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PRIMARY SCHOOL NO.2815

Location 194 RICHARDSON STREET MIDDLE PARK, PORT PHILLIP CITY File Number 09/006083 - 01 Level Registered

[1/4] PRIMARY SCHOOL NO.2815 SOHE [2/4] 1 primary school no 2815 [3/4] primary school no 2815 [4/4] middle park primary school

Statement of Significance

What is significant?
The first school in the Middle Park area was School No.2815 which was conducted in the Orderly Room, South Melbourne. This was rented as a temporary school to accommodate 400 children while the permanent one was being built. It closed on 28 July 1887. The new Middle Park Primary School No.2815, designed by Henry Bastow, opened on 1 August 1887 and was constructed in red brick with stone and cement dressings. The school has a series of gabled roofs clad in slate with timber fretwork on the gable ends and banded roughcast render on the chimneys. Middle Park became a central school from 1916 to 1968 and acted as a feeder school for Melbourne High School for boys and girls which was then located in Spring Street, Melbourne. The Infant School was opened on 16 July 1908 and the architect was most likely George Watson and the draughtsman was D Mackenzie. George William Watson (1850-1915) was born and educated in England. He entered the Public Works Department soon after his arrival in Victoria in October 1872. He was promoted to Chief Architect of the Public Works Department in 1910 and died on 26 July 1915. The building is constructed of polychromatic brickwork and has a slate roof with domed roof ventilators. It has leadlight windows and a vaulted pressed metal ceiling with decorative wrought iron tie rods to the main rooms. The floor plan consists of a central hall surrounded by six classrooms, cloakrooms at each end and hexagonal teachers' rooms projecting on either side of the front elevation.

Why is it significant?
Middle Park Primary School No.2815 is of social, historical and architectural importance to the State of Victoria.

How is it significant?
Middle Park Primary School No.2815 is of social and historical importance as it was the earliest central school in Victoria. The Middle Park Central School operated as a feeder school for Melbourne High School from 1916 to 1968, giving the working class families of South Melbourne and nearby suburbs an opportunity to benefit from secondary schooling. Middle Park Infant building constructed in 1908 is of social and historical importance as an example of an infant school which embodies in its plan and decoration the changes in educational philosophy in the early years of the twentieth century to meet the needs of very small children. The decorative scheme for the building, including the leadlight windows and use of pressed metal, represent an attempt to train the children to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of their surroundings.

Middle Park Primary School No.2815 is of architectural importance as the site includes an early example of an Infant Building. Important to note is the unusual floor plan of the Infant Building which includes a cloak room at either end and hexagonal bays which are teachers' rooms at the front of the building. The interior contains particularly elaborate and unusual detailing with its cream brick walls and red brick banding, leadlight windows and pressed metal ceilings and cornices. The Main School Building is representative of an early Education Department School.