Menai Public School Roll of Honour

Major Thomas Mitchell explored the area between Sydney and Wollongong. He decided that the best route between the two places would be through the area we know as Menai. Subsequently Old Illawarra Road was surveyed and constructed between1843 to 1845. The first family to move to the area was that of Owen Jones who took up land in 1895 in the area now known as Bangor. The Midgley family settled in the Menai area in 1895. In 1896 Government grants became available for settlement and people moved from other parts of Shire as land there was comparatively cheaper though produce had to be taken to markets via a ferry at either Lugarno or Tom Uglys.

 A school was opened in May 1902 in the front room of the home of Mr Owen Jones, the temporary teacher being Miss Mary Richardson until July of that year when Henrietta McAnene was appointed . Enrolments continued to grow so a new school was built, being opened in December 1903. Miss McAnene was replaced by Mary Ann Gillespie in 1913.

The opening of the first bridge over Woronora River in 1912 had resulted in an influx of more new residents to the area.  With the outbreak of WW1 a number of young men from the area, some past pupils of the school,  volunteered for active service. Teacher Mary Ann Gillespie, later organised an Honour Roll for the district, funded by local donations, commemorating eleven former pupils and local residents from the area who had served, some making the supreme sacrifice. A timber Roll of Honour, with names inscribed in gold was placed at the old Menai School. These buildings have served a number of different purposes but still remain, located across the road from Dan Murphy’s.

The new Menai Public School was built in 1987 in Hall Drive so the Roll of Honour was relocated to the new site and can be found there today in the entry to the administration area .

To discover more details of the servicemen named on this memorial click on the heading, then on to one on the names listed at the bottom of the page.

Biographies of these servicemen can be found in SERVICE AND SACRIFICE, Sutherland Shire Memorials 1914-1918,  by Marilyn Handley and Susanne Hewitt, 2015, available from Botany Bay Family History Society, 02 9523 8948, P.O.Box 1006, Sutherland, NSW, 1499.

References:

Menai Primary School Centenary, 1902-2002

Service and Sacrifice, Sutherland Shire Memorials 1914-1918, 2015, Marilyn Handley and Susanne Hewitt

Sutherland Shire A History, 2006, Paul Ashton, Jennifer Cornwall, Annette Salt