Historic Sites of Manitoba: Bradwardine School No. 1307 / Bradwardine Pioneers Monument (Bradwardine, Municipality of Riverdale)

Link to:
Principals | Vice-Principals | Teachers | Photos & Coordinates | Sources

A pair of monument were erected on the former site of Bradwardine Consolidated School No. 1307, at Bradwardine in what is now the Municipality of Riverdale. The monument, one dedicated in 1970 and the other in 2003, commemorate the pioneers of the Ancrum, Tarbolton, and Bradwardine areas, and to those who built the Bradwardine Community Hall and the Bradwardine Royal Canadian Legion Branch No. 179.

The first school at Bradwardine, a one-classroom structure, was built in 1905. Bradwardine Consolidated resulted from the 1915 consolidation of Bradwardine School with Ancrum School No. 329. A second classroom was added to the original building. Over the years, other rural schools in its vicinity closed and their students came here: Tarbolton School No. 297 (1948) and Spring Valley School No. 649 (1959). A new three-room school building was erected in 1956. It closed in 1961 and the Rolling River School Division arranged in July 1969 to move the building to Rivers where it was joined to the Rivers Collegiate.

Principals

Period

Principal

1917-1918

Mr. Murphy

1918

Miss Barns

1919

Miss Gray

1920

Miss Hurst

1920-1932

Cecil Victor Gunn (1894-1981)

1932-1936

Mr. A. E. Avery

1936-1943

Albert Lionel “Ab” Richardson (1910-1982)

1943-1944

Mr. B. Hodkinson

1944-1945

Miss Phoebe Belcher

1945-1946

Miss Corrine Middleton

1946-1947

Benjamin Franklin Olson (1898-1981)

1947-1950

Penelope Helena Mastaway “Nellie/Pennie” Tuba (1923-2019)

1950

Mr. D. F. Patterson

1950-1951

Alex Smith

1951-1954

Anton “Tony” Rittaler (1917-2008)

1954-1961

Arnold James Nicholls (1929-2003)

Teachers

School Year

Teachers

1920-1921

Miss M. M. Leeson, H. I. Lindsay

Among the teachers who worked at Bradwardine School were Ruby F. Donald (1905), Leslie E. Grace (1905), Rev. Handcock (1907), Wallace Graham (1907), Miss Noble (1907), Miss F. A. McNair (1908), Miss M. Dunbrock (1909), Bessie Archibald (1910), Elsie K. Gardner (1911), Miss Wall (1915-1917), Miss Parsons (1918), Miss Bell (1924), Mary Barr (1925), Miss Lund (1927), Miss Lambert (1929), Miss R. White (1932), Jean C. Hunter (1934), Miss A. B. Sedgewick (1936), Isabel Prowse Lamb (1941), Alva Richardson (1943), Mary E. Cole (1943), Joan Bunting (1944), Miss K. Reddon (1946), Louise Garnett (1947), Marie Hooey (1948), Molly Cormack (1949), Mary Lowe (1950), Gladys Graham (1955-1962), Mrs. Charles Howell (1956), Helen Milne (1958-1962), Josephine Wilkes (1962), Beatrice Hutton (1963), Graham Murray (1963), Mary Cole (1964-1968), Miron Paul Swintak (1964), Eldon Robinson (1966-1968), Mrs. Florence (1967), and Phyllis Leslie (1968).

Photos & Coordinates

The former Bradwardine School building

The former Bradwardine School building (no date) by J. B. Morrison
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-2, page 95.

The former Bradwardine School building

The former Bradwardine School building (circa 1986)
Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 257.

Bradwardine pioneers commemorative monuments

Bradwardine pioneers commemorative monuments (September 2011)
Source: Gordon Goldsborough

Bradwardine pioneers commemorative monuments

Bradwardine pioneers commemorative monuments (June 2023)
Source: Kathryn Hyndman

Site Coordinates (lat/long): N49.99715, W100.46264
denoted by symbol on the map above

Sources:

“Teachers at the convention,” Brandon Sun, 15 October 1920, page 6.

“Tender,” Rivers Gazette Reporter, 3 July 1969, page 4.

“Teacher changes at R.C.I.”, Rivers Gazette Reporter, 21 August 1969, page 1.

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.

Bradwardine and District: A Century and More, 1880-2003 by Bradwardine History Book Committee, 2003.

We thank Keith Maitland, Nathan Kramer, Kathryn Hyndman, David Ford, and Darryl Toews for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 6 April 2024

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