Early years in Gippsland schools

Drouin Primary School has stayed on the one site for a very long time now, but it opened as Drouin Junction. That was the most common name for Drouin when it was getting started, because it was where the roads and the railway met.
I'm not sure when Drouin Junction became Drouin but it was very early in the piece. Where populations were stable, or growing, and where the community did not move to a railway line, for instance, the schools have kept their original names. Like Drouin, Warragul SS has always been Warragul.
Trafalgar State School was always Trafalgar, for instance, but Waterloo became Yarragon. Both Trafalgar and Waterloo were 'Empire" names.
Lang Lang was Proctor's Plains, and the settlement was to be called Carrington until the locals rejected that name. Pakenham State School (now Pakenham Consolidated) was South Pakenham , intended to distinguish it from Pakenham South, which is now Cardinia.
San Remo was Griffiths Point from its opening in 1874 to 1889.
Skye became Lyndhurst South after a widely publicised murder at Skye in 1894 stained the name but it reverted in 1964. It took 70 years for people to get over it, it would seem.
The Drouin West school was Brandy Creek, Buln Buln and finally Drouin West. 2435 Buln Buln East was once known as Drouin North and also, surprisingly, to me at least, as Crossover Junction.
Corinella was Kanumbra at first and Grantville started out as Musk Creek in 1874
Corinella East (1879) closed in 1896. In 1900 it re-emerged as SS 2224 St Hellier, in the St Hellier Wesleyan Church building but it closed in 1918. It seems that at one stage it was called The Gurdies but I can find no direct reference to that. I was born at The Gurdies a very, very long time ago and I would love to know the full story.
The railways up into the hills changed the locations of communities and therefore the names of schools. Railway lines were laid out with regard to the terrain (one in 22 was regarded as the steepest gradient possible) and not with regard to existing settlements
Darlimurla opened in 1880 (as Narracan South). When the railway came through, on the way to Mirboo North, there was a new school called Darlimurla Railway Station State School and the local District Inspector said there were too many Narracan schools and so Narracan South became Darlimurla in 1881. As an aside, the Narracan schools were Narracan South, Narracan, Narracan West (which name was used in three different places over time) and Narracan Coal Mines
Narracan also created a rare problem in 1880 when a second school was opened (the first was opened two years earlier). For a time they had A and B attached to their names. The B Narracan school was later called Narracan West and later still became Thorpdale.
Ripplebrook State School was Longwarry SS from 1879, then in 1907 in became Longwarry South, and in 1932 it became Ripplebrook. I've always been a little fascinated by the use of Longwarry's name far to the south-east of the town, right up to the hills as far as Heath Hill. 2377 Hallora SS was called Longwarry East when it opened in 1881.
Stony Creek has been Devon and Jack River – and it existed for only twelve years 1874 to 1886
The first Cardinia school was called Pakenham South (1874 – 1879 (I think)) and closed in 1903 as Cardinia. The newer Cardinia school, the one that is still there, opened in 1911 on Ballarto Road and was called Ballarto Road State School.
Tyers opened in 1879 as State School 2182 Boola Boola, but in 1911 it was renamed Tyers, the name of the little settlement it served, in turn named for Charles James Tyers, Crown Lands Commissioner for Gippsland 1844-1867.
Yarragon was at first Waterloo, one of those patriotic names found just up the line in Trafalgar, both great victories and to be celebrated in the days when we were not embarrassed about being part of an empire. This scho0 started in 1879 in the Mechanics Institute but I have been unable to determine the date on which the name changed. It would be interesting to know when Waterloo changed its name and why Trafalgar did not
The east-west and north-south naming and renaming is a constant theme.
SS 2022 Hazlewood North (1879) became Bennett's Creek in 1889, because there were quite a few Hazelwood schools. It worked half time from 1885 to 1898, with the Hazelwood North that had been Maryvale East and then with Jeeralang until it closed in 1905. My list of Hazelwood schools includes Hazelwood itself, Hazelwood North (there were two of these), Hazelwood Estate, Hazelwood Ridge and Hazelwood South.
Nar Nar Goon State School started out as two schools, served by the same teacher on a half-time basis. They were both Nar Nar Goon East, but one was Nar Nar Goon East (Southern Branch) and one was Nar Nar Goon East (Northern Branch). The Southern Branch was closed after a little less than two years and the Northern Branch dropped that label. In the mid-1890s the East was dropped as well and the school has remained 2248 Nar Nar Goon State School, and then NNG Primary School, ever since.
That even the smallest settlements wanted schools for their children is a given, and a classic example was that of 2254 Jeetho West, opened in 1880, on the South Gippsland road three miles from Loch. When the enrolment fell away it was worked half-time for a year, with Corinella East. It closed in 1890 and my point is that one cannot imagine schools being built in tiny places like Corinella East or Jeetho West.
There was even a school on Wilson Promontory's South East Cape, at the lighthouse. It lasted only from September to November 1880. Staff changes on the light meant that eight of the original 14 children moved on with their parents. There was also a plan to open a school on Cliffy Island, with both schools working half-time with the one teacher. That would have called for someone heroic, and it did not come to pass because, again, lighthouse staff transferring out took their children with them.
So it goes on. Morwell Bridge State School was known as Morwell North and Morwell East, which sounds odd, but Maryvale North and Morwell North seem to have been the same school.
In the next few weeks I'll complete this series because I have found it interesting and there are many little stories to tell.