A history of public school teachers' organisations in New South Wales, 1855 to 1945

Abstract

From the beginnings of a system of public education in New South Wales in the middle of the nineteenth century the teachers attempted to form organisations to represent their many interests. Before 1895 they had not succeeded in forming lasting organisations but by the first years of the twentieth century the foundations of a teachers’ trade union and professional organisation were laid. Although reconstituted in 1918, this organisation has had a stable existence throughout the educational changes, wars and depression of this century. The themes traced through this story include the relationship between teachers’ organisations and educational administrators, the aspects of teachers’ work experience reflected in their organisations, the development of institutions concerned with both ’professional’ and ’industrial’ matters and the relationship of teachers’ social and political attitudes to those of other groups in society.