Edward often impatiently avoided bureaucratic procedures and appealed directly to ministers; or he utilised his excellent contacts to do so on his behalf. In December 1878 his maternal uncle, JT McGowan, a chemist and druggist of Ballarat, intervened with a letter to the Hon. Major Smith, Minister of Public Instruction, noting that Edward was an exceedingly good cricketer and would be most useful to the Ballarat Cricket Club.¹² In June the following year, McGowan received a guarantee that Edward's transfer would occur when convenient. In July 1879, Edward wrote to the Department restating his ambitions for a university career. Typically he had taken his case to a higher authority: 'During the Easter vacation I had a personal interview with the Inspector General who kindly made a special note of my case'.¹³ His Uncle Henry wrote to the Department and made a personal visit, while McGowan petitioned Henry Bell, Member for Ballarat West: 'If you would use your influence for me on this occasion with the Major at the Department, I should be very much obliged to you.'¹⁴ By August 1879, McGowan noted that he had been asking for a transfer for his nephew for two years and received the reassuring reply that special consideration would apply. In September, Edward's insistence and his family's interventions finally succeeded in an offer from the Department of a position as fifth assistant at State School 2022, MacArthur Street, Ballarat.¹⁵ Edward was 'chosen' from eleven applicants but in fact he paid a heavy price for this transfer. He was overqualified for the position (most of his competitors for the position were pupil-teachers), he accepted a demotion to fifth assistant and, unknown to him at the time, the transfer meant a considerable reduction in salary.

In September 1879, however, Edward looked forward to university studies, graduation, and a rising career. On the evening of 1 October, he and Mary married, took the next day for a honeymoon and returned to school on 3 October. Head teacher Charles Cookson slipped his letter informing the Department of their marriage into a drawer and promptly forgot about it. On 2 October, in an optimistic mood, Wollaston wrote to the Department requesting that his wife be transferred with him to Ballarat or, failing that, to Sandhurst, where her father resided. In the meantime, he made plans to attend his matriculation examination in December: 'If the Department can conveniently remove me soon, I intend paying for the first year's university course'. After bureaucratic delays, Edward finally left for Ballarat on Saturday, 8 November with the problem of Mary's transfer unresolved. Despite numerous pleas to an unyielding Department, she remained ill and alone at Alexandra for another nine months.

Tragically, Edward's plans for their future together began to unravel. After Mary requested two days' leave to obtain specialist medical advice in Melbourne, her husband advised the Department that she would resign her position due to 'a complaint beyond remedy'. A doctor's certificate identified Mary's illness as a large fibrous tumour of the womb, which was considered incurable but could be alleviated through rest. Faced with medical expenses and a single salary, Edward asked to remain in his present position and await promotion. Mary retired from the teaching service on 30 June and joined her husband at their residence in Lydiard Street, Ballarat.

Edward was only twenty-three years old while Mary was in her late thirties. He now found himself in Ballarat in a reduced position on a diminished salary with a wife not only in frail health but possibly mortally ill. He begged the Department to compensate his salary to its previous amount, maintaining that he had not realised his new position would result in a lower classification and lower wages. The Minister agreed to a special supplement that ceased on 1 July 1880 when such payments were cut. More seriously, due to impending legislative change, Edward's straitened circumstances threatened to become permanent. The implications of the imminent Public Service Act, the role of the Committee of Classifiers and the effect of 'Classification on present positions' concerned him deeply. He knew that without immediate promotion he would be permanently classified in the 5th class with a salary of £116, 'while many of my equals and juniors go into the 4^th or 3^rd classes ... simply because their present positions are higher than mine'. He requested that his case be put on a Department list of 'hard cases', 'as my claim to go into a higher class can only under such circumstances be investigated by the Classifiers who otherwise have no power to do so'.¹⁶

Edward's only other opportunity for an improved position was an immediate promotion to head teacher before the Public Service Act came into effect. For this to occur he had to obtain a first-class certificate of competency that included his ability to draw up a timetable. To pass this certificate, his timetable had to be inspected while in operation, and inspection could only be implemented if he was a head teacher in another school. Again his Uncle Henry intervened to secure an improved position for his nephew. Reverend Wollaston used his influence and political connections to prompt the Minister of Public Instruction to find Edward a temporary head teachership at a small country school. For Edward, this was a welcome change of luck. The year 1883 was not kind to his family. Mary's brother died in January and it is likely they also lost their first daughter, Ruby May, around this time. Moreover, his family was growing. Despite her illness, Mary was already pregnant with another child, Mary Beatrice, who was born in January 1884. They were to have another daughter, Frances Amy, born in 1886. Frances had a physical ailment, probably spinal, that required her to lie upon a sloping board at intervals during the day.¹⁷

By early 1884 Campbelltown State School 1129 had had four head teachers in four months due to its remote location and the poor condition of its teacher's residence, but for Edward it offered promotion and opportunity. With a confident flourish, he accepted the Department's offer of temporary head teacher. Over Easter, he and Mary, with four-month-old Mary Beatrice, packed their belongings in anticipation of their move. To their dismay, they were met with filthy conditions, scratched, stained and greasy walls, broken windows and a leaking tank. Cleaners had to be put to work to make the school and premises habitable in order to accommodate his family.¹⁸

Worse, for Wollaston, Campbelltown 1129 would become a testing ground for some of the thorny issues of the day: the relationship of church and state; the provision of secular education; the rights of teachers under the 1872 Act, the intrusion of government bureaucracy in the lives of its employees; political loyalty, expediency and, perhaps, dishonesty. Edward's elation at promotion soon gave way to a desperate bid to save his name and erase a serious charge against him, a charge that to this day is marked by a bright and unmistakeable red tag in his file. Years later, Charles Long was to write of Wollaston as having 'a unique place in the history of education in Victoria as the teacher who was fined £5 for conducting a church service in his school'.¹⁹ The unlikely labels of 'insubordination' and 'distinct insolence' are still written in Edward's file in Departmental red crayon.²⁰

It is doubtful whether, with his deeply religious Anglican background, Edward ever fully concurred with the provisions of the 1872 Education Act, particularly that section which stated that 'secular instruction only shall be given', and 'no teacher shall give any other than secular instruction in a State school building'. His father thought compulsory education was a radical plan to educate Catholic Irish 'peasant children' in order to 'put them on an equal footing with the most refined "Jack" in this colony ...'.²¹ As a newly appointed head teacher, however, Edward was compelled to act within the 1872 Act's parameters and took his duties seriously, both to the Department and to his own school community. Within weeks of arrival he was approached by residents of Campbelltown who wished their children to attend Sunday School classes. As the school building was the only public building available, Edward was asked to contact the school's Board of Advice for permission. Following the correct procedure, he wrote to JN Pritchard, Correspondent, and offered his own assistance to 'guarantee preservation of furniture etc.'. Inadvertently he addressed this letter not to the Board of Advice but to the Department of Education and it landed on the Secretary's desk. Mistaking Edward's offer of help to be potentially one of personal supervision of the Sunday School class, the Department curtly reminded him that Section 12 of the 1872 Act precluded him from giving religious instruction in state schools and that he therefore was not permitted to provide assistance to Sunday classes in the Campbelltown school building.²²