page_title: Tallegalla State School
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Tallegalla State School / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Tallegalla State School students, circa 1915
context_page_description: Tallegalla State School is a heritage-listed former state school at Rosewood-Minden Road, Tallegalla, City of Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1879 to 1955. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 2 February 1998.
context_section_description: The Tallegalla School was opened on 10 June 1879 as a state school for the local area known as the Rosewood Scrub. A timber school building and timber residence were erected at that time and the residence was replaced in 1931 by the present building.
  The Rosewood Scrub, an area comprising what is now Tallegalla, developed in the late 1870s as settlers followed timber getters who cleared some of the dense vine scrub previously thought to be impenetrable. By 1880 fifty selections were taken up in the area, mostly by German migrants who were arriving in Queensland under migration schemes run by the Queensland Government aimed at encouraging closer settlement of rural areas. After the Land Act of 1868 land in the Rosewood Scrub, to the west of Brisbane, was opened for clearing and settlement. The area became known as Tallegalla and an official survey was completed in July 1872. A small township developed which comprised school, rail station, post office, two churches, hotel and cemetery. In 1997 very little remains of the Tallegalla township, with only the school and cemetery apparent.
  Requests were made to the Queensland Government for the provision of a state school in the Tallegalla area in January 1876 by a school committee formed for the purpose of lobbying the government. The secretary of the School Committee, Mr John Dart, wrote a number of letters to the government in 1876 suggesting possible sites and seeking a formal survey of the area. A formal application for the establishment of a state school was lodged after a public meeting on 14 October 1876. The application suggested a two-acre site on a prominent corner of Portion 513, parish Walloon, owned by a local farmer, Wilhelm Arndt who was willing to donate the land from his 100-acre selection. The land offered by Mr Arndt was centrally located, near a local post office and on an elevated site visible from a great distance. According to the application form about fifty local children between the ages of 5 and 14 were expected to attend the school and a local subscription of about £50 toward building costs was expected. The two acres of land was officially surveyed on 6 November 1876 and the site was gazetted as a reserve for a school on 15 August 1878. This significant time delay in the registering of the school reserve resulted in the land not being excluded from Portion 513 when an survey was drawn of the larger block for the Certificate of Title. This situation was rectified in June 1938 when the land was officially excluded from the Title.
  Construction at the school began, with local subscriptions totalling £56. The first structure on the site was a one roomed timber school building, apparently designed by Queensland Colonial Architect, Francis Drummond Greville Stanley, before the design of schools in Queensland became the domain of the Department of Education in about 1880. Stanley instigated in Queensland a system of standardised school designs which could be used in a number of locations, a system which occurred previously through default. The gabled roof building designed for use at Tallegalla was elevated on low timber stumps and was flanked on the north and south by full length verandahs which were partially enclosed at the two ends of the northern side and housed hand basins. The school remains much in the same form as its original design and was lined internally in 1926 and the southern verandah was enclosed gradually from 1955. A more significant change to the building occurred in 1938 when several openings were altered to allow for better natural lighting. Whereas the openings previously were designed to allow for uniform light from all directions, new thinking in the mid 1930s indicated that lighting from some directions was more conducive to studying. Associated with this work was the internal painting of the school.
  Another important element of the school site was the teachers residence which was not completed with the original school building, though by 1880 plans had been made for its erection. Residences were an important element of school site
caption: Tallegalla State School students, circa 1915
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