Timaru Girls High School Boarding House from Hassall Street. - TGHS Archives.
Did you know that the boarding story of Timaru Girls’ High School did not begin at The House on the school grounds, but a short distance away at 100 North Street?
The house still standing there today was once known as Croomlea, and before that it was known as Drumrankin.
It holds an important place in Timaru Girls’ High School history because it appears to have been the first known boarding accommodation used for TGHS girls, opening in 1916, several years before the on-site hostel tradition began in 1921. The school’s own later history is clear on that sequence: girls first boarded in rented North Street accommodation in 1916, and only later moved into the new on-site hostel, The House.
Timaru High School opened in 1880 as a co-educational school. In 1898, after a major fire, the boys and girls were more clearly separated on the same site. Then in 1913, the boys moved to North Street, while the girls remained at the original school. That shift left the girls without the same boarding provision, even though country families were increasingly wanting good secondary education for their daughters.
By then, the house at 100 North Street already had its own history. By 1884 it was the home of James and Lilian McCahon, and that it was known as Drumrankin. Their home connected with church, community, and education. In 1901, their daughter Margaret McCahon was already bringing distinction to the family name, becoming a Girls’ High School tennis champion, South Canterbury ladies’ champion, and passing her medical preliminary.
The McCahons are important to this story. James McCahon, later remembered in his obituary as a Timaru provision merchant born in Kilrea, County Londonderry, had become a well-known local businessman and community figure. His wife Lilian McCahon was deeply involved in Trinity Presbyterian Church and in educational and community life. Their North Street home reflected that standing. Garden parties and church fundraising events were held there, making the house part of Timaru’s social fabric, not simply a private address.
Then came the turning point. In 1909, Thomas Joseph Burns purchased the North Street property from James and Lilian McCahon. Burns was a substantial local figure himself, associated with the Empire Hotel and already established in Timaru business life. When the McCahons moved to their new house in Cain Street, they took the name Drumrankin with them. The former North Street house was then renamed Croomlea by Burns. That detail gives the building one of its most distinctive characteristics: two names, two family chapters, and one continuous history.
Burns’ period at the house was relatively short, but it was significant. After retiring from hotel life, he made Croomlea his home in North Street. When he died in 1911, his death notice named his late residence as “Croomlea, North Street, Timaru.” After his death, the house became the residence of his widow, Mary Agnes Burns. Sale notices followed in the years after, but the house remained occupied.
Then, in 1916, Croomlea entered the chapter that makes it especially important to TGHS.
The later 1930 Timaru High Schools’ Jubilee history records that, to provide for girls who had to live away from home, the Board opened a school hostel in 1916, securing the property Croomlea in North Street, where the first boarders found a home and travelled to school each day in the “croc.” A later centennial account tells the same story in slightly different words, noting that girls first had rented off-site North Street accommodation in 1916 before The House opened on site in February 1921.
That is why 100 North Street matters. It was not simply another boarding house in town. It was the first known step in TGHS’s boarding history.
Before there was the familiar hostel on school grounds, there was this North Street house making it possible for girls from further afield to attend Timaru Girls’ High School. That mattered in practical terms, because many pupils came from farming districts or country communities and lived too far away for daily travel. It mattered in educational terms too, because urban high schools often offered opportunities and academic pathways that were not readily available elsewhere.
By 1919, a sale advertisement described Croomlea, a superior eight-room residence in North Street, as being “occupied as High School Girls’ Hostel.” That is valuable because it is not just a later recollection. It is a contemporary public description of the property while that use was still current.
The house was part of a moment of transition for the school. Pressure for a proper girls’ hostel was growing, and the need was increasingly obvious. In 1920, the Board decided that more accommodation was necessary, and with Government support a new School House was erected. In 1921, the on-site hostel that generations came to know as The House opened, with Miss Watt in personal supervision and Miss Williams in charge of domestic arrangements. So Croomlea should not be confused with The House itself. Its significance is that it came first. It was the beginning of the boarding story.
That earlier chapter can easily be forgotten because the later hostel became such a strong part of school memory. Yet Croomlea deserves to be remembered precisely because it was the forerunner. It represents the point where TGHS moved from being simply a town school for local girls to being a school that could more fully serve young women from the wider district. In that sense, the boarding history of Timaru Girls’ High School began not with a purpose-built school hostel, but with the adaptation of an already well-known North Street house.
After its hostel years, Croomlea returned to private use. The property later passed to Charles Eustace Kerr and Nannie Isabel Kerr, née McCahon, bringing the house back into the McCahon family orbit through the next generation. Later still, it became a ladies’ boarding house, showing that accommodation remained part of the building’s history even after its formal TGHS chapter had ended.
By the 1930s, newspaper advertising clearly linked the name and address, referring to Croomlea, 100 North Street, including notices offering board for high school pupils and a 1939 description of the property as a two-storied town residence.
So why is 100 North Street significant?
Because this house helps tell a fuller and more human story of Timaru Girls’ High School. It connects the McCahon family, the Burns family, and the early boarders. It carries the names Drumrankin and Croomlea. It reflects women’s lives in different forms: family life, widowhood, girls’ education, and later women’s boarding. Most of all, it reminds us that the history of a school is not only written in classrooms and official buildings. Sometimes it begins in an ordinary house down the road, where young people found a place to belong.
Side quest: Who were James and Lilian McCahon?
Before 100 North Street became known as Croomlea, it was the home of James and Lilian McCahon, and under them it was known as Drumrankin. They were not just names in a property record. They were part of the social and community life of early Timaru. By 1884 the family was already living there, and over the following years the house became associated with church gatherings, fundraising, and educational ambition.
James McCahon was a Timaru businessman and merchant, part of the town’s growing commercial world in the late nineteenth century. Lilian McCahon was remembered as a devoted supporter of Trinity Presbyterian Church, education, and community life. Together they gave Drumrankin a strong identity as a family home with public connections, rather than simply a private residence. Their daughter Margaret McCahon also adds an important layer to the story. In 1901 she was a Girls’ High School tennis champion, a South Canterbury ladies’ champion, and had passed her medical preliminary, which makes the family’s connection to women’s education feel especially fitting in hindsight.
The McCahons’ story also helps explain the house’s changing name. In 1909, when James and Lilian moved to their new home in Cain Street, they took the name Drumrankin with them. The North Street house was then bought by Thomas Joseph Burns, who renamed it Croomlea. So the house at 100 North Street carries traces of two households and two identities: first the McCahons’ Drumrankin, then Burns’ Croomlea, and finally its important chapter as the first known boarding accommodation for Timaru Girls’ High School girls.
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/THD19390204.2.6
Page 11 Advertisements Column 2
Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19402, 30 January 1933, Page 11
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/THD19330130.2.84.2
ACCOMMODATION.
WANTED KNOWN—Mrs Higgins, 1A
Craigie Avenue, has vacancies for
two Technical or High School girl
boarders; lowest rates.
FURNISHED Flat to let, self-contain-
ed, 25/-; also unfurnished, 17/6. 8A
Arthur Street. Apply, 14 Elizabeth St.
WANTED—Sunny bed-sitting room
in private home. Must be central.
Apply, T.136, Herald Office.
TO LET—3 or 4 rooms, furnished or
unfurnished, garage if required,
Wal-iti Road. Apply, T.136, Herald
Office.
WAVERLEY Boarding House, 29 Bar-
nard Street. Vacancies for board-
ers, permanent or casual; tariff £1
week (washing). Bed and breakfast
2/6.
WANTED—To board 2 High School
boys or girls, few minutes from
either school. Terms reasonable. Ap-
ply, T.118, Herald Office.
WANTED—By respectable woman,
unfurnished room, use of conveni-
ences. State particulars, weekly rental,
etc. Apply, T.121, Herald Office.
REASONABLE board offered High
School pupils; superior home, 3min
from High School. Apply, “Croomlea,”
100 North Street.
NEWS AND NOTES
Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21262, 4 February 1939, Page 2
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/THD19390204.2.6
TIMARU GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL.
On October 29, 1878, an Act of Parliament was passed to provide for the establishment and management of the Timaru High School, a site for which had been purchased by the Board of Governors of Canterbury College.
The first meeting of the Board of Governors of the Timaru High School was held in the Board of Education Office on January 27, 1879. The following members were present: Messrs James Bruce, R. A. Chisholm, W. B. Howell, G. Cliff, Revs. G. Barclay and M. Gillies. Mr H. W. Hammond was appointed secretary for the time being at a salary of £17/10/- per quarter.
At a meeting held on February 5, it was resolved that the Timaru High School should be built with accommodation for 200 scholars, boys and girls; that it should be built in brick and cemented at a cost of £4000; that tenders should be advertised for in Timaru, Christchurch and Dunedin.
On March 5, the Board moved that the plan of Mr Henry Evans, Timaru, be approved, and on April 2 tenders were opened for the erection of the new High School buildings. The cost of building, to completion of contract, including extras was £4593/19/6.
The school was opened on February 3, 1880, with Mr Halkett-Dawson as rector and first-class assistants, one of them being Mrs Jardine. The girls’ roll shows that 33 were admitted on the opening day, and that 63 girls were enrolled during the first year.
At this stage in the history of the school, the qualification for entrance was ability to read and work the first four rules of arithmetic.
At the December meeting of the Board, a letter was read from Mr Hislop, Wellington, stating that Sir Julius Vogel had forwarded a number of books from England, to be presented to the pupils of the school for excellence in some subjects. A letter was also read from Messrs P. W. Hutton and Co., regarding a gold medal promised by that firm, the board being asked to forward an inscription for same.
The first break-up was held on December 17, 1880, at 2 p.m., Mr Rolleston, the Minister of Education, presenting the prizes.
On October 5, 1881, it was resolved by the Board that for the year 1882, the sum of 80 guineas was to be allotted for scholarships, of 10 guineas each, to be competed for as follows: Four to be open to pupils who had attended school during the past year, to be decided by the marks gained during the year; two to be for girls and two for boys. The holders were to continue their studies at the High School during the ensuing year, and were liable to be called upon to give one hour’s teaching per day if the Rector should consider it advisable or necessary.
In 1883, Mr George Hogben became Rector, holding this position until the separation of the schools in 1898, when he became first Rector of the Boys’ School.
On August 24, 1897, fire broke out in the Timaru High School, the west class-rooms being gutted. While repairs were being effected the girls had the use of several rooms that had been used as a private school, the boys using the Drill Hall, where the girls had their lessons in gymnastics on Saturday mornings!
After “The Fire,” the Board recommended “that the Timaru High School be reorganised on the principle of two distinct schools, male and female, in one building; that the staff and salaries be adjusted to suit the new organisation.” Later in the year the Board decided that the separation of the schools should take effect from the first term of 1898, that Mr Hogben be offered the position as headmaster of the Boys’ School, and Miss McLean that of headmistress of the Girls’ School. At this time Miss Watt joined the staff of the Girls’ School as first assistant.
February, 1898, then, marks the beginning of the history of the Timaru Girls’ High School. The separation of the schools necessitated many changes in the building. The old assembly-room was divided into two parts, the western part for the girls and the other for the boys. The two small rooms, now the headmistress’s study and the library, were built, and the museum was turned into a science laboratory.
When, at the end of 1899, Miss McLean resigned her position after a short but successful career to become Lady Principal of Wellington Girls’ College, Miss Watt was appointed in her place. Miss Watt’s long term of 23 years was marked by many changes.
In 1906 the system of free education was introduced into the schools, a very important step in the education of New Zealand.
Owing to the great increase in the numbers of both schools, the Board decided to build a new school for the boys, the girls to remain in the original building. This important change took place in 1913.
To make provision for the girls who had to live away from home, the Board opened a School Hostel in 1916. The property, “Croomlea,” situated in North Street, was secured, and here the first boarders found a home, going to school daily in “croc.” In 1920 the Board decided that more accommodation was necessary, and, having received a grant from the Government, erected what is now known as the School House. Since that time the number of boarders has increased considerably, making necessary the addition of an annexe, so that the House now accommodates 58.
In 1924 Miss Barr was appointed head mistress, and the marked increase in the school roll from year to year, and the variety of activities testify to the steady prosperity of the school from that date.
Another development in the history of the school was the opening of the Preparatory Department in 1926, with Miss N. Marshall in charge. Already the increase in numbers has necessitated the appointment of an assistant, a proof of the wisdom of this step.
Notes from Papers past article: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/THD19300325.2.8
1878: An Act of Parliament established the framework for Timaru High School.
January 27, 1879: First Board of Governors meeting held.
Board members present: James Bruce, R. A. Chisholm, W. B. Howell, G. Cliff, Rev. G. Barclay, and M. Gillies.
Secretary appointed: Mr H. W. Hammond at £17/10/- per quarter.
February 5, 1879: Board resolved to build the school for 200 scholars, boys and girls.
Building plan: Brick and cement construction, estimated at £4000.
March to April 1879: Henry Evans’ plan approved and tenders opened.
Final building cost: £4593/19/6, including extras.
February 3, 1880: School opened with Mr Halkett-Dawson as rector.
First intake of girls: 33 admitted on opening day, 63 enrolled in the first year.
Early entry requirement: Ability to read and work the first four rules of arithmetic.
December 1880: Sir Julius Vogel sent books from England as prizes for excellence.
Also in 1880: Messrs P. W. Hutton and Co. offered a gold medal.
December 17, 1880: First prize-giving or “break-up” held, with Mr Rolleston, Minister of Education, presenting prizes.
October 5, 1881: Board set aside 80 guineas for scholarships in 1882.
Scholarships: Eight scholarships of 10 guineas each; four based on school marks, split between girls and boys.
1883: Mr George Hogben became Rector.
August 24, 1897: Fire gutted the west classrooms of Timaru High School.
Temporary arrangements after the fire: Girls used rooms previously used as a private school, boys used the Drill Hall.
After the fire: Board recommended reorganising the school into male and female divisions within one building.
1898: Formal separation of the schools took effect.
Mr Hogben became headmaster of the Boys’ School.
Miss McLean became headmistress of the Girls’ School.
Miss Watt joined as first assistant.
February 1898: Marks the official beginning of Timaru Girls’ High School as a separate school.
Building alterations after separation: Assembly room divided, new small rooms added, museum turned into a science laboratory.
End of 1899: Miss McLean resigned to become Lady Principal of Wellington Girls’ College.
Miss Watt succeeded her and served for 23 years.
1906: Free education was introduced.
1913: Because of rising numbers, a new boys’ school was built, while the girls stayed in the original building.
1916: A School Hostel opened for girls living away from home.
Hostel property: “Croomlea,” North Street.
1920: More accommodation was added with Government support, creating what became known as the School House.
School House capacity: With later additions, it accommodated 58 boarders.
1924: Miss Barr was appointed headmistress.
Under Miss Barr: School roll and activities increased steadily.
1926: Preparatory Department opened with Miss N. Marshall in charge.
Growth continued: Numbers rose enough to require an assistant, showing the department was a success.