COUNCIL COMMITTEES: SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION COMMITTEE

Following the receipt of a letter dated 14 Aug. 1870 from the Department of Education relating to the provisions of the Elementary Education Act, 1870, an Education Committee was established by the Council on 14 Sept. 1870, initially to supply the Department of Education with detailed information relating to existing and proposed school accommodation in the city. The Council minutes for 14 Dec. 1870 contain a copy of this report and on 11 Jan. 1871 the Council, on the advice of the Education Committee decided not to apply for the establishment of a School Board, but to wait and see how the Act was applied, as there was more educational provision in the city than required by the Act.

However, it would seem that this situation did not last, as, according to printed proceedings at the beginning of this volume of a meeting on 12 Feb. 1873 of the Education Committee and the school managers, it was decided that the clergy and ministers of all denominations in the city and members of the Education Committee of the Council should form a committee to raise £2,000 to provide additional school accommodation which the school managers were unable to provide.

There is no reference to the formation of this School Accommodation Committee in the Council minutes or any report of this committee to the Council until 12 Aug. 1874, when the Education Committee submitted a report dated 12 May 1874 from the School Accommodation Committee describing their efforts to raise by voluntary means money to provide sufficient school accommodation to meet the requirements of the Education Act without applying for a School Board which would have had powers to levy a compulsory rate.

On the recommendation of the Education Committee the Council continued to give the School Accommodation Committee time to provide this accommodation in spite of amendments to apply for a School Board raised at Council meetings between Aug. 1874 and March 1875. At a Council meeting on 10 March 1875 the recommendation of the Education Committee that no application should be made for a School Board as there was ample school accommodation in the city was carried in spite of a contrary motion.

No minutes of this Education Committee have been found and it was not re-appointed in Nov. 1875. However, the School Accommodation Committee continued to meet until 2 Aug. 1876, although the minutes of this last meeting contain a copy of a letter from a former member stating that the existence of the School Accommodation Committee was unconsitutional as it had been formed as an enlargement of the Education Committee of the Council, and this committee no longer existed