The headmastership of Mount Cook Boys' School Wellington, 1875-1905: a study in leadership in a changing education system

Abstract

This thesis examines how social, economic and educational change brought pressures to bear on the careers of the first three headmasters of one Wellington city school. One aim of this close study was to give a better understanding of several facets of the emergence of the New Zealand public school system. A microcosmic focus on three headmasters was made in order to study in detail the incredibly rapid changes and expansions in education in Wellington between the Wellington Education Act 1871 and the national Education Act of 1877 and then to contrast this with the slower but steady development afterwards from the 1880s which followed in the next three decades. The Mount Cook Boys' School had its origins in an early Wellington Education Board infant school, that of Mrs Wilkinson in Hopper Street. A new era began when this school transferred to a new school in Buckle Street, for this was the first Wellington city school to be built by the board and their first city school with no overt religious denominational affiliation or inheritance. The selection of headteachers for the Mount Cook Boys' School posed innumerable problems for the board and its inspector and organising master, Robert Lee, for this was to be one of the largest and most important schools in the province. The tremendous pressures engendered by the uncertainties and misunderstandings associated with a developing and expanding educational system led to the resignations of the first two headmasters which took place within the first four years of the school's existence. The third headmaster was to remain in office for over 27 years. The three headmasters studied in this thesis, all originating from England, typify three distinct stages in teacher training and qualifications.