Our History

On 5 July 1918, Bishop Wentworth Shields wrote a letter to Canon Rupert Fairbrother saying ‘it seems a thousand pities in a big town like Tamworth not to have a Secondary Girls’ School.’ It was the next day that the council of St John’s Anglican Church first met to consider a proposal for the establishment of a girls’ school using the facilities of the parish hall.

 A report written on the "Tamworth Church of England Girls’ School" (as it was then known) in December 1923, says ‘the beginning was a humble one and rather more than the usual difficulties had to be overcome’, yet it was in this year that the school moved to its present site in Brisbane Street, a property formerly owned by Mr John Patterson. His fine old home was named ‘Calrossy’ after the family property in Scotland and the school eventually adopted this name in 1969.

 In 1999 William Cowper Anglican School commenced, named for the Revered William Macquarie Cowper, the first Anglican clergyman to conduct services in the Tamworth region. With 31 students from Kindergarten to Year 6 and operating at first in the grounds of Calrossy, the school quickly became a close, supportive community of students, parents and staff - a culture which remains to this day. With the support and energy of this community the Secondary Boys School was added in 2001. Both the Primary and the Secondary Boys relocated to a new campus on the outskirts of Tamworth in 2002.

 A few years later in 2006 the decision was made to amalgamate all three campuses of the school and in 2008 the name Calrossy Anglican School was adopted. Today, the Prep and Co-educational Primary, along with Secondary Boys, can be found on the William Cowper Campus on Moore Creek Road. The Preschool and Secondary Girls facilities remain on the Brisbane Street Campus.

 In 1937, Headmistress Miss A M Parr wrote in the school magazine, ‘the school will continue to dream, strive and labour, knowing that one day our dreams will be materialized.’ Today those dreams continue to prosper. After more than 90 years the school has not only survived, but thrived, and now provides a warm, Christian, caring community to over 1000 students.