St John's Anglican Church and Macquarie Schoolhouse is a heritage-listed Anglican church building and church hall located at 43-43a Macquarie Road, Wilberforce, City of Hawkesbury, New South Wales, Australia. The church was designed by Edmund Blacket and built from 1819 to 1859 by James Atkinson, senior; and the schoolhouse was built by John Brabyn. The church is also known as the St. John's (Blacket) Church, while the hall (former schoolhouse) is also known as the Macquarie Schoolhouse/Chapel and the Wilberforce Schoolhouse. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 20 August 2010.
History
The Darug (various spellings) occupied the area from Botany Bay to Port Jackson north-west to the Hawkesbury and into the Blue Mountains. The cultural life of the Darug was reflected in the art they left on rock faces. Before 1788, there were probably 5,000 to 8,000 Aboriginal people in the Sydney region. Of these, about 2,000 were probably inland Darug, with about 1,000 living between Parramatta and the Blue Mountains. They lived in bands of about 50 people, and each band hunted over its own territory. The Gommerigal-tongarra lived on both sides of South Creek. The Boorooboorongal lived on the Nepean from Castlereagh to Richmond. Little information was collected about the Aborigines of the Hawkesbury before their removal by white settlement so details of their lifestyle have to be inferred from the practices of other south-eastern Aborigines. It is believed they lived in bark gunyahs. The men hunted game and the women foraged for food.
On 15 December 1810, Macquarie issued an Order laying out five towns along the Hawkesbury River. One at Green Hills would be called Windsor. Another at Richmond Hill District would be called Richmond. A third in the Nelson district would be named Pitt Town. The village in the Phillip district would be called Wilberforce and the fifth in the Evan district was Castlereagh. Nearby settlers would be allotted sites on these towns to build. Reverend Samuel Marsden was instructed by Macquarie on 2 February 1811 to consecrate the burial grounds at the new towns on the Hawkesbury including Wilberforce. Surveyor Evans would show him the areas set aside.
Macquarie Schoolhouse
Macquarie's Instructions from the Colonial Office included not just the establishment of towns but also the creation of schools, a policy with which Macquarie was in complete agreement. His Order of 11 May 1811 strongly recommended to parents and family heads "The Education and Instruction of the Youth of both Sexes being an Object of the utmost Importance, as laying the Foundation of many Advantages to the rising Generations". Macquarie encouraged local residents to fund and establish schools themselves but also assisted with government funds. His Order of 11 May 1811 encouraged the establishment of schoolhouses at the initiative of local communities and promised to contribute A£25 of government money to each schoolhouse. At the same time, he directed that settlers should no longer bury their dead on their farms but in the burial grounds consecrated and measured out "some time since" in places such as Wilberforce.
Schoolhouses were often used for religious purposes until churches were erected near them in the 1850s. These combined schoolhouses, chapels and schoolmaster's residences were a feature of early Macquarie towns on the Hawkesbury. They were built at Castlereagh, Wilberforce, Pitt Town and Richmond often sited in commanding positions with a square nearby.
Reverend Cartwright was paid A£10 before 1 July 1812 for "inclosing the Burial Ground at the Township of Wilberforce". Macquarie's journal noted he visited Wilberforce on 21 May 1813 to mark the site for a new schoolhouse. The Government contributed A£50 towards "Building a Government temporary Chapel and School House, in the Township of Wilberforce" in 1813. On 28 April 1814, he reported that schoolhouses, which would serve as temporary chapels, had already been erected at various places including Wilberforce. It was not a major school. On 20 April 1818 he informed Samuel Marsden that apart from schools in major centres there were also inferior schools at places such as Wilberforce teaching the rudiments of education.
In 1819, a new brick building replaced the earlier temporary one.
Convicted London joiner and carpenter James Gough (1790-1876) who arrived on the Earl Spencer in 1813 and gained his conditional pardon in 1821, won the private contract to build a school at Wilbeforce.