Children painting at the Nursery School, Acton, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory

A photograph of several small children wearing protective smocks over their clothes painting on sheets of paper attached to easels with bulldog clips.The activity is probably taking place on a partly enclosed veranda. Both floors and walls are timber.The Nursery School building had originally been the isolation block of Canberra Community Hospital, but government funding enabled it to be refurbished along the lines of the Lady Gowrie Child Centres. This was Canberra's first nursery school and it was opened in 1944 by Lady Gowrie. The headmistress was Miss Hinsby. The building was in use as a nursery school until 1952 when it became a primary school. This photograph is from an album that was held at the London office of the Australian National University over the period 1949 to 1952. The album was used to inform prospective staff about Canberra. These images are part of the series produced by the Department of Information and kept at the National Archives of Australia in Canberra. National Archives holdings in this series have gaps and some images may be held only at the ANU Archives