100th Anniversary Menzies Community SchoolPrint Page

The plaque commemorates the 100th anniversary of Menzies Community School in 1997. 

In July 1896, the Menzies Town Clerk wrote to the Education Department requesting the establishment of a school in the town. There was no suitable building to rent and a school site had not been reserved when the town was surveyed. Agitation from Menzies residents extracted a promise from the Minister for Education in October 1896 that a school would be built as soon as a site could be selected. A four acre site was soon chosen by North Coolgardie Warden, James P. Walton, with the assistance of the Mayor, Henry Gregory, and the Town Clerk, but approval was held up by the need to first allocate land for the proposed railway. In March 1897, the Menzies Mechanics' Institute building was opened on Walsh Street and use of this building as a temporary school was proposed by the Mayor. A lack of response to the proposal from the Minister for Education prompted a telegraph from the Mayor on 30 March: 'School absolutely necessary; urgently recommend your renting Mechanics' Institute immediately, and sending schoolmaster at once to Menzies; fully 100 children here'. The Education Department deferred the matter until after the Easter holidays but eventually on 2 June 1897, a school was opened in the Mechanic's Institute with an enrolment of 79 pupils.

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