HISTORY

Winifred West was a great educationalist. In 1913 she founded Frensham, a boarding school for girls at Mittagong. She was headmistress for the next twenty-five years. After her retirement in 1941 she founded Sturt.

Winifred West was passionate about teaching – in its purest forms. She was a foundation member of the New Education Fellowship when the NSW sector was formed in 1937. In 1938, she was a prime mover in the formation of the Berrima District Education Club. It was the New Education Fellowship which ran the annual Summer School of Creative Arts at Frensham over many years.

Winifred West stressed the importance of Australians learning to take their place in the larger world as Australians. She believed in the ideal of service – to the school, to neighbours, to the community, to the world. Above all, she stressed the importance of creative activities and participation in the Arts. It was therefore, a logical progression that led to her founding of Sturt in 1941 (with as capital, the sum which had been given to her as a present on her retirement from Frensham). For Winifred West, Sturt became a site for teaching in a much broader sense – teaching spinning, weaving, pottery and poetry writing. But Winifred West also stressed that she had no exact idea in her mind of how Sturt should grow.

In the 1940s, Sturt quickly expanded with various activities which included adult classes, musical gatherings, reading groups, drama events and the children’s library for a short time. In 1951, Sturt established it’s first professional workshop with the arrival of a succession of master weavers from Germany.  The weaving studio became an important production and commissioning centre during the 60s and 70s. Part-time classes in weaving are still taught today. Ivan McMeekin established Sturt Pottery in 1953 as a production and teaching centre.  The pottery became a unique and significant place in post Second World War ceramics, due partly to the presence of high profile potters such as Les Blakebrough, John Edye, Ian McKay and Campbell Hegan. With Paul Davis as current Head of Pottery this strong tradition continues today. Sturt School for Wood, established in 1985 by Alan Wale, and with Tom Harrington as the current Director, has produced some of Australia’s finest makers in wood through its full-time fine woodworking course.

‘Life Means This To Me’

Excerpts below from ABC Radio Broadcast as titled above, of Winifred West speaking on 7th December, 1944

“……Then there are circles to which we are linked through our intellects and imagination.  The wider the circle the less apparent the bond; but there is a bond, invisible and insubstantial, but indissoluble.  This vast and varied world is a whole of which we are an integral part.  Two world wars should have taught us that……

With all our improvement in material standards of living, we may succeed in building a Utopia without a soul, producing robots instead of men, and a technical civilisation, which cannot last because it has not the roots of life in it.  Machinery has already deprived man of his creative impulses and opportunities.  The urge to do creative work is inherent in man.  One of the most satisfying experiences in life comes from making beautiful things for use.  There is a sense of fulfillment in such work well done……”