The first public school at Beaconsfield opened on May 9, 1881, with teachers Duncan and Mary Chisholm.
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But they had no school with classes held in the hall of the Duke of Edinburgh Hotel in Weld St.
It was most unsatisfactory and dangerous with heavy ore trucks flying out of the mine adit next door, and the children sharing the toilets with hotel patrons.
After 12 months, with attendance at over 200 pupils, the government agreed to build a school.
In the meantime, Mary Chisholm had persuaded her brother George Walter to move up.
George Walter was a master shipwright. He and his sister came from a famous old English family, and he'd married a daughter of Stephen Geeves of Geeveston.
George moved to Beaconsfield in late 1881, buying a block and building a house. He then successfully tendered to build the big new school for £1581, and shortly after was awarded the courthouse and post office contracts as well.
However there were problems with bureaucrats from the start.
First the weatherboards he purchased for the new courthouse were condemned for being too green, which they weren't.
Then an inspector condemned the local Swift's Jetty sandstone he was using for the school foundations. But this stone was being used by mining companies under their boilers, engines and furnaces. It was easily up to supporting a timber schoolhouse.
Rather than enter into an interminable correspondence with the Public Works Department, he used Cabbage Tree stone instead, which was inferior in quality and appearance to the sandstone.
Then the inspector wanted to condemn the courthouse roof, mistakenly saying the gauge of iron specified hadn't been used.
When George noticed the courthouse had no toilets, he'd learnt his lesson and kept quiet. After it was completed and there was a public outcry, he was given a supplementary contract to build facilities.
He had no such problems with private work, and completed a handsome villa residence for Mr Hamilton, which for style and finish was the premier house of Beaconsfield. This was on a triple block opposite Trinity Church, and the grounds were very tastefully laid out.
Eventually, however, he found it all too difficult and returned to Hobart where he became chairman of the Mt Stuart Town Board and was a director of the Huon, Channel and Peninsula Steamship Co.
Tragedy struck in 1910 while he was at work as a shipwright on a French barque in Hobart port, when the captain invited him for a drink. The steward mixed up the bottles, and brought caustic soda instead of the liquor ordered.
As the guest, Walter drank first. He suffered agonising burns to his throat and was hospitalised. His condition was precarious for some time, and afterwards he couldn't swallow solids. Even drinking was difficult.
He lost weight and strength rapidly, and despite going to Melbourne for treatment, became an invalid.
He hung on for 13 agonising years before dying in 1923.