Historic Sites of Manitoba: Fairfax Consolidated School No. 1195 (Fairfax, Municipality of Grassland)

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

The Fairfax School District was established formally in Fairfax, in what is now the Municipality of Grassland, in August 1902. It became Fairfax Consolidated School in February 1913 when it merged with Crown School No. 184, St. Luke School No. 551, and Plainville School No. 562. The original one-room schoolhouse was replaced at that time with a two-room structure. The original building was sometimes used as an extra classroom until 1929, then served as a community hall. The school closed in 1964 and the district was formally dissolved in January 1966. The two-room school was demolished while the original school was moved to a farm on the old highway #10, north of the old Riverside Bridge, about N49.51146, W99.97925.

Principals

Period	Principal
1915-1918	Inez Adrienne Hill (1892-1988)
1918-1922	Olive M. Ross
1922-1924	Violet M. Adams
1924-1925	Henry Lambert Williams (1890-1976)
1925-1926	George Robert Farrar Prowse (1860-1946)
1926-1931	Clifford Garfield Saunders (1900-1991)
1931-1936	John Henry Doughty (1900-1958)
1936-1939	James Edwin Scarrow (1902-1982)
1939-1941	Kenneth Rutherford “Kenn” Jasper (1914-1991)
1941-1942	Jane Agnes Nisbet (1902-1959)
1942-1951	Frederick Alvin “Fred” Kirbyson (1913-2003)
1951-1953	?
1953-1954	Isabel Nicholson
1954-1959	Ronald Morris Bean (1922-2013)

Teachers

Among the teachers who worked at Fairfax School through the years were Joan Ayers (1913), Muriel Guppy (1917-1918), and Ila Clark Lang (1945-1947).

Photos & Coordinates

The original one-classroom Fairfax School (1913) Source: Ken Storie Two-classroom Fairfax School building (no date) by George Hunter Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs, GR8461, A0233, C131-2, page 75. Principal Inez A. Hill in her car beside the new (left) and old (right) Fairfax schools (no date) Source: Arnold Smith Primary class inside Fairfax school with teacher Muriel Guppy (1917-1918) Source: Arnold Smith The original one-classroom Fairfax School (no date) Source: Ken Storie Fairfax School commemorative monument (August 2010) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Site Coordinates (lat/long): N49.43511, W100.12769 denoted by symbol on the map above

Sources:

Annual Reports of the Manitoba Department of Education, Manitoba Legislative Library.

Pioneers to Present Years: History of Fairfax Consolidated School District by Fairfax Community Club, 1968. [Manitoba Legislative Library, F5649.F33 Pio]

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 Permit Teachers of World War II, compiled by Louisa Loeb, Winnipeg: Hyperion Press Ltd., 2007.

We thank Arnold Smith for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 3 October 2022

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