Old Perth Boys School

The early days of the Swan River Colony were very hard for the 850 settlers, who spent most of their time coming to terms with the very hostile climate of Western Australia. As a result the problem of educating the colony’s children took second place to survival. This lack of educational facilities led to warnings in UK newspapers that Western Australia was in danger of becoming a “degraded society”.

To address this problem a Colonial School was set up in 1830 with a Mr J. Cleland, who was carpenter by trade, as school master. For the first seventeen years lessons took place in the Rush Church (so called because it was built of rushes), with the quality of teaching apparently varying considerably over that time.

To improve the situation, the Governor of the Colony set up and Education Committee to ensure the quality of teaching, which eventually resulted in the building of ‘Perth Boys’ School’ in 1854, now known as ‘Old Perth Boys School’.

Constructed by convicts on the site of a former water mill, the new school was built in the style of a church so that it imposed a sense of duty, attentiveness and obedience on its pupils. Additions were made to enlarge the building in 1868 leaving it pretty much as we see it today.

Enrolments in the Government-run school became so numerous during the gold boom of the 1880s and 90s that the building could no longer accommodate the school, so it was shifted to a new building in James Street, North of the railway line. After this, the old school was used as the library for the new Technical College which had been built next door. When the college eventually moved, Old Perth Boys Schools was vested with the National Trust and is now used as a café.