Abstract

This historical exploration of educational leadership’s early years enables readers to compare their management practices and ideas today with those of a school principal of a nineteenth-century, one-teacher, all-age school still common in rural areas of our Commonwealth today. Written as the story of one day in a principal’s life, it follows pertinent themes for all school leaders: management definitions, management of time and curriculum, physical and financial resources, human resources, school reputation and quality assurance. The article also makes a methodological contribution as part of the growing genre of semi-fictionalisation. It creates the story from disparate sources, inventing the central character linking the main points; through this I hope readers can better identify with past experiences of school leadership. Locating the history in Tasmania offers reflections for post-colonialism today as the period covered by this article saw Tasmania self-consciously emerging from being an imperial outpost.