The following is a re-print of a past column by former Advertiser columnist Stephen Thorning, who passed away on Feb. 23, 2015.
Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.
The educational system in Wellington County has undergone changes in the past 70 years that make the schools of the early 1950s seem quaint and distant to us now.
With very few exceptions, the rural schools of 70 years ago had only one room, and drew their students from an area that was within walking distance of their front doors. A board of local trustees looked after each of these schools, which were numbered in a separate series for each township.
All that started to change in the mid 1950s. The decade between 1955 and 1965 saw the complete demise of the one-room school, of the neighbourhood boards, and of the ability for most students to walk to and from their classrooms.
The pressure for the changes came from the provincial government, but local factors occasionally played a role.
An example of the latter was the formation of Township School Area (TSA) No. 2 in Maryborough late in 1957. Declining farm populations and smaller families had reduced school enrolment drastically during the first half of the 20th century.
This was especially so in the western portion of Maryborough. In the mid 1950s, the construction of the Conestogo dam, and the resulting lake, caused the dislocation of many homesteads.
One school, SS 18 (also known as the Lower 4th), was situated on the edge of the new reservoir. It had to be abandoned. The expropriation of land by the Grand River Conservation Commission (GRCC) severely impacted the enrolment of another school.
SS 18 closed at the end of the school year in June 1956, and for the next two years, the students rode by a hired car to SS 2, a few miles away. Fewer than 10 students were involved.
The GRCC offered to pay for the construction of a new one-room school to replace the abandoned one, and put $18,000 on the table to cover the cost.
Maryborough council, after reviewing the declining attendance figures and the cost of maintaining so many schools, decided on a larger project. Councillors would combine three of the remaining schools into a new school district, and construct a new building to accommodate the students.
Township School Area No. 2 came into existence following the municipal elections of December 1958. The five members of the new board took their seats by acclamation: Murray Rea, James Stanners, Stewart Omand, Robert Crawford and Russell Faulkner. The trustees nominated Crawford to be chairman, and they hired Alfred Scammell to be secretary-treasurer.
The new board set to work immediately. They hired architect R.E. Brown of Walkerton to design a two-room school for a site on Lot 9, Concession 5, on the centre sideroad of Maryborough. He came up with a single-storey plan, faced in red brick veneer, with large windows in the classrooms.
Perry Wilson of Fergus submitted the low tender for the project, at slightly more than $22,000. Wilson was no stranger to the area: he had built the new Moorefield school in 1954-55.
The new school in the western part of the township would replace SS 18, the closed school, plus SS 2 (Upper 4th), SS 13 (Upper 6th) and SS19 (Lower 6th). Students from the Hollen area would also attend. The school there (SS 3) had closed in 1944 due to low enrolment.
In July 1958, Maryborough council approved 20-year debentures to pay for the school. The trustees of TSA 2 decided to consolidate classes at two of the one-room schools, effective Sept. 1958. John Stanners secured the first busing contract at 22 cents per mile.
Perry Wilson’s men began work in June 1958. The foundations went in during July, and the concrete floor in the first week of August. Wilson’s construction schedule fell behind during the fall due to problems with sub trades and the availability of materials.
The original opening date of Dec. 1 had to be delayed by six weeks.
Wilson completed the new school in the first days of 1959. The students moved in on Monday, Jan. 12. The enrolment came to 54 students, from an area that had once supported five one-room schools. The official name, marked in large letters across the front of the new building, was “Wyandot Public School.”
The students of SS 1 (Lebanon) swelled the enrolment of Wyandot in Sept. 1961. This School Section had been abolished at the beginning of 1961, but the school remained in use until the end of the term.
The last of Maryborough’s one-room schools closed in 1963. By then, all students in the township attended one of three new schools: Wyandot, Moorefield (TSA 1), and Rothsay (TSA 3).
Initially, all three schools offered classes from Grades 1 to 8, but in 1966 the trustees decided to consolidate the grades at particular schools, with a resulting increase in busing. Under the new arrangement, Wyandot offered only Grades 5 to 8.
Further changes came with the new county school board in the late 1960s. The trend to a smaller number of schools with larger enrolments continued.
But that is a long and complicated story for another time.
*This column was originally published in the Wellington Advertiser on Dec. 27, 2002.
