The Cloisters

The Cloisters was the first secondary school in Western Australia and was built for Bishop Hale, the first Anglican Bishop of Perth. Established with Hale’s personal donation and a grant from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the school was known as ‘the Perth Church of England Collegiate School’. With an initial role of 23 pupils, the school mainly attracted wealthy young men as pupils and for some years was only source of secondary education in the colony.

Built in 1858, the Cloisters is one of a small number of remaining convict-built colonial buildings of the mid-nineteenth century in the central area of Perth, the Town Hall being another. The style of the Cloisters was derived from St. James’s Palace, Hampton Court, Eton College, and other well known Tudor style English buildings. The design has been attributed to Richard Roach Jewell, who arrived in the Swan River Colony, in 1852 to be responsible for supervising the convict building program.

Undergoing a remodelling in 1879/80 the building continued use as a school until the late 1890s. In 1931, the building was damaged by fire and, amid suggestions that it be demolished to enable the construction of a new building or the continuation of Mill Street, £2,000 was spent on its restoration.

Plans were again mooted for its destruction in the mid-1960s, but a campaign in the West Australian generated public support for retention of the building and eventually a scheme for office buildings with a plaza and shopping arcade, which included the restoration and adaptation of the Cloisters building was approved by Perth City Council. Together with the Barracks Arch, the retention of the Cloisters was important in raising community awareness of the historic buildings of Perth and the need for public action to ensure the protection of heritage buildings in the city.