Name: Randal MacDonnell
Epoch: Late 19th Century (the \'Long Nineteenth Century\')
Grouping Field: Humanities (Ideas Formatted as Ideas) and Social Science (Models)
Location Grouping: Individual\'s Work Location
Map Coordinates: 27°28\'02.0\"S 153°01\'35.3\"E
Years At Location: 1875-1877
One Historical Setting: Mr. Randal MacDonnell, Chief Inspector & Secretary of the Board of General Education, Edward and Ann Streets, Normal School, Brisbane City (1860)
From 1860 Randal MacDonnell was the Queensland Inspector of National schools, and the General Inspector of Primary Schools under the first Education Act. After the State Education Act (1875), MacDonnell was the first General Inspector of the Department of Public Instruction.
Randal MacDonnell oversaw the transformation from the National Model School to the modern state education system. He led the secularist campaign against the hold of the denominational schooling; bringing him into conflict with Bishops Quinn and Tufnell. He advocated the separation of religious and secular education, and never wavered from his stand that the Irish National system was the best compromise.
Rupert Goodman, ‘MacDonnell, Randal (1830–1877)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/macdonnell-randal-4083/text6521, published first in hardcopy 1974, accessed online 21 June 2019.
Rathdonnell House at Auchenflower, Brisbane, 1931. The Queenslander. (2003). State Library of Queensland
