Album measuring 400 x 260 mm, containing watercolour plans and elevations, and three more mounted photographs of architectural designs for schools and orphanages. The title on the front cover is blocked in gold and reads: 'Queensland Court/Colonial and Indian Exhibition, sketch plans and photographs of state schools and orphanages, Queensland.' Plates 15, 16 and 18 photographed by IDC.

An Act of 1875 laid an obligation on the administration to provide 'free, secular, and compulsory' schooling for children. Wherever twenty or more children of school age could be gathered together, the government was pledged to build a school and supply teachers, parents contributing one-fifth of the cost of the building. The designs in the album show basic configurations for various classes of buildings of this type. With Queensland's expansion as one of the richer colonies the total expenditure on education in 1884 was £150,160, £37,000 being spent on building state schools, of which there were 263 at the end of that year. The overall cost of educating one child was calculated to be £5. 7s. 8 1/2 d. per annum.