The Regent School District was formally established in May 1915 and a building, constructed at the newly established railway village of Regent, in what is now the Municipality of Deloraine-Winchester, opened in January 1916. The first teacher, Lauretta McEwan of Elgin, taught 21 students for an annual salary of $600. The school closed in June 1959 and its catchment area became part of Deloraine Consolidated School District No. 2448. The district was dissolved in January 1967.
On 28 June 1970, a commemorative monument was unveiled near the site of the former school, in front of the local church. Around 1978, the schoolhouse was moved to Riverside Hill near highway #10. Around 1993, it was moved to a site overlooking the Souris River (about N49.52915, W99.81275) where it was used for a time as a hunting shack.
The teachers of Regent School were Miss Lauretta McEwan (Jan 1916 - 1917), Mabel Notman (1917-1918), Barbara McEwan (1918-1920), Catherine Campbell (1920-1921), Freda Chapman (1921-1923), Irene Stewart (1923-1924), Edith M. Aitken (1924-1925), Esther A. Aitken (1925-1926), Mina Radcliffe (1926 - Mar 1928), Florence McKillop (Apr - Jun 1928), Helen Richardson (Aug 1928 - Mar 1929), Edith Ann Fingland (Apr - Jun 1929), Mary Leslie (1929-1930), Miss Margaret Horrocks (1930-1935), Mabel Render (1935-1937), Mary Anderson (1937-1938), Graham Smillie (1938-1939), Albert Brook (1939 - Jan 1940), Donald McLaurin Lamont (Jan - Jun 1941), Madeline Cassils (Aug 1941 - Jan 1942), Irene Witt (Feb - Jun 1942), Betty Barefoot Gerdis (1942-1945), Eva Godfrey (1945-1946), Merle Hopkins (1946-1947), Evelyn Mullett (1947-1950), Eileen Macdonald (1950-1951), Olive Holden (1951-1952), Gladys Weidenhamer (1952-1953), Margaret Brown (1953-1954), Kay Hunter (1954-1956), Margaret Makinson (1956-1957), Frank Schaak (1957-1958), and Alexander Sytnyk (1958-1959).
Regent School (circa 1917)
Source: Education Department Report, 1917, Manitoba Legislative Library.
Regent School (no date) by George Hunter
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-2, page 1.
Regent School commemorative monument unveiling with school district secretary-treasurer Bert Hatton at left and trustee and chairman W. L. “Bill” Fox at right and the former school building in the left background and the Regent United Church immediate behind the monument (June 1970)
Source: Barry More
Regent School commemorative monument (October 2011)
Source: Gordon Goldsborough
The former Regent School building at Riverside Hill (no date)
Source: Lois Grieve
The former Regent School building being moved to its present site (c1993)
Source: Lois Grieve
The former Regent School building (April 2021)
Source: Lory SabanSite Coordinates (lat/long): N49.34180, W100.31236
denoted by symbol on the map above
Our Heritage by Regent Women’s Institute, c1967, pages 54-55. [Manitoba Legislative Library, F5649.R44 Reg]
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.
Deloraine Scans a Century: 1880-1980 by Deloraine History Book Committee, 1980, pages 146-147.
We thank Lory Saban, Lois Grieve, and Barry More for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 1 May 2023
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