Digitised photographs of schools & other education buildings

Please note that we are still migrating the data related to these records from our previous system.  We hope to have it available shortly.

To do this search you will need to know a school or education facility's current or former name.

Search below to see if a school of interest to you was photographed.

Note: The oldest schools we have photographs for are contained in a photographic album which has been digitised, but the school names aren't searchable in our database. To view the photos in that album go directly here to the albums series page (VPRS 1396) and look at Volume 1 to 4.

Search for all other schools below. 

The digitised photographs that you can search using this form were produced by two government agencies: the Education Department (VA 3098) the Department of Public Works (VA 669).

The photographs come from three series:

Photographs Of State School Buildings In Victoria (VPRS 1396)

These Education Department photographs show purpose-built, large, brick or stone state schools throughout Victoria and also types and sizes of schools developed as being suitable for smaller schools of various sizes. Most of the school designs are attributed to Henry Bastow who was, until circa 1892, Chief Architect of the Public Works Department (VA 669). You must go to the landing page directly. The school names cannot be searched above. 

Negatives of Photographs [Publications Branch] (VPRS 14517)

These are photographs accumulated by the Publications Unit of the Department of Education and Training. Among them are photographs that show Victorian school exteriors, school students in classrooms and playgrounds, dating from the 1960s.

Photographs and Negatives of Government Buildings (VPRS 10516)

These photographs were produced between 1926 and 1965 by the Department of Public Works, which had wide-ranging responsibilities for all Victorian public works and buildings, including construction, maintenance and fitting out of these buildings. Among the photographs of public buildings are many images of Victorian state primary, secondary and tertiary schools. These photographs may have been created to document works designed and constructed by the department as many of the images appear to have been taken shortly after construction had been completed. The series also includes images of public buildings in other Australian states.

You can downloaded these images from our online catalogue in TIFF or JPG format. 

Department of Education VA 3098

Public Works Department (previously the Department of the Commissioner of Public Works) VA 669

Download the digitised TIFF or JPG file from the catalogue