WHEN twins Georgia and Harry Hobson started school at St Xavier’s on Monday, it marked 96 years since their paternal great-grandfather Ossie Campbell and his twin sister Joyce began their education at the school.
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The Hobson twins are fifth-generation students at the primary school, established by the Sisters of Mercy in 1879. This year, there are 38 kindergarten students enrolled.
Lessons were held in St Joseph’s Church until 1896, when a new primary school was constructed on the corner of Bloomfield and Henry streets. The school became known as St Xavier’s Primary School.
The children of Justin and Karen Hobson, the twins have followed their brothers Charlie and Angus to St Xavier’s, their father and grandmother Marie Hobson, great-grandfather Ossie Campbell and his mother Ada Matilda Loss, who began her education with the Sisters of Mercy in 1885.
The Campbell twins were seven when they started school and seven years later Ossie had completed his education, leaving school in Sixth Class.
He gained a carpentry apprenticeship and years later was the foreman for builder Frank Tydd when the 1896 timber school was replaced by a modern new brick building in 1955.
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