By Najma Sambul
A council in Melbourne’s west is fighting for state protection of two 80-year-old school buildings it says are integral to Victoria’s industrial history, as locals say there is a heritage bias towards the eastern suburbs.
The former Sunshine Technical School on Derby Road, Sunshine, was opened in 1913. It was the state’s first technical school that established a specialised girls’ school, the Sunshine Girls’ Technical School, in 1921.
Local community advocate Neil Head outside the former Sunshine Technical School on Derby Road, Sunshine, which was not recommended for state heritage listing earlier this year.Credit: Chris Hopkins
It was built by contributions from local industrialist Hugh Victor McKay, who founded the Sunshine Harvester Works, one of Australia’s largest agriculture machinery manufacturers.
In the school’s heyday, working-class boys and girls in the western suburbs took up subjects such as woodwork and joinery, plumbing, metalwork, needlework, dressmaking, millinery and cookery. The school closed in 1991 before becoming the senior campus of Sunshine Secondary College.
The City of Brimbank nominated the two school buildings including the Nash Block (former Sunshine Girls’ Technical College) and the Henty Wing (former Sunshine Boys’ Technical College) to be placed on the Victorian Heritage Register, after a fierce community campaign stopped the state government from razing them in 2020.
But this year, the executive director of Heritage Victoria said the buildings, owned by the Department of Education, should not be included in the Heritage Register.
In the submission, it was noted that there were better examples of schools in a moderne style already on the register such as Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School and Emily McPherson College, which are not in Melbourne’s west.
The former Sunshine Technical School was saved by community members from a planned demolition in 2020.Credit: Chris Hopkins
Now, Brimbank Council is planning to appeal against the recommendation to the Heritage Council with a hearing due to take place in late October.
Local community advocate Neil Head, who has made a submission supporting the heritage bid, said the history of the western suburbs and its pivotal role in Victoria’s industrial legacy was being overlooked. The buildings’ role in women’s trade education was particularly noteworthy, Head said.
“It would be hard to imagine anything more significant,” he said. “Women from all backgrounds, including migrant backgrounds, would have come through those corridors.”
Head said the Victorian Heritage Register needed to include more sites in the western suburbs. “As a casual observer, there seems to be bias towards eastern suburbs,” he said. “There’s more clout on one side of the city than the other.”
There are 106 state-listed heritage places in Melbourne’s western suburbs and 116 in the eastern suburbs, according to the state government.
At present, there are only 13 places in the City of Brimbank on the Victorian Heritage Register. “It’s a very big and populous municipality with very few state heritage sites,” said Head.
In comparison, the City of Boroondara, in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, has 57 places on the state register. In the south-east, the City of Stonnington has 71.
The Henty Wing of the former Sunshine Technical School at 129 Derby Road, Sunshine.Credit: Chris Hopkins
Professor Charles Sowerwine, heritage committee chair at the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, the peak body for Victoria’s 340 local history societies, disputed the final findings of the report and an assertion made that there was “no evidence of a strong or special attachment to the former Sunshine Technical College”.
“I don’t think they [Heritage Victoria] gave enough weight to the very real community support owing to the outreach the school had in that community, which is a working-class community. There’s still an old boys’ and old girls’ network,” he said.
Sowerwine, who is supporting the council with a submission on behalf of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, said getting state protection for the buildings was essential despite the buildings having a local heritage overlay.
“The problem with the local heritage overlays in recent years is that the Education Department have been basically overriding it so that it doesn’t provide the protection that it was intended to,” he said.
The former Sunshine Technical School site is vacant with some options for interim use being considered, which include consultation with Brimbank City Council.
A spokesperson for the Victorian School Building Authority said the site was being “retained for future education use given the population growth expected in the local area”.
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