Link to:
Principals | Vice-Principals | Teachers | Photos & Coordinates | Sources
Before the town of Roland began, Lowestoft School No. 509 was built in 1888 at SE28-4-4W, approximately three kilometres southeast of the eventual town site. Pupils from the surrounding district, as well as the developing town, which began in 1889, received their early education at this school. The first teacher, hired in 1888, was Miss Maggie Brooks.
With the development of Roland, it was decided to build a two-room school in the town in 1898, on the site of the present school. Because the school developed so rapidly, this school proved to be inadequate and a larger, two-storey brick school was built in 1904, at a cost of $9,000, on a design by Winnipeg architect Henry Sandham Griffith.
The 1904 school served the community until 1959 when a modern one-storey brick school was built on a design by the Winnipeg architectural firm of Ward and Macdonald. It featured six classrooms and two assembly-rooms/classrooms. In 1961, an addition to the school was made due to increased enrolment. Fire destroyed this school on 23 March 1967. By the Fall of 1967, a new school was built to serve the elementary students only. From then on, high school students were transported to Carman or Miami.
Period
Principal
1900-1903
A. E. Vrooman
1903-1906
W. G. Dunkley
1906-1908
Henry Edward Chaplin (1876-1935)
1908-1909
Thomas Walter Halligan (1875-1934)
1909-1910
Norman Brett
1911-1914
Winfred Elmore Marsh (1872-1932)
1915-1916
George Robert Farrar Prowse (1860-1946)
1916-1919
William John Gordon Scott (1885-1953)
1919-1920
G. O. Durnin
1920-1921
Edmund Herbert Leighton (1883-1954)
1921-1924
F. H. Anderson
1924-1927
Dwight Nugent Ridd (1900-1976)
1927-1935
George Patrick Stevens (c1888-1988)
1935-1941
Eleanor Boyce (1898-1997)
1941-1942
Ross Emerson Vasey (1910-2001)
1942-1943
M. G. Lysenko
1943-1956
Victor Harvey Hugo (1888-1972)
1956-1957
G. A. Hamel
1957-1961
David Wallace Shaw (1932-2008)
1961-1964
A. L. Petkau
1964-1966
N. J. McQuarrie
1966-1967
Walter Abram Toews (1923-2006)
?-?
Dorothy Irene Madill Hudson (1931-2014)
No information.
Roland School (1913)
Source: Archives of Manitoba, Roland - School.
Postcard view of the Roland School (no date)
Source: Rob McInnes, MN0316.
Roland School (no date) by J. W. Gibson
Source: Gordon Goldsborough, 2015-0053
Roland Schools commemorative sign (September 2010)
Source: Gordon GoldsboroughSite Coordinates (lat/long): N49.36599, W97.93547
denoted by symbol on the map above
See also:
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Rowland School No. 470 (RM of Prairie Lakes)
Annual Reports of the Manitoba Department of Education, Manitoba Legislative Library.
“Tenders for Roland School,” Winnipeg Free Press, 11 May 1959, page 38.
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.
We thank Rob McInnes and Nathan Kramer for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 25 February 2024
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