Mitcham Primary School, Adelaide, background:

The first primary school in the state, from Mitcham Primary School website:

http://www.mitchamps.sa.edu.au/PrincipalsWelcome.html

Welcome to Mitcham School

On behalf of our school community we welcome you to our school web site. Mitcham School has a proud heritage, being the first primary school in the state, and in our opinion, the best. Our community is extremely supportive as it values education highly and recognises the school as the hub of our community.

Our core value is for a love of learning and of life, predicated through Care, Cooperation, Courtesy and Common Sense. These are the "Four Cs" that underpin our culture.

Ours is a school with an exemplary record of academic. sporting, civic and social success. We are proud of our record, and proud of the work we do with our students. We trust that you enjoy our website and invite your questions via email, telephone or facsimile, the numbers and addresses for which are on the home page.

Steve Adams, Primary Principal, and Suzie Sangster, Junior Primary Principal.

Wiki states:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitcham_Primary_School

Mitcham Primary School is school in Adelaide, Australia. It was founded in 1847 and was one of the first primary schools in the state Its current principal is Steve Adams.

From ‘Schools in the Mitcham District, a chronology’. Mitcham Public School, listed as the first school, established in 1847.

http://www.mitchamcouncil.sa.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/Schools_in_the_Mitcham_District.pdf

1847Mitcham community appointed former cabinet maker, Thomas Mugg as a school teacher for their children. The Mitcham Public School became the longest surviving public school in South Australia. By 1862 it was recorded that Thomas Mugg taught 23 boys and 13 girls, a total of 36, with an average attendance of 31. According to the later writings of both Thomas Playford and William Finlayson, Mr Mugg's teaching was limited to 'the three Rs'.

Also at:

http://www.mitchamcouncil.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=1144

Education also played an important role of Mitcham. At the time of proclamation there were 3 schools; Thomas Mugg's Village school conducted in the Union Chapel at Mitcham; the day school in the first St Mary's Church of England; and Reverend Samuel Gill's school at Coromandel Valley.

In 1877 the first government owned public school was built at Mitcham, reputed to be the longest continuous running school in the State having been established by Thomas Mugg in 1847.

The school was established by non-conformists (Baptists) and was first located in the Union Chapel at Mitcham.

http://www.mitchamcouncil.sa.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/Baptist_Churches_in_Mitcham.pdf

1846 'Union Chapel' built in the village green (nowMitcham Reserve). It accommodated dissenting (non-Anglican) Protestant services and was also used as aschool room from 1847 until 1870.

Close friends of Thomas Mugg were William Findlay and Thomas Playford, the three were also founders of the Mitcham (dissenters) General Cemetery.

Thomas Playford (1795-1873) was born in Yorkshire and joined the British Army at the age of 15. After 21 years of military service and a brief visit to Canada, he eventually settled in Mitcham in 1844 where he built his home 'Jerusalem'. He was the first minister of what would later become the Mitcham Baptist Church and was involved in the formation of churches in Gumeracha, Norton's Summit, Burnside and at Bentham Street in Adelaide. Along with fellow church member Thomas Mugg and William Finlayson, he was one of the founding trustees of the Mitcham General (originally dissenter's) Cemetery. The Baptist Union managed the cemetery from 1913 until it was taken over by the Mitcham Council in 1957.

Thomas Playford, friend of Thomas Mugg, has an interesting family history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Playford_IV

The Playford family heritage can be traced back to 1759, when a baby boy was left at the door of a house in Barnby Dun, Yorkshire, England, with a note to christen the child 'Thomas Playford'. The occupants of the house, who were to raise the child, were given instructions to receive money from a bank account for the deed.[1] The child grew up to be a simple farmer in the village, and had a son in 1795 who he

christened 'Thomas Playford'. The tradition of naming the firstborn son in the family in this way has continued since.[2]

Thomas Playford I, soldier and pastor. He was the second Thomas Playford and the first to have lived in South Australia.

The second Playford was something of a loner, but at the age of 15 he developed a relationship with a girl five years his senior with whom he fathered a child. In order to avoid the social stigma of the situation,[3] and on the advice of his parents, Playford enlisted in the British Army in 1810. While three years under the acceptable age, Playford's height (6 ft 2 in) enabled him to pass as eighteen.[3] He spent 24 years in the service of the Life Guards, fighting all over Europe in Portugal, Spain and France, including the Battle of Waterloo at the age of 20.[4]

While a soldier, Playford became a devout Christian, and journeyed and listened to many different churches and sermons. He was sceptical of many pastors and church men, dismissing their "high sounding barren words".[5] He left the Life Guards in 1834, received a land grant in Canada for his service, and journeyed there with his wife and family. His wife and a child died in the country, so he and his remaining kin returned to England.[6] He worked as a historian for the Life Guards until 1844 when he migrated to the then-province of South Australia. Playford became a pastor there, built a property at Mitcham, and preached regularly for his own 'Christian Church', which was essentially Baptist in character.[7]

The third Playford, Thomas Playford II, was born at Bethnal Green, London in 1837 to the second wife of Pastor Playford.[6] He was raised on the Mitcham property in South Australia, was intellectual and bookish, and wished to go the prestigious St Peter's College to study law. He was rebuked by his father and subsequently became a farmer like his predecessors, buying property at Norton Summit and growing vegetables, plums and apples

The influential Thomas Playford III:

http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110251b.htm

His eldest son was educated at Thomas Muggs' school at Mitcham. He wished to be a lawyer but his father said, 'I would just as soon article you to the Devil'.

He returned to parliament in 1875 for the neighbouring electorate of East Torrens which he represented until 1887. During this period Playford left his mark as a reforming commissioner of crown lands and immigration, holding that portfolio in February-June 1876, October 1877–June 1881 and February-June 1885. He was also commissioner of public works in June 1884–February 1885. In 1882 he travelled round the world, visiting Italy, France, Britain, the United States of America and New Zealand.

Losing East Torrens at the election of March 1887, next month Playford was returned for the far northern electorate of Newcastle. From June 1887 to June 1889 he was premier and treasurer. The most notable achievement of his government was the introduction of South Australia's first systematic tariff. The adoption of a policy as

strongly protective as that operating in Victoria was mainly due to the exertions of his close friend and protégé, the radical attorney-general, Charles Cameron Kingston. They both attended the inter-colonial conference in June 1888, where Playford strongly supported moves to restrict Chinese immigration. Legislation passed during Playford's first term of office secured payment of members of parliament, at a salary of £200 a year.

At the election of April 1890 Playford returned to East Torrens. In August he formed his second ministry and held office until June 1892. He was treasurer until January 1892 and thereafter commissioner of crown lands and immigration. His government observed neutrality during the maritime strike. He visited India early in 1892 to investigate the suitability of coolie labour for limited-term employment in the Northern Territory, then part of South Australia. Nothing came of the matter. Playford was again a successful treasurer. All his budgets achieved a surplus and he substantially reduced the state debit. In June 1893 Kingston brought together the various 'liberal' groups and formed a ministry which remained in office with Labor Party support until 1899, a record-breaking term. Playford was appointed treasurer in the new ministry but retired in April 1894 to become agent-general in London. On his way to London he represented South Australia at the Colonial Conference in Ottawa.

More on Thomas Playford:

http://webjournals.alphacrucis.edu.au/journals/adeb/p/playford-thomas-1795-1873/

Playford had no clearly defined religious views, but attended the Church of England on Sunday mornings and worshipped with Wesleyans or Dissenters in the evening. Then in the late 1820s he began studying the Bible, prayed for divine guidance, believed he saw visions and joined a Wesleyan Methodist society. In 1833 he also attended the newly-founded Catholic Apostolic Church to hear Edward Irving, whose preaching on the second advent was drawing large congregations. Playford was deeply influenced by premillennialism, with its emphasis on the imminent return of Christ. In 1834, on discharge from the army, he migrated with his family to Upper Canada to take up a government land grant. This venture was unsuccessful and he returned to London where he was employed in the preparation of a series of official regimental histories. There he came under the influence of the Rev Robert Aitken, who had been a Church of England clergyman and then a Methodist preacher. Rejected by the Wesleyans, Aitken formed the 'Christian Society' in 1835, but later returned to the ministry of the Church of England. In 1837 Playford joined Aitken's White's Row Chapel, Spitalfields, in London, where he soon became a class leader and elder. In Aitken's absence, he also began preaching though his premillennial views caused dissension. In 1837 he married Mary Ann Perry, by whom he had seven children. She died on 27 April 1872. Their eldest son was Thomas Playford, premier of South Australia in 1887-89 and 1890-92.

In 1844 Playford migrated with his family to SA where he had bought a town acre in Adelaide seven years earlier. He bought land at Mitcham, where he farmed and preached at a local chapel. He also became a class leader and local preacher for the

Methodist New Connexion chapel in Hobson Place, Adelaide. In 1848 those who agreed with his teaching on the imminent second advent formed an independent congregation, describing themselves as 'believers in Christ with no other name but that of Christians'. They practised baptism by immersion and open membership and believed that the dead slept until the resurrection. From voluntary contributions they built their own chapel in Bentham Street in Adelaide with accommodation for four hundred. Playford acted as pastor, without ordination or stipend, for the rest of his life. In addition, he regularly preached at various places in the Adelaide area including Hindmarsh, where another 'Christian' congregation was founded in 1867. A secession from Bentham Street Christian Church over the question of going into debt (which Playford opposed) led to the formation in 1856 of Zion Chapel in Pultney Street, Adelaide, pastored by Jacob Abbott and William Finlayson. Meanwhile, Playford became a well-known religious figure in Adelaide. In 1849 he was a founding committee member of the Adelaide Benevolent and Strangers' Friend Society, and in the early years of his ministry he maintained close relations with the Baptists. He published several collections of 'discourses' and compiled a Christian Hymn Book, of which about one-quarter were his own compositions. In 1867, as Pastor Playford's health became more frail, Bentham Street Christian Church appointed Henry Hussey (q.v.) as his assistant.

William Finlayson’s son, John Harvey Finlayson, educated at George Mugg’s school in Mitcham:

http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A040181b.htm

FINLAYSON, JOHN HARVEY (1843-1915), newspaper editor, was born on 3 February 1843 at Mitcham, South Australia, the third child of William Finlayson and his wife Helen, née Harvey. He was educated at George Mugg's school, Mitcham, and the Adelaide Educational Institution, where his scholastic record attracted the attention of the proprietors of the South Australian Register. He joined its literary staff in December 1861, soon showed ability at parliamentary and law reporting, became chief of the reporting staff in 1866 and contributed leading articles. He also wrote on agricultural subjects for Farm and Garden and the Observer. In 1876 he travelled in America and Europe, reporting on the Philadelphia Exhibition and appointing foreign correspondents for the Register. On his return he was invited to become a proprietor, and in 1878 succeeded John Howard Clark as editor.

Finlayson was appointed a justice of the peace in 1880, and a commissioner for the Adelaide Jubilee International Exhibition of 1887 and for South Australia in the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1888. He was chairman of the Distressed Farmers' Seed Wheat Fund, established by the Register in the 1890s, and as a councillor of the South Australian Acclimatization Society attended the fourth International Congress of Zoologists in London in 1898. Failing health induced him to resign the editorship in 1899; he made his fourth journey to England and settled in London as correspondent for the Register. He visited South Australia in 1904 and returned finally in 1908 to retire at North Adelaide where he died on 30 March 1915.

As a member of the Congregational Church, one of Finlayson's most consistent interests was free, secular, compulsory education, which he advocated not only as an editor but in the Parliamentary Club of the North Adelaide Young Men's Society and the Education League which he helped to found. He also served on the North Adelaide School Board of Advice.