School’s back! And it's 140 years since Darwin's very first school opened in 1877. The first teacher was John Holt, who taught the school's 34 students. The school was housed in an old government store and its facilities were poor, to say the least. Students had a total of just 27 feet of bench space to work at. The building was thought to be “completely unsatisfactory” and the teacher ‘became insane and died in 1879’. The building was destroyed in the 1897 cyclone along with most of Darwin. Here's to a much more enjoyable school year in 2017!

Picture: State Library of South Australia, B 61444