Historic Sites of Manitoba: Fairfax Consolidated School No. 1195 (Fairfax, Municipality of Grassland)

Link to:
Principals | Vice-Principals | Teachers | Photos & Coordinates | Sources

The Fairfax School District was established formally in Fairfax, in what is now the Municipality of Grassland, in August 1902. It became Fairfax Consolidated School in February 1913 when it merged with Crown School No. 184, St. Luke School No. 551, and Plainville School No. 562. The original one-room schoolhouse was replaced at that time with a two-room structure. The original building was sometimes used as an extra classroom until 1929, then served as a community hall. The school closed in 1964 and the district was formally dissolved in January 1966. The two-room school was demolished while the original school was moved to a farm on the old highway #10, north of the old Riverside Bridge, about N49.51146, W99.97925.

Principals

Period

Principal

1915-1918

Inez Adrienne Hill (1892-1988)

1918-1922

Olive M. Ross

1922-1924

Violet M. Adams

1924-1925

Henry Lambert Williams (1890-1976)

1925-1926

George Robert Farrar Prowse (1860-1946)

1926-1931

Clifford Garfield Saunders (1900-1991)

1931-1936

John Henry Doughty (1900-1958)

1936-1939

James Edwin Scarrow (1902-1982)

1939-1941

Kenneth Rutherford “Kenn” Jasper (1914-1991)

1941-1942

Jane Agnes Nisbet (1902-1959)

1942-1951

Frederick Alvin “Fred” Kirbyson (1913-2003)

1951-1953

?

1953-1954

Isabel Nicholson

1954-1959

Ronald Morris Bean (1922-2013)

Teachers

Among the teachers who worked at Fairfax School through the years were Joan Ayers (1913), Muriel Guppy (1917-1918), Ila Clark Lang (1945-1947), and Harriet Henrietta “Etta” Crewson.

Photos & Coordinates

The original one-classroom Fairfax School

The original one-classroom Fairfax School (1913)
Source: Ken Storie

Two-classroom Fairfax School building

Two-classroom Fairfax School building (no date) by George Hunter
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-2, page 75.

Principal Inez A. Hill in her car beside the new (left) and old (right) Fairfax schools

Principal Inez A. Hill in her car beside the new (left) and old (right) Fairfax schools (no date)
Source: Arnold Smith

Primary class inside Fairfax school with teacher Muriel Guppy

Primary class inside Fairfax school with teacher Muriel Guppy (1917-1918)
Source: Arnold Smith

The original one-classroom Fairfax School

The original one-classroom Fairfax School (no date)
Source: Ken Storie

Fairfax School commemorative monument

Fairfax School commemorative monument (August 2010)
Source: Gordon Goldsborough

Site Coordinates (lat/long): N49.43511, W100.12769
denoted by symbol on the map above

Sources:

Annual Reports of the Manitoba Department of Education, Manitoba Legislative Library.

Pioneers to Present Years: History of Fairfax Consolidated School District by Fairfax Community Club, 1968. [Manitoba Legislative Library, F5649.F33 Pio]

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.

Manitoba Permit Teachers of World War II, compiled by Louisa Loeb, Winnipeg: Hyperion Press Ltd., 2007.

We thank Arnold Smith for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 13 October 2023

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