Tolling on Time

Most of us, supposedly like Pavlov’s Dog, react to the ringing of a bell. Whether the bell rings out an alarm or calls us together we are programmed to respond to its call. The tolling of this brass bell alerted students at the Bathurst Experiment Farm to changes in their day. It called students to meals, alerted them to the end of classes, both practical and class-based, and would have also heralded the beginning of the weekend.

Bathurst Experiment Farm was established by the NSW Government in 1895 as part of its program of model farms where agricultural research and education were combined. The Farm school started two years later with eight students and would train 850 students until it closed in 1941. Initially students lived off-campus until dedicated school buildings, including teaching rooms, student accommodation, and a dining room were constructed in 1907.

As the Farm covered an area up to 304 hectares, a sizable bell such as this one with a loud and bright sound was essential. A small bell would not have been equal to the task of calling students working in the outer paddocks of the Farm to meals, classes or getting them out of bed on a cold winter’s morning.

Hung within a quadrangle formed by the school buildings, this bell (quite literally) held a central place in the life of the Farm, the students and those who lived there. A son of R.G. May, manager of the Farm 1918–45, wondered ‘wistfully’ in the 1980s what had happened to it when the School closed. Although this bell is now silent and no longer calls students to class or meals, it continued to resound in their memories.