Th Sydney Hur H of England Tram 11Lar Eho
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,, ,, SHORE Th Sydney hur h of England Tram 11lar eho by .]. II LM, .B.., M. With .1 Foreword hy Ilil ,r.lt"c The M t Rcverend tht' Archb, hop of ".in \' • 'SHORE' The Sydney ,chl/rd Gramm BY E. "The Sydne' Jlan Cram- mar Schc .st Ileatlm, 'cr, Erne t . the staff he gath- ered, I 'ar, [ what was expected of it, th,lt was. ther repre cntati\'e, out of Englal d, of that famous type, peculiar to the English people, called the nglish Public School. 'ow past its sixtieth year, it ha taken a full hare in developing the Australian form of the inherited tradition." These are the opening words o( Pro fessor E. R. IIolme's book about the school, Shore (as it has come to be known), with which he has been closely associated eyer since he joined the teach ing staff as a young man. He had been educated mainly at The King's chool and he describe. himself as an old boy of Shore by adoption and oUrlesy. Profes or Holme has known all the headma~ters of the chool, and for almost fifty year he has been a member of the.: School oun cil. Hi intere t in r' ha increa ed with hi knowletl~T IS undoubt- edly well qUII' out most of it phascs-csPL lier I fc -:ll1d gcncrally .tho and achi \ cment . Cluptcrs al with the founding 0 oundcr and lh r t h (Cont;nu(d 0/1 "SHORE" Tlte Sydney Church of England Grammar School 1:-1 fFRI RSH LilAH!. Ph()/fl: 11011 and r.om/lOIIY "SHORE" THE SYDNEY CHURCH OF ENGLAND GRAMMAR SCHOOL THE FOUNDATION AND FIRST HEADMASTERSHIP Viewed from the School's Sixtieth Year BY E. R. HOLME, O.B.E., M.A. Professor emeritus, University of Sydney Member ofthe original committee ofthe Old Boys' Union and for over fifty years Member of the School Council With a Foreword by His Grace The Most Reverend the Archbishop of Sydney President ofSchool Council ANGUS AND ROBERTSON SYDNEY . LONDON First published 1951 BOTH the Author and the School will be grateful for information that supplies the names of per sons who had to be left unnamed in the photo graphs used. Detail of relevant school history which has been omitted, perhaps accidentally, will be welcomed. The title of the book indicates its scope to be limited, in the main, to the begin ning of a school which is now conscious both of its growth to maturity and of corresponding rights and duties. SET IN LINOTYPE GRANJON PRINTED AND BOUND IN AUSTRALIA BY HALSTEAD PRESS PTY LIMITED, NICKSON STREET, SYDNEY Registered in Australia for transmission by post as a book Foreword "SHORE" is fortunate to have this history of its first Head master, written by Professor E. R. Holme. A Sydney man, a son of the Rectory, and an educationalist, he has been able to appreciate the significance of the founding, of "Shore" as a Church of England School, and as the fulfilment of Bishop Broughton's desire to establish two "King's Schools". Throughout the life of the School Professor Holme has been closely identified with it, first as a member of the Staff, and then as a member of the Council. The following chapters on its early history are proof of the trouble he has taken to secure all available information. Much of the book is based on his own vivid personal recollections, the writing of which has obviously been a labour of love. Many of those who played a leading part in the early years of the School come to life again in these pages. This book will enable all "old boys" of "Shore" to realize how much the School owes to its first Headmaster. Professor Holme by writing it has placed the School under a further debt of gratitude to its faithful friend -the author. HOWARD SYDNEY. St Peter's Day, 1951. Thoughts on History A history in which every particular incident may be true, may on the whole be talse. ... The pertect historian is he in whose work the character and spirit ot an age is exhibited in miniature. He relates no tact, he attributes no expression to his characters, which is not auth enticated by sufficient testimony. ... he gives to truth those attractions which have been usurped by fiction. MACAULAY, 1828. I do not think that the most valuable tunction ot the historian is to trace back the institutions and ways 0/ thought which have sut'vived, as if we were at the end and climax ot history. It is at least as important to retrieve the treasures that have been dropped on the way and lost, which, if restored, would enrich our civilization. ANDREW GEORGE LITTLE in Proceedillgs of tile British Academy. 1945. PREFATORY NOTES I. To Members of the School, Past and Present THIS book is for all who have any interest in "Shore" past or present. Upon knowledge of all the School's history, it deals mostly with the past as that was in the writer's youth. He has had a long life and the School has been one of his main in terests, almost throughout. His own school was "King's". His first service as a teacher was at "Shore", under the command of Ernest Iliff Robson: After about three years there, ,he became a lecturer at the University of Sydney. Those years made him a teacher for life and for love of young life, as he gradually came to know it in more and more of its good representatives. He was quite early elected a member of the School Council and has been one practically ever since. He has had the honour of knowing all its Headmasters and working with them. This book was first read in manuscript by the present Headmaster. It contains some matter derived, for its purposes, from him. It is intended by the writer to be a contribution to School history by himself, i.e. a survivor who has known most of the facts and persons concerned in the early part of that history. This contributor then, is one of the few remaining who have a personal knowledge of what it was to be a member of the School almost anywhere in the first ten years or so of its existence when it began prosperously but ended with a change of Headmaster, that the Council thought necessary. The writer accepts a responsibility, which he could not delegate, for this initial piece of School history. He sees the School and its first Headmaster as like those eighteen men of Siloam on whom the tower fell-that is as a sort of victim viii PREFATORY NOTES of forces beyond control though in the School instance there was something to be added of human error which is, in this story, taken into full account but not without due respect. "THE OLD NORTH SHORE HAD ITS POETS" The old North Shore had its poets, among them a lady, Miss Madeline Messiter, one of the School's most constant friends. In a letter, written in 1914, during the headmaster ship of Mr Purves, she looked back to the original "Robson" time to call it "the good old Robsonian days". That sug gested to this author a title for the book, though not all those days were good in the experience of the School. Such a name proved impossible, as begging the question that had to be faced. But there was truth as well as poetry in the idea of such days: a large proportion of them were indeed worthy of the eulogy. A most happy start was made then, and, to it, all interested in the School looked back hope fully, even in the unhappy time which, when it passed, had never to return. The best of the old "Robsonian days" were then to prove typical of many others to come-and the partly unhappy ones have had only their historic import. IX II. To other Readers THIS begins from a piece of Shakespearian dialogue: "What manner of man is he?"-"An old man"-"What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight?" (Writing books per haps)-"Shall I give him his answer?"-"Faith1 and I'll send him packing." But, in this particular story, it is an advantage that the author is old, even old enough to have had some part in events that dated from fifty to sixty years ago, and are of importance to the School of today. He has known every Headmaster the School has had. He began with it as a member of its teaching staff, quite young and so young-looking that the boys nicknamed him accord ingly. Ever since and even elsewhere the name that implied perpetual boyishness has stuck to him. First tolerated, it became pleasant as a reminder of his having, at least, been young once-and ageing men profit if reminded of that, with the good-fellowship it brought them, as "Sonny" has profited. For fifty years the author has been a member of the School Council. From the coming into existence of the Old Boys' Union he has been allowed its membership. He ought then to know something about his subject. The School is still young and it helps now to give him some pleasant illusions of youth. Whenever Sir Philip Sidney heard that old war song of "Percy and Douglas" his heart was moved as by sound of a trumpet. So this author when he hears, even in his mem ories, the sound of the old School Song "Here's to the fellow that loves the School" feels a glow of pride, and gratefulness for the goodly company of Shore boys who still live in his memories of its old days along with Headmasters, and colleagues, school families, and other friends whom he owes to the School.