Technical School Online Exhibition

Tech School - a history of hands-on education in Victoria 1873-1990s is an online exhibition created by the Public Record Office of Victoria.

Technical Schools grew out of the Mechanics Institutes which flourished across Victoria from their beginnings in 1856.  At the time the term mechanic referred to artisan or trade workers.  The Mechanics Institutes provided adult education classes for local communities, offering practical classes along with chess clubs and debates.

Melbourne's first technical school was proposed in 1881 as the Working Men's College, later known as RMIT.  It opened in June 1887 and catered to both men and women.  From these beginnings the Technical School began.

To find out more, visit the online exhibition.

Education

It is always exciting to find a new detail about an ancestor, especially when you move into more detail that the basic birth / marriage / death information.  Extra details of our ancestor's lives help to flesh out our knowledge, add to the image of the person rather than the bare bones of dates and times.

Recently I was lucky to find the certificate below, belonging to William Pummeroy in 1939.

Knowing where ancestors went to school and what they achieved is invaluable and I can now continue my research into William's studies and achievements and see what else I can find about his education.

#52Ancestors - Week 21 - Yearbook

This week's prompt 'Yearbook' had me fossicking through storage in my garage to try to locate my old High School yearbooks - where had I stored them??  After a short search I located them in a box, safely stored away.

When had I last glanced at them?  I don't remember.  I probably had a quick look as I packed them in their box over 5 years ago as I prepared to move to my current home.  Prior to that, I probably haven't even thought about them in years.  Having found them now, I settled down to relive my High School days, laugh at some of the hairstyles and fashions, recall great teachers and some not so great, and reflect on how few of my High School yearmates still live locally.

Those old yearbooks - from the 1980's - certainly brought back memories.  Participating in school plays, playing flute in the school band, reading long forgotten short stories and poems I had written, seeing how many classmates I could name from school photos - the yearbooks were quite a blast from my past and I am so glad I have kept them.

The next job on my list - to scan my personal contributions to the yearbooks into my family history archives, along with any casual photos in which I appeared.  I have already scanned all my class and individual photos, and once I have digitised the relevant parts of the yearbooks I will find them a better storage place to keep them preserved for the future.

London School Records

Over 60 years of London school records will be available to search on Ancestry.
The two new collections contain an index and images of school admissions and discharges from 1912-1918 and Poor Law school district registers from 1852 to 1918.

In total, they contain records of 319,000 children, and can include details such as their name, age, address, parents’ names, religion, previous schools and whether they were an orphan or illegitimate.
The Poor Law Commission, established in 1834, required each union to set up a residential school for pauper children. The 1870 Education Act introduced a national requirement for children to be educated to the age of 10, and by 1918, the school leaving age was 14.