Circular drive in front of The Glennie School, circa. 1925
The Glennie School (formerly the Glennie Memorial School) is a girls' school in
Newtown,
Toowoomba,
Queensland, Australia. It caters for primary and secondary schooling from K–12. It has boarding house facilities and is owned and operated by the
Anglican Church.[1]
Information
In 2018, The Glennie School had a student body of 773 students, 3.6 percent of which were of Aboriginal descent. 160 students were borders.
History
Benjamin Glennie
The first Anglican priest on the
Darling Downs was
Benjamin Glennie, who spent much of his life raising funds to establish churches and schools for the Darling Downs, including growing and selling vegetables in his garden.[2] He accomplished the construction of four churches in his lifetime but did not establish the schools. However, at his death, he had purchased a block of land in
Newtown, Toowoomba and accrued a sum of £1000 towards the construction of the schools. After Glennie's death in April 1900, the Anglican Synod in June 1900 decided to establish a number of Glennie Memorial Schools in memory of Glennie and his work, opening the Glennie Memorial Fund to attract public subscriptions.[3][4][5]
Although the original plans were to establish both a school for boys and a school for girls, funds were harder to raise than expected due to the drought on the Darling Downs.[6] In June 1907, the Anglican Church decided to proceed with the establishment of a girls' school because there was an £800 bequest which would lapse if construction did not commence by end of 1907.[7] The choice of a school for girls was made because the church felt this was the area of greatest need as there were a number of secondary schools for boys already available. The initial plan was to hire a house to commence the school while the school building already designed by Toowoomba architect
Harry Marks was constructed.[8]
The school was founded in 1908 on its present site as the Glennie Memorial School. The first school building was dedicated on 10 August 1910.[2]
^"DIOCESAN SYNOD". The Brisbane Courier. Vol. LXIII, no. 15, 415. Queensland. 8 June 1907. p. 7. Retrieved 5 September 2016 – via National Library of Australia.
^Curnow, Jill,
"Beatrice Lilias Rennie (1893–1971)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 26 March 2024
Further reading
Henderson, Christine; Glennie School (1983), The Glennie : a work of faith : a history of the Glennie Memorial School, Toowoomba, 1901-1981, Rank Xerox Copicentre,
ISBN978-0-9592460-0-1
Henderson, Christine; Winn, John Keeble (2008), One hundred years of friendship : a centenary history of the Glennie School 1908-2008 (1st ed.), Playright Publishing,
ISBN978-0-9775226-7-5
Underwood, Joan; Glennie Memorial School (1988), Echoes of the past : a story of two schools : St. Luke's School, Toowoomba 1858-1876 and The Glennie Prepatory [sic?] School, Toowoomba 1912-1973, Glennie Memorial School,
ISBN978-0-7316-3079-0