Hutt Central gets ready for 150th
Hutt News | Tuesday, 05 April 2016
Hutt Central School's original Honours Board, which was unveiled in 1922, went missing in the 1970s. 150th reunion organisers would welcome any tips on its whereabouts.
Lower Hutt's oldest surviving school would like its original 'Honours Board' back.
A committee preparing for Hutt Central School's 150th jubilee, to be held over Labour Weekend this year, is gathering photographs and other memorabilia from yesteryears to display for past and present pupils joining the celebrations, October 21-23. Finding the honours board, which includes a list of those locals who served during World War One, would be the icing on the cake.
Helene Philpott, of the Hutt Valley branch of the NZ Society of Genealogists, said the board was unveiled in 1922 and contains many well known names of pupils who attended the school during the period. But it went missing some time in the 1970s and despite "exhaustive efforts" to track it down, they've had no luck.
Records show a private Taita Grammar School was established in 1840, and a public school was set up in Taita in 1859. Lessons were also conducted in the early 1860s by a Mr Landsale in the Blockhouse built at Fort Richmond on the banks of the Hutt River, a sister building to the Blockhouse that still exists in Upper Hutt.
In July 1866 a public meeting was called at the Mechanics' Institute to administer the affairs of the Lower Hutt Public School for the Lower Hutt District under the Education Act. This has since become the anniversary date for Hutt Central School.
From the Blockhouse, the school was shifted to a site in today's Riddiford Park where the Riddiford Baths were to open in 1926. In 1876 the school was shifted to the western side of the river, into a Masonic hall on the corner ofTama and Victoria Sts, and later to a site at the southern end of Ewen Bridge.
It wasn't until Hutt Valley High School opened in 1926, with 164 foundation pupils, that Hutt Central School became a primary school only.
The school's 125th jubilee book contains all sorts of anecdotes. For example, one claim is that the school might have been the first in New Zealand to have a milk in schools scheme. Parents paid three pence a week for a half pint of milk each day from the Cottles dairy farm.
"It was during the depression and I remember a big iron kettle on the open fires in the school rooms to make cocoa for those who had no lunch," former pupil Valerie Vercoe recalled.
To register for the reunion, email [email protected] or phone (04) 566-0059.
