The Bonar Law School District was organized formally in March 1917, probably named for the Canadian-born English Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law (1858-1923). A one-room schoolhouse operated at NE24-14-8E in the Rural Municipality of Brokenhead. Following a 15 to 3 vote of local ratepayers in favour of commissioning a new school, the district borrowed $2,500 in January 1941 and the new schoolhouse was located at the southeast corner of NE24-14-8E. The district was dissolved in 1967 and its area became part of the Agassiz School Division.
Among the teachers of Bonar Law School was Mrs. Halstead (1918), Anne Marie Graffin (Fall 1944 - Spring 1945), Myrtle Ida Johnston (September 1946 - April 1948), Madeleine Constance Brown (May-June 1948), Ronald E. Fordon (August-September 1951), Ewald Roessler (October 1951 - June 1952), Rolf Midlebrath (1952-1953), Irene Mirwaldt (1953-1954), Myron Onyschuk (1955-1956), Henrietta Josephine Audoorn (1956-1957), Joyce Kindefora (1958-1960), Jean Carolyn Urbanski (1960-1961), Eduard Strick (1961-1962), Charlotte Erika Chranowski (1962-1963), Ruth Struss (1963-1964), Damaris Ardington (1964-1966), and Florence Helen Lashek (1967-1968).
Bonar Law School (no date) by J. E. S. Dunlop
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-3, page 56.
Bonar Law School (1918)
Source: Archives of Manitoba, Sisler WJ 266, N9695.Site Coordinates (lat/long): N50.20191, W96.36074
denoted by symbol on the map above
Molson West topographic map, West sheet, 62I/1, Edition 2, Series A743 [Archives of Manitoba].
One Hundred Years in the History of the Rural Schools of Manitoba: Their Formation, Reorganization and Dissolution (1871-1971) by Mary B. Perfect, MEd thesis, University of Manitoba, April 1978.
Manitoba School Records Collection, Bonar Law School District No. 1863 - Daily Registers, GR0565, Archives of Manitoba.
Manitoba School Records Collection, Bonar Law School District No. 1863 - Cash Book, GR0565, Archives of Manitoba.
Trustee records regarding geographically remote schools directly administered by Department (E 0166), File 1863 - Bonar Law - Permanent, GR1206, Archives of Manitoba.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough and Nathan Kramer.
Page revised: 11 December 2020
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