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Cornwall, Norman Spencer

Uriarra Primary School. A history. Compiled by Steve Welch, Canberra 1986 - extract:

"1944 saw the return of Norman Conrnwall, who remained teacher-in-charge for the next twenty years. Mr Cornwall is still remembered as "a strict disciplinarian but a good teacher". He had previously taught at the Gibraltar School near Tidbinbilla.....

Mr Allen Blundell , present owner of 'Brookdale', whose family ancestry includes many original settlers of the area, remember ring his horse or pushbike to school. He relates how he would help Mr Cornwall chop wood for the school stove and how on Friday afternoons, when the rest of the school would be participating in either physical education or music, he and Nian McKenzie would almost inevitably be sent to weed the school flower gardens.

Dressed in a grey pin-striped suit Mr Cornwall would appear just before school was due to commence and children would be seated and working on lessons shortly thereafter. Although considered strict, Mr Cornwall was always completely impartial in his treatment of children under his care and was popular with them and their parents. He was a keen darts player and it was not uncommon for children to stand on the edge of the road to wave Mr Cornwall goodbye when he journeyed to Queanbeyan for a tournament at the Tourist Hotel.

Mr Cornwall lived in a small two-roomed hut with tank water connected, about 200 metres south east of the school. Conditions in this hut were somewhat primitive, it being August 1942 before requests by Mr Cornwall for bathroom and toilet facilities to be added were granted. It was not until 1952 when electricity was connected tot he settlement that it was also supplied to the hut. (This hut was later to be used for school storage)

In 1963 work commenced on building of a teacher's flat near the school (causing some concern amongst other teachers in the Canberra area not likewise catered for). This building is currently used for storage, extra classroom space, cooking lessons and can be used as a community 'drop-in' centre.

Mr Cornwall never occupied the flat. He died as a result of a car accident near Mittagong just after the end of the school year in 1963. A framed water colour sketch of the school building as it was in 1963 was donated by the P and C Association to Uriarra School as a memorial to Mr Norman Cornwall"

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Norman Cornwall
Norman Cornwall

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