Historic Sites of Manitoba: Irvine School No. 1146 (Municipality of North Cypress-Langford)

The Irvine School District was organized formally in August 1901 and a one-room schoolhouse operated at SE22-13-14W in what is now the Municipality of North Cypress-Langford. In 1924, the building was moved to low level ground about a ¼ mile to the east. The school closed periodically due to low enrollment (1906-1907, 1951-1952, 1953-1955) then closed permanently in June 1956. The district was dissolved in 1967 and its area became part of the Wellwood Consolidated School District and later the Beautiful Plains School Division. The former school building was still standing at the site in 2003, being used as a granary. It was gone at the time of a 2015 site visit.

The teachers of Irvine School were Mabel Hudson, Bertha Lowry, Minnie Carrothers, Emma Gilbard, Nellie McLaren, Annie May Long, Mattie Halliday, Dora Jonasson, Mabel Peck, Mayme Allen (1914-1915), Catherine Boughton (1915-1918), Sadie Harvey (1918), Mayme Manders (1919), Percy Bicknell (1919-1922), Steven Quelch (1922), Winnifred Leathers (1923), Beulah Hoddinott (1924-1925), Olive Wells (1925-1926), Enid Wall (1926-1928), Margaret Mackie (1928-1929), Evelyn Strain (1929-1930), Edith Fleming (1930-1932), Olive Wells (1932-1933), Jean Brown (1933-1936), Sarah Wilson (1936-1938), Jean Graham (1938-1940), Julia McWilliams (1940-1942), Bernice Pool (1942-1943), Jean Ritchey (1943-1944), Lillian Vaughan (1944-1945), Mrs. Matilda Ames (1945-1946), Edith Northam (1946-1947), Mary Smythe (1947-1948), Elizabeth Wells (1948-1949), Frances Coey (1949-1950), Gwen McLaughlin (1950-1951), Maxine Tenant (1950-1951), Ethel Williams (1952-1953), Vera LeDrew (1953), and Doris Thompson (1955-1956).

Irvine School (no date) by W. C. Hartley Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs, GR8461, A0233, C131-2, page 66. The former Irvine School building (circa 1990) Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 549. Site of the former Irvine School building (April 2015) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Site Coordinates (lat/long): N50.10773, W99.30377 denoted by symbol on the map above

Sources:

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.

First Century of Langford, 1891-1991 by Langford Centennial History Committee, 1990, pages 51-54.

A Study of Public School Buildings in Manitoba by David Butterfield, Historic Resources Branch, Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism, 1994, 230 pages.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 27 April 2021

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