...
Under Duncan Gillies, and with the zealous Pearson as Minister, the Victorian government embarked on a major construction programme. The results were striking. In 1872, there had been 1048 schools and 135,962 new students, of whom 68,436 attended regularly. By 1891, the numbers had increased to 2233 schools, 253,469 enrolments, and 141,126 average attendance.13 In 1889, the total building program expenditure was £128,470, more than half the overall Education Department budget of £214,266. Sixteen Metropolitan schools were established to accommodate 4000 new enrolments. One of them ‘was was Princes Hill.
The constant pressure had eventually won out. A memo dated 25 October 1888 informed Gardiner that tenders would be called as soon as money became available. The contract to build a school of 2960 square feet for 300 students at the allocated space ratio of 10 square feet per child was signed on 23 February 1889. A week later the new school was officially listed on the roll as SS 2955.14
...
Six-foot-wide corridors lined with pressed tin directed movement within the school.51 Externally, the decorative features . that adorned the central upstairs windows of the 1889 building were not reproduced in the extension. It is clear that the Education Department responded belatedly to current community needs rather than planning so as to anticipate future growth. The first stage of Arnold Street was built to accommodate 300 scholars; 250 arrived on the first day. The second stage added another 200 places, when figures were already 500 plus. The third stage provided 502 seats, when the average attendance was 1000. It was to be another seventeen years before the students of Princes Hill would have room to spare.
...
Classroom decorations became acceptable again. A letter to the Argus from an ex-pupil led the way at Princes Hill. Comparing the ‘handsome collection of masterpieces’ adorning the walls of SS Macarthur in Ballarat with the blank and barren walls of Princes Hill, Donald McDonald exhorted all past students of Princes Hill to show their 23 appreciation of their old school by purchasing pictures and presenting them to Princes Hill.76 Requests for money to buy pictures were made periodically to the Department. In 1956, a subsidy of £50 was used to purchase sixteen prints for the Infants’ Department. Among them were Heysen’s ‘Summer’ and, ‘A Summer’s Day’, Corot’s ‘The Bent Tree’, Young’s ‘Evening Sunlight’, and Wood’s ‘Seascape’.77 Scientific and technological developments also made an impression. Despite the general use of electricity‘in electricity in the community, and even though wiring had been installed some time before 1936. (defectively, as it transpired), in 1945 the Department refused to install electric lighting in the classrooms at Pigdon Street. Electric lighting had been connected at Arnold Street in 1912 to provide light for the evening classes. A wireless was bought in 1936, a film projector was promised for 1946, a public-address system was installed in 1947, and a strip projector was supplied in 1959. But here, as in so many other areas, the facilities provided at Princes Hill lagged far behind the times.