Girls' High School, Kalgoorlie

Girls’ High School, Kalgoorlie, was established in 1903 by the Sisters of the Church as a boarding and day school for girls. The first students were nine girls aged 6-10 years who had been brought by the Sisters in 1901 from the Orphanage of Mercy, Kilburn in England. These girls lived at Kalgoorlie for some years and completed their schooling at Perth College. From 1908, Girls’ High School, Kalgoorlie was run by the Community of the Sisters of the Church until it ceased operating the school in 1916.

On 13 March 1903, Sister Sarah and nine of the English orphan girls moved from Perth College to Kalgoorlie where the Sisters had, in 1902, taken over a school in a makeshift building about half an hour’s walk from Hannan Street. This was known (Battye, p.79) as Girls’ High School, Kalgoorlie and it had originally been established in 1898, according to Doncaster (1998). It seems that the girls and Sisters boarded first at Mrs Watson’s Boarding House (which was also known as St John’s Lodge for Working Girls) and then moved into the school, which was held in St John’s Hall near the Anglican Church (Doncaster, 1998). Whittington (p.112) reports that these girls completed their schooling in Perth, at Perth College, possibly returning to Perth by around 1907.

By 1907 the school, which became known as St John’s Girls’ High School according to Doncaster (1998), was located at 32 Ward Street, Lamington Heights.

Doncaster (1998) records that by 1916, the Sisters of the Church had ceased running the school. It became known as St Michael’s School from 1917 and closed in 1919 due to the government opening a high school in Kalgoorlie.