Melbourne Teachers' College

[1] The earliest formal system of teacher training in Victoria was provided by the National School Board at the Model School in East Melbourne, which was established in 1855, but closed in 1859 in favour of an apprentice-based pupil teacher training program.

It was felt that teachers would benefit from proximity to Melbourne University, and after years of negotiation, in 1887 four acres (1.657 hectares) of the south east corner of the grounds was provided to the Education Department.

When he became the Director of Education in 1902, Tate was replaced by John Smyth, who wanted all primary teachers to be trained in the latest methods.

[4] Smyth chose Emmeline Pye as one of his first recruits to lecture the college's students who were studying for an Infant Teachers' Certificate.

Interest was high and Pye demonstrated teaching methods at the Australian Exhibition of Women's Work in Melbourne in 1907.

Features include stained glass windows and ceramic tiled portraits commemorating the staff and students who served in the First World War.

[9] In 1977, Noel Flood (head of the Department of Ceramics) and John Teschendorff (lecturer in ceramics) held a two-man show titled "Recent Handcrafts and Other Objects", making a mocking reference to the popular view at the time of pottery as craft.