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Opening of (Upper) Selwyn School - Approval
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TitleOpening of (Upper) Selwyn School - Approval 
DescriptionThe Provincial Government of Canterbury passed the Education Ordinance 1857 which gave £2500 annually, up to 31st March 1862, of public money to the Church of England, the Wesleyan Body and the Presbyterian Body to establish, maintain and support schools under the management of the Christian Bodies. Fees were payable and religious instruction was not to be enforced.
It is unlikely that any schools in Ellesmere benefited from this provision although Graham and Chappel (1965) assert that there was a public school in South Selwyn (later Brookside) in 1861.
Under an Ordinance passed in 1863, a Board of Education was constituted to administer public money for education, regulate teachers’ salaries, examine, appoint and dismiss teachers and set student fees. A further Ordinance was passed in 1864, with its 58 clauses, which set out instructions for setting up and running schools.
The early public schools of Ellesmere were set up under this Ordinance but a consolidating Ordinance was passed in 1871 with 85 clauses regulating every aspect of a school.
The first stage of the process was for the residents of an area to decide that they wanted a school and then to send a “Memorial” to the Board of Education.
According to the 1954 Dunsandel and Upper Selwyn Schools Booklet, Richard Westenra, from the Camla Run along the south bank of the Selwyn River, convened a meeting of the residents who lived around the Great South Road, which crossed the Selwyn River about 2km above today’s SH1 bridge (see diagram) on Friday 7th October 1870. This meeting was supposedly held in what had been called Giggs’ Selwyn Hotel which was on the north bank of the Selwyn River where the Great South Road crossed the river.
Maybe the meeting to get signatures for the “Memorial” was held earlier in Giggs’ (it is not clear that the hotel was still in operation in 1870) as the Booklet contradicts an advertisement in the Press where Henry Tancred, Chairman of the Board Of Education, presumably having already received the “Memorial” called a meeting of residents on Friday 7th October in Slee’s Selwyn Hotel (in the Township of Selwyn at the present SH1 bridge) to be certain that the residents would agree to the responsibilities of running and paying part of the money needed to run a school and also to present the boundaries of the Educational District.
At the time the boundary between the Ellesmere & Rakaia Road Boards was the Great South Road, so while the site of the school was on the boundary, much of the Educational District was in Ellesmere’s boundaries. The Board of Education tried to arrange boundaries so that no child lived more than 3½ miles (5.6 km) from the school, still quite a long way to walk on a cold wet day. Why the school was not built in Selwyn Township is not clear.
A school committee of 7 men was formed at this meeting and held their first committee meeting in early January 1871 at the house of David Wilson, who had a house and blacksmith’s shop opposite the proposed site for the school.
Mike Noonan
Dunsandel Historic Society
Date21 January 2021 SourceThe Ellesmere EchoLocationUpper Selwyn
DescriptionThe Provincial Government of Canterbury passed the Education Ordinance 1857 which gave £2500 annually, up to 31st March 1862, of public money to the Church of England, the Wesleyan Body and the Presbyterian Body to establish, maintain and support schools under the management of the Christian Bodies. Fees were payable and religious instruction was not to be enforced. It is unlikely that any schools in Ellesmere benefited from this provision although Graham and Chappel (1965) assert that there was a public school in South Selwyn (later Brookside) in 1861.
Under an Ordinance passed in 1863, a Board of Education was constituted to administer public money for education, regulate teachers’ salaries, examine, appoint and dismiss teachers and set student fees. A further Ordinance was passed in 1864, with its 58 clauses, which set out instructions for setting up and running schools.
The early public schools of Ellesmere were set up under this Ordinance but a consolidating Ordinance was passed in 1871 with 85 clauses regulating every aspect of a school.
The first stage of the process was for the residents of an area to decide that they wanted a school and then to send a “Memorial” to the Board of Education.
According to the 1954 Dunsandel and Upper Selwyn Schools Booklet, Richard Westenra, from the Camla Run along the south bank of the Selwyn River, convened a meeting of the residents who lived around the Great South Road, which crossed the Selwyn River about 2km above today’s SH1 bridge (see diagram) on Friday 7th October 1870. This meeting was supposedly held in what had been called Giggs’ Selwyn Hotel which was on the north bank of the Selwyn River where the Great South Road crossed the river.
Maybe the meeting to get signatures for the “Memorial” was held earlier in Giggs’ (it is not clear that the hotel was still in operation in 1870) as the Booklet contradicts an advertisement in the Press where Henry Tancred, Chairman of the Board Of Education, presumably having already received the “Memorial” called a meeting of residents on Friday 7th October in Slee’s Selwyn Hotel (in the Township of Selwyn at the present SH1 bridge) to be certain that the residents would agree to the responsibilities of running and paying part of the money needed to run a school and also to present the boundaries of the Educational District.
At the time the boundary between the Ellesmere & Rakaia Road Boards was the Great South Road, so while the site of the school was on the boundary, much of the Educational District was in Ellesmere’s boundaries. The Board of Education tried to arrange boundaries so that no child lived more than 3½ miles (5.6 km) from the school, still quite a long way to walk on a cold wet day. Why the school was not built in Selwyn Township is not clear.
A school committee of 7 men was formed at this meeting and held their first committee meeting in early January 1871 at the house of David Wilson, who had a house and blacksmith’s shop opposite the proposed site for the school.
Mike Noonan
Dunsandel Historic Society
Date21 January 2021 SourceThe Ellesmere EchoLocationUpper SelwynConnections
CollectionHistory of the (Upper) Selwyn SchoolOrganisationDunsandel Historic SocietyEvent150th Anniversary opening of (Upper) Selwyn School
OrganisationDunsandel Historic SocietyEvent150th Anniversary opening of (Upper) Selwyn SchoolAttribution
Researched ByMike NoonanWritten ByMike Noonan
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Opening of (Upper) Selwyn School - Approval (21 January 2021 ). Selwyn Stories, accessed 26/07/2026, https://selwynstories.selwynlibraries.co.nz/nodes/view/5243