[3] Reverend Samuel Marsden was instructed by Macquarie on 2 February 1811 to consecrate the burial grounds at the new towns on the Hawkesbury including Wilberforce.
His Order of 11 May 1811 strongly recommended to parents and family heads "The Education and Instruction of the Youth of both Sexes being an Object of the utmost Importance, as laying the Foundation of many Advantages to the rising Generations".
[13][1] Convicted London joiner and carpenter James Gough (1790-1876) who arrived on the Earl Spencer in 1813 and gained his conditional pardon in 1821, won the private contract to build a school at Wilbeforce.
[22][1] One of the schoolhouse pupils of this period was Fred Ward, born in Windsor in 1835, who later adopted the alias Captain Thunderbolt as the last of the professional bushrangers of NSW.
An area of 3 acres 1 rood 21 perches was granted to William Bragg, John Henry Fleming and James Rose Buttsworth as trustees of the schoolhouse site (T-shaped parcel of land) under Church of England.
[40][1] After architect Edmund T. Blacket approved the work completed up to 27 April 1857 by J Atkinson amounting in value to A£648, the bulk of funds voted by parliament were transferred to the church.
[1] The school house is a two-storey Colonial Georgian building with a hipped roof and ground floor verandah to the west and south.
His scheme of establishing a school, church and burial ground at an elevated and/or central position was completely realised at Wilberforce during his governorship.
His creation of these towns in 1810 was an important expression of the developmental philosophy of settlement coupled with deliberate social engineering to control convict society and to implant a moral economy into their lifestyles.
The establishment of the Schoolhouse demonstrated the importance Governor Macquarie attached to educating the children of the emancipated convicts of the Hawkesbury who constituted the rising generation of colonial freeborn.
[1] St John's Anglican Church and Macquarie Schoolhouse was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 20 August 2010 having satisfied the following criteria.
His scheme of establishing a school, church and burial ground at an elevated and/or central position was fully realised at Wilberforce during his governorship.
His creation of these towns on the Hawkesbury in 1810 was an important expression of the developmental philosophy of settlement coupled with deliberate social engineering to control convict society and to implant a moral economy and education of the young into their lifestyles.
The establishment of the Schoolhouse demonstrated the importance Governor Macquarie attached to educating the children of the emancipated convicts of the Hawkesbury who constituted the rising generation of colonial freeborn.
It meets this criterion of State significance because the Wilberforce Schoolhouse and its site have a close association with Governor Lachlan Macquarie.
His scheme of establishing a school, church and burial ground on an elevated and/or central position was fully realised at Wilberforce during his governorship.
His creation of these towns in 1810 was an important expression of the developmental philosophy of settlement coupled with deliberate social engineering to control convict society and to implant a moral economy into their lifestyles.
The establishment of the Schoolhouse demonstrated the importance Governor Macquarie attached to educating the children of the emancipated convicts of the Hawkesbury who constituted the rising generation of colonial freeborn.
The Macquarie schoolhouse is of high aesthetic significance as a surviving and reasonably intact substantial Old Colonial Georgian building.
It meets this criterion of State significance because the Macquarie schoolhouse was the focus for education in Wilberforce until the 1870s whilst the schoolhouse and its successor St John's Church in association with its cemetery have been the core of religious activity in Wilberforce until the present day providing an unbroken chain of use and association for the community stretching back for nearly 200 years.
The present church community at Wilberforce is a strong one, with worshippers drawn from beyond the Hawkesbury and is larger than the size of the village would suggest.
The commanding position of the site, with the schoolhouse and St John's Church, plus the associated burial ground, have provided a strong and visible focus for community identity.
As the community grew, younger sons and the adventurous set out to settle newer lands, a process that continued throughout the nineteenth century.
Only at Wilberforce is there tangible physical evidence of the manner in which Macquarie implemented his policy of social engineering through town planning with the civilising elements of education and religion at the core.
A combined school and church at the centre of town or in a high position, coupled with a cemetery where all people were directed to inter their dead continually exposed former convicts to these influences with greater or lesser impact.
The loss of key elements of the same combinations in the other towns he established means that only at Wilberforce can the full physical, sensory and aesthetic impact of this scheme be experienced.
It meets this criterion of State significance because Governor Lachlan Macquarie's scheme of establishing a school, church and burial ground on an elevated and/or central position was fully realised at Wilberforce during his governorship.
His creation of these towns was an important expression of the developmental philosophy of settlement coupled with deliberate social engineering to control convict society and to implant a moral economy into their lifestyles.
The church of St John completed in 1859 to the design of architect Edmund T Blacket added an additional element which secured the continued use of this site for its original purpose.
Features that are typical of the style include the steeply pitched roof, high quality stonework, belfry, chancel and narrow pointed arched windows.