ORDINANCE OF 1879
ON Tuesday, September 2, 1879, excited boys and girls of Levuka, walked through the corridors of the town’s first public school.
Although there were only 58 students, compared to the high number of today’s admissions, the group were pioneers of Fiji.
They were the first lot to go through the elementary stage of the country’s education system, which today has blossomed and churned out citizens and institutions that rank as the best in the region
The Levuka Common School as it was first known was set up through the Public Schools Ordinance of 1879. It played a huge role in the development of the town and also infused colour and feeling to the old capital and its array of activities, people and physical structures.
For a school fee of one shilling a week (sixpence weekly for other children in the family) the school supplemented and enhanced the basic education already offered at the time by European missionaries based in Fiji’s rural areas.
The Levuka School Board decided that the school’s headmaster position had to be someone whose wife could also teach. The couple was paid 450 pounds a year.
The Board also had to annually fork out 120 pounds for rent, 70 pounds for furniture and 50 pounds for incidentals – a budget of 750 pounds a year, with the remaining expenses to be footed by government.
Before a permanent structure was built, the school’s first base was the Oldfellows Hall, rented out at one pound a week, while the Board scouted for a piece of land to build a permanent structure.
Thomas Bonynge and his wife arrived from Wagga
Wagga, New South Wales to be the first teachers. School hours were from 9am to noon, then from 2pm to 4pm. Subjects were very basic.
On day one of school, The Fiji
Times, then a 10-year-old newspaper, noted the following: “Mr Bonynge expresses unqualified gratification with the appearance and style of his pupils and he thinks he has admirable material to work with.”
And admirable they were, many being the children of Levuka’s crème de la creme, who would later earn a special place in Fiji’s history. By the end of 1879, the lease of the Oldfellows Hall had expired so the school temporarily used the Mechanics Institute, where the town folks had their balls, plays, entertainment and other social events.
In its search for a lasting home, the Board eyed two pieces of land – one on the south of Totogo Creek and one near Niukabe Hill, today the site of the European War Memorial. The former site was chosen “in accordance with the decision arrived at by ratepayers”.
Construction started almost immediately and got completed in July 1881, its design decided through a drawing competition won by G.W.Moore and brought to life by McGregor & Milne for 975 pounds.
Though it has undergone changes throughout its lifetime, the school’s two-storey structure still stands today.
From 58 pioneering pupils in 1879, the rolled increased to 200 in 1880 and then decreased to 151 in 1882, the year the transfer of the capital to Suva was finalised.
Meanwhile, around this time, missionaries were busy looking after their missions on Ovalau, often in an environment steeped in conflict.
Because of the competition to lure local converts, the rivalry between the Methodists and Catholics grew. The Church of England was also in first churches’ race, later opting to target the descendants of Melanesians who came during the height of blackbirding in the Pacific.
However, in 1858, some form of truce was reached with the signing of the Freedom of Religion Agreement between Commander Lebris of the French warship and Cakobau.
The treaty was to protect new Catholics from being persecuted by those who chose to follow the dominant Wesleyan faith. Six years before the agreement, the Wesleyan missionaries had established themselves at the Mission Hill area, slightly above Nasau Park, the site of an old village.
The first Wesleyan mission school and the first school in Fiji was formed here in 1852 by