Historic Sites of Manitoba: Bradwardine School No. 1307 / Bradwardine Pioneers Monument (Bradwardine, Municipality of Riverdale)

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Principals | Vice-Principals | Teachers | Photos & Coordinates | Sources

A pair of monument were erected on the former site of Bradwardine Consolidated School No. 1307, at Bradwardine in what is now the Municipality of Riverdale. The monument, one dedicated in 1970 and the other in 2003, commemorate the pioneers of the Ancrum, Tarbolton, and Bradwardine areas, and to those who built the Bradwardine Community Hall and the Bradwardine Royal Canadian Legion Branch No. 179.

The first school at Bradwardine, a one-classroom structure, was built in 1905. Bradwardine Consolidated resulted from the 1915 consolidation of Bradwardine School with Ancrum School No. 329. A second classroom was added to the original building. Over the years, other rural schools in its vicinity closed and their students came here: Tarbolton School No. 297 (1948) and Spring Valley School No. 649 (1959). A new three-room school building was erected in 1956. It closed in 1961 and the Rolling River School Division arranged in July 1969 to move the building to Rivers where it was joined to the Rivers Collegiate.

Principals

Period	Principal
1917-1918	Mr. Murphy
1918	Miss Barns
1919	Miss Gray
1920	Miss Hurst
1920-1932	Cecil Victor Gunn (1894-?)
1932-1936	Mr. A. E. Avery
1936-1943	Albert Lionel “Ab” Richardson (1910-1982)
1943-1944	Mr. B. Hodkinson
1944-1945	Miss Phoebe Belcher
1945-1946	Miss Corrine Middleton
1946-1947	Benjamin Franklin Olson (1898-1981)
1947-1950	Penelope Helena Mastaway “Nellie/Pennie” Tuba (1923-2019)
1950	Mr. D. F. Patterson
1950-1951	Alex Smith
1951-1954	Anton “Tony” Rittaler (1917-2008)
1954-1961	Arnold James Nicholls (1929-2003)

Teachers

School Year	Teachers
1920-1921	Miss M. M. Leeson, H. I. Lindsay

Among the teachers who worked at Bradwardine School were Ruby F. Donald (1905), Leslie E. Grace (1905), Rev. Handcock (1907), Wallace Graham (1907), Miss Noble (1907), Miss F. A. McNair (1908), Miss M. Dunbrock (1909), Bessie Archibald (1910), Elsie K. Gardner (1911), Miss Wall (1915-1917), Miss Parsons (1918), Miss Bell (1924), Mary Barr (1925), Miss Lund (1927), Miss Lambert (1929), Miss R. White (1932), Jean C. Hunter (1934), Miss A. B. Sedgewick (1936), Isabel Prowse Lamb (1941), Alva Richardson (1943), Mary E. Cole (1943), Joan Bunting (1944), Miss K. Reddon (1946), Louise Garnett (1947), Marie Hooey (1948), Molly Cormack (1949), Mary Lowe (1950), Gladys Graham (1955-1962), Mrs. Charles Howell (1956), Helen Milne (1958-1962), Josephine Wilkes (1962), Beatrice Hutton (1963), Graham Murray (1963), Mary Cole (1964-1968), Miron Paul Swintak (1964), Eldon Robinson (1966-1968), Mrs. Florence (1967), and Phyllis Leslie (1968).

Photos & Coordinates

The former Bradwardine School building (no date) by J. B. Morrison Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs, GR8461, A0233, C131-2, page 95. The former Bradwardine School building (circa 1986) Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 257. Bradwardine pioneers commemorative monuments (September 2011) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Site Coordinates (lat/long): N49.99715, W100.46264 denoted by symbol on the map above

Sources:

“Teachers at the convention,” Brandon Sun, 15 October 1920, page 6.

“Tender,” Rivers Gazette Reporter, 3 July 1969, page 4.

“Teacher changes at R.C.I.”, Rivers Gazette Reporter, 21 August 1969, page 1.

One Hundred Years in the History of the Rural Schools of Manitoba: Their Formation, Reorganization and Dissolution (1871-1971) by Mary B. Perfect, MEd thesis, University of Manitoba, April 1978.

Bradwardine and District: A Century and More, 1880-2003 by Bradwardine History Book Committee, 2003.

We thank Keith Maitland and Nathan Kramer for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 24 April 2020

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