"When we were connying one or two of the trailers used to go up to the High School to pick up the girls, and the girls used to give you a rough time, I'll tell you! If you fell down they'd knock you down, if you didn't fall down they'd knock you down and hold you with their feet! They were characters, they were funny. The new fellas were terrified of the girls, it was always the girls that attacked them, that was the funny thing".

Excerpt from an interview with Les Edwards, talking about the use of ex-horse tramcars as trailers in the 1920's.

 

In 1905 the opening of the electric trams in Ballarat assisted the establishment of both Government and Private schools  along the Sturt St. West tram route making travel over longer distances relatively easy. Prior to the electric trams, only the Convent school had existed. The new sites used for the schools were previously undeveloped land and this allowed for large school yards and playing fields.

On the trams school traffic was very heavy   and even a special stop only for school children existed. The Ballarat Tramway Museum has the stop sign pictured right in its collection. In the early part of the century until the late 1920’s, horse tramcars were used as trailers after the electrification of the horse tram lines in peak periods.

Below is a portion of the "Greater Ballarat Association" map of July 1968 with some additions. It shows the location of schools in Ballarat and the route along Sturt street relative to Lake Wendouree.

Find out more about Ballarat trams in the early part of the twentieth century