Mallacoota's first teacher arrived in far East Gippsland on 1 May 1906.¹ Laurence Kennedy left Cobram East State School, in the prosperous wheat and farming district on the Murray, in April. There he would have enjoyed all the amenities of an established country town -- a railway, churches, doctors, shops, a newspaper and even a cordial factory. His new posting was to be very different. Kennedy found himself, after a difficult week-long journey, in Victoria's most easterly coastal hamlet, 542 kilometres from Melbourne. This article tells the story of Mallacoota State School's history from its beginnings until the eve of the Second World War.

Academic research into the history of education in Australia is often concerned with exploring the role played by schools, education departments and education bureaucrats in the business of nation building.² Histories of small rural schools tend to be celebratory, tracing the stories of principals, teachers and students, and describing how the school experience has changed over time. This study takes a different approach. I am interested in the role the Mallacoota State School played in the community, not as a place of education, but as a part of a community's social and political landscape.³

At first glance the files for Mallacoota State School no. 3515 do not convey the tale of community unity that characterises many small school histories. Letters to the Education Department report scandals involving adultery, kidnapping, poisonings, drunken dances and striking parents. Such correspondence tells us much about the divisions within the community between families, and the struggles for power and influence in a small, isolated settlement. The school, being the only public building shared and in a sense 'owned' by the community, became at times one of the arenas where such rivalries could be played out. This article will argue that despite such tensions the school at Mallacoota came to represent to its people the hamlet's economic viability and future. Families were able at crucial times to put aside their rivalries and personal enmity and work to ensure the school's survival.

The Most Inaccessible Watering Place in Victoria
The two lakes at Mallacoota were the territory of the Maap people, part of the Kudingal or people who lived by fishing along the south-east coast of the continent.⁴ Archaeological surveys reveal that family groups lived and camped around the Inlet for thousands of years.⁵ The word 'Mallacoota' derives from the Aboriginal place name Malloketer, recorded by Chief Protector Robinson in 1844.⁶ Europeans moved into the area to take up cattle runs during the 1840s, encountering fierce opposition. The Mallacoota run was abandoned in 1847, but resumed in 1850. Licences changed hands frequently. Closer settlement came to East Gippsland relatively late in Victoria's white history with the 1884 Land Act.

When Laurence Kennedy arrived in 1906 he found a small farming and fishing community hugging the river and lake, ringed by dense forest and hills. The Wallagaraugh River flowed through forest from the small town of Genoa to feed the two lakes which opened out onto the sea. Mallacoota's scenic beauty and isolation earned it a reputation as a place of retreat where the wealthier and more adventurous 'tired brain worker' from the city could immerse himself in nature.⁷ Dorron's Lakeside Hotel, a small boarding house and pub, offered some accommodation. Unoccupied land surrounding the lakes was temporarily reserved as a National Park in 1909.⁸

The families living around the lake craved some of the conveniences the tourists were escaping. Here the post office operated from a farmhouse. There were no shops and there was no township. Only bush tracks snaked through the forest and the locals had to rely on small cutters negotiating a shallow sandbar to deliver basic supplies from Eden.⁹ During winter the settlement was often cut off for weeks by storms and flooded rivers. The nearest doctor was in Orbost or Eden, both more than a day's journey away. In summer the hamlet was threatened by bushfires. Surrounded by virgin forest, hemmed in by water, the locals were characterised as pioneers battling against nature to make a living.¹⁰

Edwin James Brady, bohemian poet and Bulletin writer, is Mallacoota's best known escapee from the city. Brady first came to Mallacoota in 1909 with the dream of setting up a writers' camp. He returned in 1914 and took up a selection. He owned a guesthouse and during the 1930s depression helped set up a community farm based on socialist principles.¹¹ His six children all attended Mallacoota State School. His correspondence regarding the school, both personal and official, provides a vivid insight into community unity and tensions. As a founding member of the Australian Labor Party, Brady had been involved in the radical politics and journalism of 1890s Sydney and was an experienced and at times aggressive lobbyist. Brady developed many schemes for East Gippsland's development and came to regard Mallacoota as 'a domain … peculiarly my own'.¹²