By Roselyn Fauth
I’ve been on a bit of a history hunt recently, trying to understand Timaru by looking beyond its streets and buildings into the ideas that shaped them. Sometimes you have to step further out to see your own place more clearly. On this trip, that place was Oamaru and Dunedin — and it taught me something about why Timaru became one of the earliest towns in New Zealand to provide secondary education for girls.
I went to see the First Church of Otago, designed by Robert Arthur Lawson, the same architect behind Timaru’s former Government Buildings that later became the Post Office. In Dunedin, Lawson’s church is his most ambitious and celebrated work. It opened on 23 November 1873, just 25 years after the first settlers arrived. Standing there and then learning about the church's story, I realised I wasn’t really looking at a church. I was looking at an idea. This history hunt taught me about who values education and who advocated to bring it to the public, equally.
I wanted to explore why the Scots throught of education as a public good
To understand that idea, I had to follow the story further back.
It mostly links back to the bible, and making sure that if the population had good literacy, they could read it. The Scots encouraged everyone to read.
In 1877, New Zealand passed the Education Act 1877, which established free, compulsory, secular primary education for Pākehā children, administered through regional education boards. This was a major shift, moving schooling from church and provincial control into a national public system.
You can read the full history of the Act here:
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/education-act-passed-law
And the legislative background here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Act_1877
The Act was transformative, but it is important to be precise. It applied to primary education only. Secondary education was still selective, often fee-based, and depended heavily on local commitment and resources. Many families could not afford to keep teenagers at school once they were old enough to work.
https://teara.govt.nz/en/country-schooling/page-1
What the Act did do was establish a powerful idea: education was now a public responsibility, not simply a private advantage.
The breakthrough in girls’ education
Well before 1877, Otago had already begun to lead the way. Otago Boys’ High School opened in 1863, demonstrating early ambition for secondary education.
https://teara.govt.nz/en/primary-and-secondary-education/page-2
Then, in 1871, Otago Girls’ High School opened in Dunedin, becoming the first public girls’ secondary school in New Zealand, and one of the earliest in the world. It followed years of campaigning by Learmonth Dalrymple, who believed girls’ education was essential to the health of society.
You can read more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otago_Girls%27_High_School
This school changed the conversation and proved that girls could succeed in rigorous academic environments and that educating them served the public good.
Timaru’s early commitment
By the time Timaru was developing as a town in the late 1870s and early 1880s, these ideas were already embedded across the south.
Timaru High School opened on 2 February 1880 as a co-educational secondary school, unusual for its time. On the first day, 35 girls and 28 boys enrolled, aged between 13 and 19.
https://www.wuhootimaru.co.nz/blog/899-salt-spores-and-science-timaru-s-bella-maccallum-in-the-thick-of-flax
Just two years later, in 1882, Timaru Girls’ High School was formally established. This places Timaru among the earliest towns in New Zealand to provide dedicated secondary education for girls.
School history overview:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timaru_Girls%27_High_School
For comparison:
Otago Girls’ High School opened in 1871
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otago_Girls%27_High_School
Christchurch Girls’ High School opened in 1877
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christchurch_Girls%27_High_School
Timaru sits firmly within this early cohort. That timing matters. It was not inevitable. It required local leadership and a willingness to invest in education as a civic priority.
Uniforms, movement, and modern girls
We often see school uniforms today as tradition or aesthetics, but they tell a deeper story. Early principals such as Mary McLean believed girls should be educated as active citizens, not ornamental ones. After studying educational practice overseas, she introduced the gymnastic tunic, a practical uniform that allowed girls to move freely and participate in physical education.
This reform spread widely across New Zealand and signalled a shift in expectations about girls’ bodies, confidence, and public presence.
https://www.wuhootimaru.co.nz/blog/984-mary-mclean-a-timaru-heroine-who-believed-in-the-power-of-education-tghs-principal
Education, equity, and women’s rights
Secondary education remained uneven well into the early twentieth century. Free secondary places were not introduced until 1903, and even then many students left school early due to family finances.
https://teara.govt.nz/en/primary-and-secondary-education/page-4
Despite this, the presence of educated girls and women began to reshape public life. Literate women organised, wrote, debated, and advocated. Education gave credibility to their claims for equality.
In 1893, New Zealand became the first country in the world to grant women the vote, a reform strongly supported by women whose outlook had been shaped by education.
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage
Same, but different
Standing in front of the First Church of Otago, I realised I wasn’t just looking at a religious building. I was looking at the ambitions of a generation that believed institutions mattered, that learning mattered, and that society could be improved.
Timaru was not founded as a Free Church settlement like Dunedin. But by the time it chose to educate its girls in the 1880s, it had absorbed the same belief that education is a public good.
Supporting a public school today means endorsing that belief. It means backing shared opportunity over private advantage, civic responsibility over exclusion, and the idea that young people, including girls, deserve the tools to participate fully in society.
Same values.
Same ambitions.
Different towns... and absolutely worth the journey.
Early secondary schools and the big system shift, in date order
1850 – Christ’s College (Canterbury), Christchurch founded (independent Anglican secondary).
https://christscollege.com/about-us/history
1856 (7 April) – Nelson College, Nelson founded (often described as NZ’s oldest state secondary school).
https://www.theprow.org.nz/society/early-nelson-college/
https://digitalnz.org/records/33723533
1863 (3 August) – Otago Boys’ High School, Dunedin opens.
https://teara.govt.nz/en/primary-and-secondary-education/page-2
1867 – Wellington College begins as Wellington Grammar School (the school’s own history puts its opening in 1867).
https://www.wellington-college.school.nz/our-history/
(Te Ara also lists Wellington College as an early example, 1867.) https://teara.govt.nz/en/primary-and-secondary-education/page-2
1869 – Auckland Grammar School, Auckland officially opens (the school history gives 1869 as the opening year).
https://www.ags.school.nz/about/our-history/
(Te Ara also lists Auckland Grammar as an early example, 1869.) https://teara.govt.nz/en/primary-and-secondary-education/page-2
1871 (6 February) – Otago Girls’ High School, Dunedin opens (first girls’ secondary school in NZ; often described as first public girls’ secondary school in the southern hemisphere).
https://hocken.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/60807
https://teara.govt.nz/en/primary-and-secondary-education/page-2
1877 (13 September) – Christchurch Girls’ High School, Christchurch opens.
https://christchurchcitylibraries.com/Heritage/Photos/Disc17/IMG0017.asp
1877 (29 November) – Education Act 1877 passed: establishes free, compulsory, secular primary education for Pākehā children (with important limitations for Māori, as noted on NZ History).
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/education-act-passed-law
1878 – Timaru High School Act 1878 (creates the legal vehicle and governance arrangements for a high school at Timaru).
https://mail.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/thsa187842v1878n26311.pdf
1880 – Timaru High School opens as a co educational school (before the later split into boys and girls schools).
A useful summary with early roll numbers: https://hail.to/timaru-boys-high-school/article/jDQXXZy
1881 (18 May) – Christchurch Boys’ High School, Christchurch founded/opens.
https://www.cbhs.school.nz/discover-cbhs/our-history/
(Also recorded in the Christchurch chronology.) https://christchurchcitylibraries.com/Heritage/Chronology/Year/1881.asp
1883 (2 February) – Nelson College for Girls, Nelson established (with Kate Edger as first principal, per the school history and local heritage writing).
https://www.ncg.school.nz/history
https://www.theprow.org.nz/yourstory/kate-edger/
Where Timaru fits
Timaru High School’s 1880 opening places it after the big southern breakthroughs (OBHS 1863, University era in Otago, OGHS 1871, Education Act 1877) and before the next wave of provincial secondary expansion (CBHS 1881, NCG 1883).
