Rosewood State School

A public meeting chaired by Mr John Vance was held at the Rosewood Gate in September 1870 with a view to establishing a primary school in that locality for the 41 children aged 5-15 who were living in the Rosewood area. A committee was set up to collect subscriptions to build a new schoolhouse and teacher’s residence. Messrs Cribb and Foote volunteered to give a portion of their premises in the Rising Sun Hotel (formerly known as O’Brien’s Hotel), on Toowoomba Road as a provisional school, pending the erection of the building. Walter Hoare was appointed by the Board of Education as teacher, and in October 1872, the Rosewood Gate Provisional School was opened.

By 1873 a committee was again agitating for a school to be provided by the Board of Education.  Pending Government action, Mr.  John Vance himself began a private school in his own house on 1st September with 50 pupils and was paid a wage by the Board of Education.

The Education Act of 1875 made education free, secular and compulsory. A Provisional School known as Rosewood Gate No. 131 and situated on the south side of the town on a 10-acre block between the coach road from Brisbane to Toowoomba and the railway from Ipswich to Toowoomba, was opened on 1 February 1875 under Mr Daniel Desbois as Head Teacher. The name of the school changed to Rosewood State School in 1887.

The gross enrolment for the year 1875 was 143 pupils. 

The first pupils to enrol were: Dan Desbois, Gerald Desbois, James Mulholland, John Matthews, Albert Boughen, Arthur Boughen, James Matthews, Frederick Hannant, Richard Mason, Michael Farrell, John Vance, William Vance, Thomas Walker, George Walker, Samuel Hammill, John Hammill, Richard Scanlan, Francis Pedrazzini, Daniel Dale, Lawrence Ryan, Patrick Ryan, Robert Hallam, Julia Ann Moran, Alice  Desbois, Helen Smith, Margaret Black, Rebecca Mulholland, Catherine Farrell, Mary Ann Farrell, Margaret Matthew, Margaret Ellison, Sarah Jane Hammill, Elizabeth Dale and Bridget Ryan.

The building had a shingle roof and lasted thirty years, before another building was erected and opened on 27 July 1905. It was built by local contractor Charles Risdale. The 1905 building lasted another 20 years. More buildings were added including the domestic science and manual training buildings in 1958. The wing containing the old year six to eight classrooms and office was removed in 1962, and a new brick building opened in 1964 catering for primary school classes on the ground floor and high school students to year ten on the top floor. Until the new building opened, the high school operated out of the old slipper factory next to Ruhno’s store. The school operated as a secondary department until the new high school opened on Lanefield Road in 1980 with Mr Noel Christie as first Principal.

Other buildings added to Rosewood State School over the years included a library built in 1975, another new brick block with tuckshop underneath and the most recent addition, a hall.

Further west along Mill Street, next to the Bunya Pine Tree, a school residence was built in 1929. It was removed to accommodate the new administration block.