St Paul's Day School for children of Adelaide city's poor opened in 1874 by Anglican church wealthy congregation
Boys and girls (top) from St. Paul's Day School, Flinders Street, Adelaide city, doing exercises during a physical training display on Australia Day, 1913. Bottom left: Edward John Woods original 1870s design for Flinders Hall and the school, with a spire (not added due to cost cutting). Bottom right: The former school building as Adelaide city local heritage in the 21st Century.
Images courtesy State Library of South Australia
St Paul’s Day School, an adjunct of St Paul’s Anglican church and its wealthy congregation, opened in 1874 on Flinders Street, Adelaide city, for East Adelaide children “of the class of industrious poor just on this side of destitution (including, the children of some very worthless people who have been helped only because the instruction of their children is a positive good)”, according the Adelaide's Evening Journal.
St Paul's Day School took students from East Adelaide’s poor who previously attended classes at Ebenezer Chapel, Rundle Street, Adelaide city, where £30 rent had to be paid. Among its 120 children, some paid no fees and fees for the rest averaged no more than 3d. a week. The Evening Journal reported that “considerable expense has been incurred in the way of finding shoes and clothing of those who, for the want of it, were kept away from school".
St Paul’s Church archdeacon Dean Russell, who started the day school in 1870 in the Ebenezer Chapel in Rundle Street, Adelaide city, engaged architect Edward John Woods to design the flinders Hall school building in Flinders Street. The impetus to build Flinders Hall for the St. Paul's Day School came when the Pulteney Street School withdrew the right for it to be used at a Sunday school for St Paul’s church, also in Pulteney Street.
Woods’ design strongly resembled the Anglican Christ Church schoolroom in North Adelaide, also designed by Woods (and Edmund Wright). The Flinders Street gothic building was built with Glen Osmond stone with red brick dressings and white bricks used only sparling because of their cost. E.J. Woods also included a spire over the entrance but this was dropped as another cost saver as constriuction was delayed because of lack of funds – surprisingly, because of the wealth of several members of St Paul's congregation.
The Ebenezer Chapel students transferred to new St Paul’s Day School – “a two-storied, building, with separate rooms for boys and girls” – in 1874. The Register reported that on the first day “the scholars were entertained with tea and cake at 4 o'clock, and in the evening an Easter tree, loaded with gifts, was stripped of its contents, the distribution causing much eager expectation, and, in the end, great satisfaction. Frocks, Scotch caps, dolls, pincushions, toys, flags, and bags of bonbons were among the rewards.”
The school had “two salaried lady teachers” but extensive voluntary help was given “by no fewer than 32 ladies, each of whom regularly takes a part of the work”. As the school grew with day school and Sunday school attendances, in 1887, architects Wright, Reed and Beavor designs altered and added to the building. It gained a “grand staircase'” in 1891 and, in 1896. the schoolroom was again extended and altered to the design of Henry Ernest Fuller (closely associated with St Paul's church) who also conducted an orchestra of 15 performers in a building fund concert in 1892. Also at the school that year “Herr Bertram and some of his pupils” gave a classical music recital.”
The hall continued as a school until 1919 when it was renamed Buffalo Hall and used by the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes (RAOB) Central Lodge, No. 16, until 1935, when it was taken over by Young Australia League 1936-1939. The building was used by clothing manufacturer S. H. Walters (1940-1952), and Hamilton Laboratories, pharmaceutical chemist (1940-2010), who bought it from St Paul’s church trust in 1950. It became a shared office space later in the 21st Century..
