The second attempt to establish a private School 1915-1918
In 1915, using the same buildings as the failed Barcaldine High School, the Church of England opened the Barcaldine Grammar School – on the day Australians landed at Gallipoli.
The school was in the charge of T. C. Gray and W. J. Leacock.
Leacock enlisted in September leaving Gray in sole charge of instruction in Mathematics, English, History, Geography and Languages.
Among prize winners at the first speech day in 1915 were Fred Brown and Kathleen McCullough. Sergeant Leacock, on leave, presented the prizes.
Numbers at Gray’s Grammar School increased from 17 in 1915 to 50 in 1918, but he left in that year to take up a position in Melbourne. The school appears to have closed then as all the furniture in the Boarding House was disposed of by auction in early 1919.
When the Western Champion (22 December 1917) reported on the school’s Speech Night the teachers were still optimistic that the school would ‘blossom forth in all its pristine glory’. The paper noted that Mr Gray had an uphill fight on his hands.
