Windback Wednesday - Magill School (Pepper Street Arts Centre)

The site for Magill Primary School was laid out as early as 1846, when a portion of the land granted to Robert Cock and William Ferguson (land which formed the early village of Makgill) was donated to the Magill School Trust, with a school operating onsite from around 1850. When the Central Board of Education (CBE) was established in 1855, Magill Primary School became the first official CBE school in the Burnside area. At this point in time, the school serviced 67 students. The main subjects taught at Magill School in the 1850s included reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, history, drawing and singing.

With the passing of the Education Act (1875), Magill School was reclassified as a public school, and the following year it recorded an enrolment of 128 students, though only 53 attended every day. In 1882, the original school building was demolished and a new, two-room stone schoolhouse was erected on the same block of land, positioned slightly closer to Magill Road. In 1902, the building was extended to include a third room, and in 1926 a brand new block of classrooms was constructed facing Penfold Road. In the 1950s, enrolment remained consistently between 300 - 500 students. The purchase of surrounding blocks of land expanded the school’s property to include recreation spaces, and the Coronation Oval with its distinctive ornamental gates was opened in 1953.

From the 1960s, it was clear that the school buildings had become inadequate for the number of students, and plans were made for the construction of a new Magill School, just down the road on the corner of Magill and Penfold Roads. Construction was completed in 1962 and the new Magill Primary School was officially opened by the South Australian Minister of Education, Baden Patterson, on 4 October 1963. By 1969, enrolment at the new school had reached 616 students, showing the necessity of the move.

In 1990 the old Magill School Building was acquired by the City of Burnside. In 1995 it was chosen as the location for the new Pepper Street Gallery and Community Studio, now known as the Pepper Street Arts Centre.

Photograph: Old Magill School, 1882. Burnside Local History Collection.