During the 1870s, the number of settlers in the district where our Hazell, Stair and Nebauer ancestor families had settled in the 1870s was growing and there was an increasing need for schools to be opened for the education of the children. The education department at the time was petitioned for the opening of two small schools, one in the small town of Giants Creek (at the eastern end of the creek itself) and another at the western end at Gungal.
Gungal Public School
In this part of the district education did not run as smoothly as it had done at Giant’s Creek. It had more than it’s (sic) share of ups and downs, school closures, changes in buildings and school sites. The education authorities considered Gungal to be people by families all inter-related, ignorant and the area to be unfortunate one.
During the 1870s James Peberdy of Gungal employed a governess to teach his four sons, but by the second half of the 1870s a need for a school was voiced by the local residents. An application for a provisional school was sent to the Department dated 10.4.1877 and signed by James Peberdy, Michael Murphy and Edwin Horne. At that time Giants Creek (school) had just opened and there was a school at Baerami already established.
The application listed 28 names of proposed pupils to attend. Isedore Danglade had four children, Joseph Daniel two, Patrick Houlahan had five, Edwin Horne had four, John Hornery Snr had his son Andrew, William Ham’s step daughter Amelia Dehn, Charles Hazell had four children, Eugene Nebauer’s youngest daughter Elizabeth, Charles Stair had three and James Peberdy still had three sons.
“In the Shadow of Mt. Dangar”, Geoffrey Meyer, pp. 249-250
The “Charles Hazell” referred to here was probably the senior Charles (born 1820) and his children would probably have been George (b. 1866), Rachel (b. 1868), Margaret (b. 1871) and Eliza (b. 1873). The three Stair children mentioned were probably John (b. 1866), Wendalin (b. 1869) and Mary Ann (b. 1873).