Dixon, established the mountain's first sugar mill in October 1876. Other crops grown in the area were bananas, citrus, pineapples and ginger. Queensland's coastal areas north of Brisbane, and the hinterland, developed rapidly in the 1880s. Buderim, a settlement which developed to service the local farmers, was established by the late 1880s.
Buderim Mountain Provisional School, the first school in Buderim, opened in 1875 on a site several kilometres east of the current school site, and was attended by students from all over the district.Bill Lavarack, Stories of Old Buderim, Buderim Historical Society Inc., 2014, p.32. Attendance at the school grew and by 1887 a new school was constructed on the current site closer to the town's centre and renamed Buderim Mountain State School.Lavarack et al, Stories of Old Buderim, p.32 The building became inadequate and in October 1916 a new school building (Block A) was officially opened.Telegraph, 19 June 1915, p.8Brisbane Courier, 19 June 1915, p.16Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser, 6 October 1916, p.4.
In 1911 Reginald George Bartlett was appointed head teacher at Buderim Mountain State School. With an interest in agriculture, Bartlett began a program of experimental planting at the school to teach the children farming techniques with a focus on finding suitable crops for the district. In 1913, this work was commended by the Under Secretary of Education, JD Story, who highlighted the school's focus on fruit cultivation.Daily Standard, 10 March 1913, p.6.
Despite the importance of the rural sector in the Queensland economy, rural education and training was slow to develop. In 1850 the first president of the Brisbane School of Arts, William Augustine Duncan, urged that an industrial school be established to instruct boys in the "theory and practice of agriculture and horticulture" but no action was taken until the 1890s.Moreton Bay Courier, 6 July 1850. In 1897 the Queensland Agricultural College was established at Lawes near Gatton. It provided training for young men in the arts of agriculture and related sciences.Hector Holthouse, Looking Back. The first 150 years of Queensland schools, a report for the Department of Education, Queensland, 1975, p.128. The college was under the control of the Department of Agriculture and Stock and was part of a wider scheme of introducing "scientific agriculture" to the colony that also included experimental farms and travelling model dairies.Greg Logan, "American Prophet among Queensland Farmers: the troubled career of EM Shelton, 1890-98" in Educational Historian, 3:1, 1990, pp.i-iv.
Within the school system, a limited form of rural instruction was introduced in syllabus changes made in 1905 and 1915. The principal avenue of instruction in primary schools was via project club activities such as livestock raising (pigs, calves, and poultry), bee keeping, milk testing, and forestry. In 1917 a rural school was established as an adjunct to the Nambour State School. The success of this venture prompted the expansion of rural schools and courses in Queensland.Thom Blake, "Educating Queenslanders" in Queensland Historical Thematic Framework, 2007 (rev.2013 by EHP), p.12.
As part of the Nambour scheme, four schools (termed 'linked schools') in the immediate district contributed to the rural school project - Buderim Mountain, Mapleton, Woombye, and Yandina. All these schools had head teachers with an interest in agriculture. In March 1917 all five head teachers met at Nambour State School prior to implementing the project, "the main idea underlying the establishment of the rural school system was to give a practical trend towards scientific agriculture, and so prepare a training ground, as it were, for the Agricultural College at Gatton".Brisbane Courier, 24 May 1917, p.6. It was agreed that each school would cultivate certain crops thought to be suitable for that particular area. Buderim Mountain was initially allocated the cultivation and observation of bananas, thought to suit the mountain's conditions. The other schools would concentrate on growing crops such as pineapples and citrus fruit. As part of the linking of the schools, an excursion was to be held each month of the school year, to visit one of the participating schools. This would provide the opportunity for the children to see the progress of the other schools as well as for them to gain a wider knowledge of agricultural methods. The first of these excursions was to Buderim Mountain State School in May 1917. It was attended by 130 visiting pupils from the other four schools as well as a large contingent of parents and supportive community members.Tony James Brady, The Rural School Experiment: Creating a Queensland Yeoman, Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2013, p.109
Bartlett left Buderim Mountain State School in 1920 to work as an Assistant Instructor of Banana Culture in northern New South Wales.Brady et al, The Rural School Experiment: Creating a Queensland Yeoman, p.113. Buderim Mountain State School ceased to be involved in the rural school scheme and by August 1920, the entire linked school scheme had been abolished by the Department. The overall rural school system continued, however, with 29 rural schools established throughout Queensland by 1939.Brady et al, The Rural School Experiment: Creating a Queensland Yeoman, p.144 &151.
Although the Buderim school was no longer an official "rural school", it continued to place some emphasis on agricultural education. From the 1920s, a project club existed. Crops such as strawberries and cabbages were planted and the children received "instruction on cultural methods, control of pests and diseases, and soil physics".Nambour Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser, 25 May 1934, p.13. In 1932, at the request of Raymond Lismore Prest, Instructor in Fruit Culture, an experimental plot of six different varieties of Macadamia trees was planted in the grounds. The children were to care for the trees and monitor their progress to find the most suitable variety for the district.Telegraph, 13 December 1932, p.11Nambour Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser, 7 April 1933, p.1.
In 1936, tenders were called for the construction of a teachers residence for Buderim Mountain State School.Nambour Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser, 28 February 1936, p.4. This replaced an earlier 1886 timber residence.
An important development for Buderim was the construction of the Palmwoods to Buderim tramway which began operations in 1914. It enabled Buderim growers an efficient means of transporting their produce to market and subsequently provided the impetus for substantial settlement expansion and economic growth in the Buderim area. The tramway also provided public transport for locals and visitors alike. The tram terminus and associated buildings and infrastructure had been built on the school reserve on the corner of Main Street and Lindsay Road. Unfortunately, with the impact of the Great Depression, the tramway increasingly proved unprofitable and was closed in 1935.Buderim Historical Society Records, "Buderim Mountain School Site and Schoolmasters House", Archaeological Study, Record Cards, 1983, Buderim Historical Society.
By 1919 an Anzac Memorial Park Committee had been established in Buderim, which approached the Department of Public Instruction to obtain of the school grounds to establish a public Anzac memorial park and sports ground. This request was granted under the proviso that the land remained government-owned. The committee planned to plant memorial trees to its fallen soldiers of World War I (WWI) adjacent to the proposed sports grounds as a memorial.Nambour Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser, 9 May 1919, p.4.
However, ground works did not begin until the 1930s. In 1936 working bees were held which "have effected a clearance of the rubbish and undergrowth in the lower part of the school ground where it is intended to make a sports oval". At the same time, the former tramway lines and associated buildings adjacent to the sports ground were removed and the land allocated for future sport facilities.Nambour Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser, 26 September 1936, p.3Bill Lavarack, History of Sport on Buderim - the First Hundred Years, Buderim 150, Buderim Historical Society, 2012, p.15Nambour Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser, 3 July 1936, p.5. Although only part of the grounds were improved at this time, it was enough to enable sports such as football, cricket, and tennis to be played.Nambour Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser, 23 October 1936, p.6Helene Cronin, Buderim's Great War Effort 1914-1918 and its Living Memorial, Buderim Historical Society, 2015, p.307-8.