Grammar Schools Act 1860
parliamentary act in Australia
The Grammar Schools Act 1860 was passed by Queensland's first parliament in 1860 and allowed for the establishment of a grammar school in any town where £1000 could be raised locally. Between the years 1863 and 1892, ten grammar schools were opened under the auspices of the act. The first of these was Ipswich Grammar School, which opened in 1863.
History of the act
The Grammar Schools Act 1860 was the fourth bill of the first parliament of Queensland. Along with the Primary Schools Act 1860 (Qld), it aimed to bring Queensland under one general and comprehensive education system without prejudice.
In the early years of Australian education, denominational schools (particularly Anglican schools) had a large influence. By the time of the first parliament of Queensland in 1860, there was a general feeling that any system of education established in Queensland should be free of denominationalism.
The act received little opposition in either house of parliament – revealing its popularity. It found the approval of the public in general, and even among sections of the Anglican community. The act marked a departure from the education systems in place in Victoria and New South Wales, where schools were generally tied up with respective religious bodies or (in the case of schools such as Sydney Grammar School) being provided massive, ineffective endowments, with little effort required from the community.
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This entry incorporates text from “Grammar Schools Act 1860” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.