College on the hill

Abstract

With the appointment in 1927 of the Member for Armidale D.H. Drummond as Minister for Education, already education-rich Armidale was quickly selected as the site for the first teacher training college in Australia to be built outside the metropolitan areas. Like residents of rural New South Wales in general, voters in New England and the north-west had been unhappy at what was seen as preferential treatment for city dwellers. Supporters of the New State Movement viewed the possibility of locating a teacher training college in this region as one means of addressing the drift of educated young people to Sydney. "A country college for country students" became the catch cry, and hopes were held that a non-metropolitan teacher training college would help overcome difficulties in staffing rural schools. Following the establishment in 1928 of the Armidale Teachers' College the southern skyline of the city soon came to be dominated by the splendid building created to house its staff and students.