IN May 1865, in what is now Mittagong, the fledgling town's first public school opened.

The area was initially known as Nattai where, during the 1830s, an iron ore seam was discovered.

In 1848 a syndicate was set up to extract and smelt the ore, a venture considered to have great possibilities.

In 1851 the Fitz Roy Iron Works Company was formed to further develop the process and produce steel, but was beset with problems. In 1865 a large hot-blast furnace was blown-in and smelting of cast iron commenced.

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As around 70 extra men were employed from 1863, there was additional demand for housing.

This and ongoing difficulties in raising capital led the directors to sell off a significant easterly portion of the company's large land holdings.

A new sub-division, named New Sheffield, was released for sale in May 1865.

Located near present-day Lake Alexandra, it consisted of choice freehold quarter-acre allotments, laid out with 20-metre wide streets and lanes of half that.

These were set around a public square with land reserved for churches.

As a result of the influx of iron worker families, an application was sent to the government in February 1865.

It stated that a school was urgently required, as 19 boys and 14 girls in the locality were in need of educational facilities. Nothing eventuated, so the chairman of the Ironworks Company, Ebenezer Vickery, informed the Education Board in April that the local patrons of New Sheffield were extremely desirous of a teacher being appointed without further delay, as education was being utterly neglected.

He advised that they had negotiated with Robert Morris, a worthy man who, if appointed by the Board, would undertake to organise a school.

Unexpectedly, the appointment of Morris was approved by the end of April.

Classes had already started unofficially in the Pattern Shop at the Ironworks but as it was a noisy and dangerous place, other premises were urgently sought.

The use of a sandstock brick cottage in Albert Street, New Sheffield, was hastily secured as temporary school and teacher's residence. According to a 1975 local history publication, this was known as the Missioner's Cottage, a home for the Wesleyan minister who travelled the district pastoral circuit.

ON May 8, 1865, the town's first official public school opened in the cottage with Morris as headmaster.

The land on which it stood was reserved by the Ironworks Company for a Wesleyan Church and school building.

Facing Albert St, the church was completed by February 1866, built of brick with a steep pitched roof supported by locally made iron trusses.

Attached to the rear was built a new schoolhouse and residence, most likely incorporating all or part of the cottage, and described as elegant and commodious.

The initial enrolment was 65 pupils and this grew considerably over following years.

The railway from Sydney had come through Nattai in 1867 and the station opened there was named Mittagong.

It brought a further influx of families seeking to take up residence in the expanding township. Thus a larger public school building was required.

Tenders were called by the Education Board in 1877 for the building of a new public school and residence to be of stone with a shingle roof.

Work commenced in mid 1877 on the building, located in Queen St at New Sheffield, on a one-acre plot purchased from the Fitzroy Ironworks Company.

The former school building at the Wesleyan Church was given a much-needed renovation, converted into a hall and further modified over following decades.

During a white ant investigation under its floorboards in the 1980s, the foundations of the earlier Missioner's Cottage were revealed. Church members were exuberant that these had come to light to verify the existence of the cottage.

In October 1878 the new public school and residence in Queen St opened.

It had an initial capacity of 70 pupils but, as enrolments soon increased rapidly, the school building had to be extended several times and a separate infants' classroom provided.

With further additions and a new residence located elsewhere, this building served as the town's public school until 1937 when a new two-storey building in Pioneer St opened.

After 1937, the sturdy old stone building became a children's library and from 1981 it has operated as a branch of the Wingecarribee Shire Library Service.

We can be grateful that the Education Board had stipulated in 1877 that the new school at New Sheffield be of stone, as this structure still graces the town today.

To be continued

This article compiled by PHILIP MORTON is sourced from the archives of Berrima District Historical & Family History Society, Bowral Rd, Mittagong. Phone 4872 2169.

Email bdhsarchives@gmail.com.

Web: berrimadistricthistoricalsociety.org.au

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