Christ Church School, North Adelaide's first from 1849, provided Anglican education in Jeffcott Street until 1963
The South Australian state-heritage-listed Christ Church School building in Jeffcott Street, North Adelaide. Inset: Teachers and students at the school in 1910.
Images courtesy City of Adelaide and State Library of South Australia
Christ Church School, North Adelaide’s first, started in 1849 and continued to be part of the city suburb’s Anglican education through to 1963.
Prospering from its start, the school gained its own building in Jeffcott Street, opposite Christ Church, after fundraising started in 1866. The new Gothic style building, of limestone rubble with brick dressings and strings, designed by architects Edmund Wright and E. John Woods, opened in 1869. The building was similar to St Paul's Day School in Flinders Street, Adelaide city, also by E.J. Woods. Stables were added in 1872.
After the 1875 Education Act was passed by the South Australian parliament to expand the public education system, including the North Adelaide Model School in Tynte Street, Christ Church was forced to close in 1877. But it reopened the next year, with additions by architect Daniel Garlick.
In 1891, the parish school premises were taken over by a school run by J.H. Lindon, a former St Peter's College master who started Queen's College. Lindon's school moved to Barton Terrace, North Adelaide, in 1893 and the Christ Church schoolroom was restored to being used by the Anglican parish.
Christ Church School continued in the Jeffcott Street buildings until 1963, when the school closed due to falling enrolments. The complex had included a two-storey house with classrooms on the ground floor and the headmaster's residence upstairs. Other classrooms, toilets and a shelter shed were built in the grounds behind the original schoolroom. Rectors from Christ Church taught religious instruction and students daily attended the church throughout the life of the school.
The architecturally- and historically-significant fabric of the school building was little altered by its later use as a photographer's studio. The interior survived, complete with honour roll and trussed roof. The school building was placed on the South Australian state heritage list in 1986.
