Malcolm D. Prentis IRSS 33 (2008) 7
Minister and Dominie: Creating an Australasian Scottish World?
Malcolm D. Prentis* Popular discussions of trans-Tasman relations, especially on the New Zealand side of the ‘ditch’, often seem to come back, eventually, to an incident at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 1 February 1981. On this notorious occasion, the Australian cricket team resorted to the underhanded tactic of bowling the last ball of the innings underarm to prevent the New Zealand batsman scoring the necessary six runs to win the game. What does this incident have to do with Scottish- ness in the antipodes? Here is an unexpected question about the incident, prompted by another, more enduring legend about one of the reasons why New Zealanders were more gentlemanly or refined than Australians, or ‘Better Britons’. As Tom Brooking once paraphrased the myth, ‘Because the Irish were the dominant minority Australia became more American and therefore, inferior. Because the Scots were the dominant minority in New Zealand, the country became more British and therefore, superior’.1 So the question about the underarm incident is this: Did Trevor Chappell’s under- arm bowling represent ocker revenge against New Zealand Scots? For a start, Chappell was bowling to a McKechnie. Were captain Greg Chappell and his younger brother Trevor reacting against the old-fashioned values of their old head- master at Prince Alfred College in Adelaide, John Angus (Jack) Dunning, former New Zealand test cricketer and a stern Presbyterian? In recent years, there has been much debate amongst
* Malcolm D. Prentis is Associate Professor of History at Australian Catholic University, Strathfield (Sydney) Campus. His most recent publications are A Concise Companion to Aboriginal History (2008) and The Scots in Australia (2008). 8 Minister and Dominie: Creating an Australasian Scottish World? historians about the applicability of the concept of diaspora2 and even more recently a modest rebirth of interest from antipodean historians in trans-Tasman links.3 It might well be fruitful to examine relations between segments of the Scottish diaspora, as diasporas are communities that are trans-national in nature. Indeed, as Kim Butler has argued, it may be that the emergence of these interrelations between diaspora segments ‘is the seminal moment in the transfor- mation of migratory groups to diasporas’.4 Australasian links of investment, links within the labour movement and scientific organizations and inter-governmental relations including possibilities of federation have been studied from time to time at some depth, often in the context of the feder- ation issue.5 Separate studies of the Scots in New Zealand and in Australia have incidentally showed Australasian links with which the Scots were strongly involved, in pastoralism, investment, entrepreneurship, migration, gold and labour, especially between Victoria and Otago.6 Ethnic communities, religious organizations and school links have been less studied. Irish links have been studied to some extent 7 but trans-Tasman links involving ethnicity, education and religion have not been highlighted.8 Butler has advocated five dimensions for diaspora studies; the fourth is the ‘interrelationships within communities of the diaspora’. This study bears on this dimension but also with two others, namely changing relationships with the ‘homeland’ and with the ‘hostland’.9 It thus considers some of the enduring but changing links between Scottish and Presbyterian communities on both sides of the Tasman. These links involved the transfer of fundamental aspects of Scottish-Presbyterian culture back and forth across the Tasman in large part through the two-way migration of ministers and educators. This exploratory study focuses on analysing movements of ministers and leading educators who worked in ‘Scottish Presbyterian circles’ on both sides of the Tasman. This focus may be justified by the fact that in Scottish Presbyterian communities in Scotland and abroad during the period of peak emigration, no individuals were Malcolm D. Prentis IRSS 33 (2008) 9 seen as more important to the maintenance of the community and of its values than the minister and the dominie or school-master. Trans-Tasman migration in general between 1885 and 1910 has been analysed by Rollo Arnold. He referred to the ‘Perennial Interchange’ (which also transcended his period), ‘the Exodus’ from New Zealand 1886-91 and ‘the Battling Out’ from Australia 1901-06. Erik Olssen has also observed that there was a ‘flood of Australians’ into New Zealand between 1895 and 1914.10 G.A. Carmichael points to a surge of eastward migration in 1892-93 and also extends the ‘Battling Out’ to 1908.11 Arnold specifically refers to Presbyterian ministers and teachers as examples of the Perennial Interchange and this study may be able to confirm or correct his analysis.12 According to James Belich and others, New Zealand gradually disconnected from Australasia from the 1880s to the 1940s and reconnected with the ‘mother country’. He argued that bonds with Britain were actually strengthened, rather than New Zealand exercising more independence and looking to other coun- tries, including Australia. This was a process he dubbed ‘recolonization’.13 With regard to trade, culture and defence this seems convincing. Can this be applied to the sorts of ethnic, religious and educational relations to which this article refers? This study will suggest that the original purpose of the exchanges of clergy and teachers between Australia and New Zealand was to seek to maintain or bolster Scottish Presbyterian identity and values in the antipodes when it was not always easy to obtain reinforcements from the auld country or from Ulster. As Butler reminds us, ‘the construct of the homeland is essential; it functions as the constituting basis of collective diasporan identity.’14 Changes in resources over time affect ‘homeland-hostland’ relationships. The original purpose of ministers and teachers gradually changed as the antipodean Scots were less able (or willing) to call on resources from ‘home’ and became progressively ‘localized’, identified with the hostlands and became part of 10 Minister and Dominie: Creating an Australasian Scottish World? new ‘establishments’. At the same time, identities and values became more complex and differentiated and the ramifications of the relationship between church and state changed during the twentieth century.
Minister and Dominie in Scotland The programme of the Scottish reformers included a school as integral to the parish system: ‘schooling and literacy were at the very heart of its programme of religious revolution’15 Church and school were closely linked in Scotland from the seventeenth to nineteenth century and the parish Minister and Teacher (or ‘Dominie’) were for centuries the two most important people in most parishes. The Parish school became the cradle of the ‘democratic intellect’ and of the myth of the ‘lad o’ pairts’; in them the classes were mixed and from them, they could move onto burgh schools and the Universities. Further, ‘instruction in the parish and dissenting schools was based on scripture. Both reflected and enhanced the religious ethos that prevailed in so many communities’16 From the Reformation, Scottish education aimed at equal opportunity and wide availability and achieved both to a degree unsurpassed by other nations until late in the nine- teenth century. Certainly, the aim of universal education was firmly held, and Scots emigrants carried with them the concept that a school was a vital part of every community. Equally certainly, the middle and upper working classes were universally literate and relatively well-schooled. (In some areas, this applied to virtually everyone: in some remote highland areas and slums, it was far from true).17 The commitment to the wide provision of education was long sustained: ‘Scottish schooling had … developed a rich texture between the seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries.’18 Generally speaking, the system was dynamic and responsive to the needs of an expanding economy.19 Many teachers were Ministers waiting for parishes or former theological students. Thus, several of the pioneers of education in the antipodes were Presbyterian ministers or Malcolm D. Prentis IRSS 33 (2008) 11 former theological students. In speaking of the place of the teacher in Scottish society, the Argyll Commission’s Second Report said in 1867: ‘in Scotland provision is made by Statute for a school in every parish, and the schoolmaster holds a public office, from which he cannot be displaced at the discretion of any individual’.20 In other words, his tenure was somewhat similar to that of the Minister. In time, education for Scots tended to become the secular equivalent of religion. To paraphrase Adam Smith, education was ‘not only a basic civil right: it was also necessary social insurance’.21 In seventeenth century Scottish schools, ‘everywhere religious instruction and good behaviour – “godliness and gud manners” … - took pride of place’.22 Discipline, competition, corporal punishment, hard slog, promotion and demotion, prizes; the Scottish intellect was marked by being dour and argumentative, academic or deductive, rather than pragmatic or inductive.23 But school and church helped to produce that critical and independent spirit evident in Scots which sought to balance authority and consent. Everyone learned reading, writing and arithmetic; some learned Latin. Games (sport) had no place. Burgh schools added more ‘practical’ studies, such as bookkeeping. Thus, Scottish education was broad, general and practical in its content, rather than specialized and classical as in England. Science, geography, book-keeping, grammar and philosophy had important places. An egalitarian and practical tradition was obviously going to appeal to the planners of education in Australasia. The tradition was promoted not only by individual immigrants but corporately by the Presbyterian Church. Education was not only important in itself, it was means of spiritual, moral, intellectual and material self- improvement. ‘The Scottish intellect was, of course, for export’24 and Scottish Presbyterian educational ideals were exported with the people. ‘Scotland had the combination of an unusually effective and developed educational system’25 and ‘there were always more educated men than there were openings 12 Minister and Dominie: Creating an Australasian Scottish World? for them’.26 Thus, ministers, teachers and other profes- sionals emigrated in large numbers. They emigrated with a sense of mission; Scots strongly believed they had some- thing to offer the colonies. Part of this was the content and style of education as sketched above. As Tom Brooking put it, ‘the notion of rough equality was carried in the cultural baggage of the majority of Scottish migrants’.27 At the time of the great emigrations to Australasia, as T.C. Smout put it: ‘Education played … a central part in the nation’s sense of itself.’ 28 And T.M. Devine adds that in post-1843 Scotland, ‘No one showed greater anxiety for the traditions of Scottish education than the leaders of the Evangelical party of the Church of Scotland’.29 This party formed the Free Church at the great disruption in 1843; it was this tradition of Presbyterianism that was dominant amongst Scots in Victoria and Otago. The Presbyterian Church and schools were at the very heart of the project of transplanting and maintaining Scottish/Presbyterian cultural and religious values overseas: early Victoria and Otago provide especially clear illustrations of this with both colonies tending to be disproportionately influential in trans- Tasman Scots Presbyterian links. Despite all this, at home, ‘Scottish education [was] more vulnerable than Presbyterianism. It is more subject to assimilation process in British society ...’. This was even more the case in the colonies where the Scots Presbyterians were (by and large) outnumbered. First, with respect to state schooling, two ideas were in tension amongst Australasian Scots Presbyterians: their strong desire for a general educa- tion system teaching all children was going to be practically incompatible with their desire for a system based on scripture. Political choices had to be made and in the trade- off, they helped achieve a general system which was ‘secular’ but with a fundamentally protestant ethos. Part of the deal usually involved Special Religious Instruction one day per week in public schools.30 Secondly, the Presbyterian Church schools took on board various English ‘public school’ traditions, such as games and prefects. Malcolm D. Prentis IRSS 33 (2008) 13
Nevertheless, these schools continued to maintain important aspects of the Scottish inheritance and more importantly, the larger state systems owed as much or even more to Scottish educational traditions. 31 Scottish (and other) Presbyterians in Australasia required ministers and teachers, initially from ‘home’ (Scotland, Ireland, England, Wales). It was always difficult in colonial times: the alternatives to ‘Scottish supply’ were to grow your own, borrow from the neighbours, accept ‘converts’ or recruits from other nationalities. In terms of clergy recruitment to Australasia, local recruitment overtook recruitment from Scotland and Ulster by the dawn of the twentieth century. By this time, Australia and New Zealand were providing each other with more ministers than did Scotland directly, though quite a few locally educated ministers were of Scottish or other British Isles birth. Even theological teachers were increasingly locals by the time of the Great War, and a noticeable trend to trans-Tasman recruiting of these developed. This seems to run counter to Belich’s idea of ‘recolo- nization’ between the 1880s and the 1940s.32 To what extent did Scots Presbyterian loyalty in Australia and New Zealand focus individually and separately on Scotland (vertical connection) rather than on each other as part of a common antipodean diaspora community (horizontal connection)? Not surprisingly, we shall discover that the situation was a mixed one. In other words, there was a sense of being part of a common market of ministers and teachers more acces- sible and compatible than ‘the auld country’. Even Scots with some antipodean experience were likely to be more adaptable to the other side of the Tasman than ‘new chums’, direct from the homeland.
Ministers33 In his analysis of trans-Tasman migration, Arnold refers to seven dynamics at work in his ‘Perennial Interchange’, the second and third of which are relevant here. The second concerned ‘Australasian career patterns within professions 14 Minister and Dominie: Creating an Australasian Scottish World? lacking formal trans-Tasman institutions. The clergy provide the most notable example.’ Teachers might also fit here, or into the third dynamic: the ‘Australasian market for scarce professional, industrial and managerial skill’. This might also apply to Ministers.34 Arnold pointed out the movement of 15 Ministers east- ward between 1885 and 1910 and 18 the other way.35 This is a gross underestimation; even in that period alone the numbers were 54 and 39 respectively. Indeed, a total of 202 individual Ministers between 1840 and 1977 served on both sides of the Tasman. There were 105 to 1900 and 97 between 1901 and 1977. The total number of trans-Tasman movements was 245, almost 60% of them between 1881 and 1921. In terms of the percentage of total numbers of ministers, the twentieth century figure is perhaps half of the nineteenth, but still significant. Multiple moves by many ministers were a feature of this traffic, especially in the nineteenth century. The degree of mobility is underlined by the fact that 40% of migrant ministers made three or more cross-Tasman moves. The Scots were one of the three most emigration-prone nations in Europe and were inveterate migrants. Two extreme examples were the Rev. W.F. Craigie (from Scotland to London to New South Wales to New Zealand to Queensland to New South Wales and back to New Zealand) and the Rev. R.C. Sands (from Scotland to South Africa to New Zealand to New South Wales to Tasmania to New South Wales to Scotland to New South Wales to Scotland).
Table 1: Trans-Tasman Moves of Presbyterian Ministers
Moves in Number of Moves in Number of 19th century ministers 20th century ministers 260346 321318 411410 5652 6260 Malcolm D. Prentis IRSS 33 (2008) 15
Table 2: Birthplaces of Trans-Tasman Migrating Presbyterian Clergy
Birthplace 1840-1900 1901-1977 number percentage number percentage Scotland 64 62 16 15 Ireland 15 14 2 NZ 6 6 36 38 Vic 5 5 9 9.7 England 4 6 Canada 3 0 NSW 1 11 11 Tas 1 3 3 Wales 1 2 Jamaica 1 0 China 0 2 Qld 0 3 3 SA 0 2 WA 0 1 Other 0 4 Unknown 4 2 Total 105 100 97 100
Clearly, there was great consistency of movement, espe- cially westerly movement. In absolute terms and especially in proportion to the relative populations of the colonies/countries, westerly movement was always greater. But movement both ways was strongest between 1881 and 1921, even stronger to New Zealand than from it. It is not surprising that both the direction and absolute and relative scale of movements in the depression years of the 1880s and 1890s and 1930s exactly reflect the differing conditions on the opposite sides of the Tasman. There was indeed in the period to which Arnold referred as ‘Exodus’ between 1886 and 1891 a slight clumping in movement from New Zealand to Australia, double the flow in the opposite direction. The cause of the general exodus according to Arnold was ‘rapid Australian 16 Minister and Dominie: Creating an Australasian Scottish World? urban growth, maturing New Zealand education system and a New Zealand rural growth’ not hungry for urban skills.36 Suburbanization in this period, especially of Melbourne, is reflected in trans-Tasman recruitment. About half were going from New Zealand country towns to Sydney and Melbourne suburbs. As predicted, the ‘clumping’ of eastward clerical migrants appears in the period Arnold called ‘battling out’ from 1901 to 1906. The movement from Australia to New Zealand was in this period five times the size of flow in the opposite direction. This reflected the ‘inverse relations in the two economies’. Australian congregations in the rural ‘fertile crescent’ of the south-east were hard pressed by drought and depression and rural New Zealand was prospering.37 Significantly, at least two thirds were heading from the Australian bush to small towns in rural New Zealand. The years between 1920 and the 1960s have been identified as an Australasian ‘dead spot’ by James Belich.38 Is this reflected in these clergy movements? Movement in both directions was generally consistently maintained overall. But it would appear that there was a slight lull of sorts in the 1920-60 period, especially in an easterly direc- tion. Westerly movement was overall stronger than easterly, except that between 1891 and 1910 the eastward rate was double the westward. This coincides with New Zealand’s decision not to join the federation in 1901. In the 1890s, Victorians were leaving in droves and clearly heading not only to the ‘golden west’ but also east and a significant proportion of them had Scottish backgrounds. Malcolm D. Prentis IRSS 33 (2008) 17
Table 3: Analysis of Trans-Tasman Movements of Presbyterian Ministers by Period and Direction, 1840-1977
Years Movements from Movements from NZ to Australia Australia to NZ 1840-60 0 2 1861-70 10 4 1871-80 11 4 Sub-Total 1840-80 21 16.4% 10 8.6% 1881-90 19 10 1891-1900 16 19 1901-10 9 31 1911-21 16 18 Sub-Total 1881-1921 70 54.7% 78 65.5% 1922-32 22 16 1933-48 10 3 1949-77 17 11 Sub-Total 1922-77 47 36.7% 30 25.9% Total 130 118 When looking at the ‘first move’ undertaken by these cler- ical migrants in the nineteenth century, more went east than west. New Zealanders were more likely to go to the flesh- pots of New South Wales but those Australians who went to New Zealand were more likely to come from Victoria. Of the Australian recruits to New Zealand up to 1901, nearly half went to Otago or Southland. Given the economic, edu- cational and other links between Dunedin and Melbourne, and the greater relative size of the Scots Presbyterian communities in both, this is hardly surprising.
Table 4: Where Was The ‘First Move’ During The 19th Century?
From NZ to To NZ from NSW 22 Vic 24 Vic 16 NSW 15 SA 2 WA 6 Tas 1 Qld 5 WA 1 Tas 4 SA 1 TOTAL 42 55 18 Minister and Dominie: Creating an Australasian Scottish World?
The twentieth century situation differs, as more went west than east, but not very much more; it was very evenly balanced. Victoria features more prominently as source and destination of trans-Tasman migrants. The New Zealand destinations of eastward movers also changed markedly from 1901. Only about one quarter of Australian recruits headed to Otago and Southland, with nearly one half going to the north island.
Table 5: Where Was The ‘First Move’ During The 20th Century?
From NZ to To NZ from Vic 21 Vic 15 NSW 18 NSW 11 WA 2 Qld 1 Tas 1 WA 3 Qld 3 Tas 8 Other/Unknown 4 Other/Unknown 7 Total 49 Total 45
Arnold remarked on the 1885-1910 period that migrating clergy were often filling ‘prestigious positions’.39 Again, this tendency was even more marked among the Presbyte- rians than he realised. A marked feature of movements in both centuries in both directions, though especially from Australia to New Zealand, was the small but significant migration of outstanding preachers moving across the Tasman to take up leading pulpits, as the desired top-flight Scottish preachers were practically out of reach. Pooling resources in the antipodes made financial sense; it was a cheaper way of obtaining a Scottish (or quasi-Scottish) preacher. It might also be characterized as a peculiar manifestation of the colonial cringe. Again, the closest association was between Victorian and Otago-Southland, with First Church Dunedin special- izing in Australian recruits. For 76 years, from 1874 to 1950, the mother church of Otago recruited six ministers from Australia, five of them from Victoria. Melbourne’s Malcolm D. Prentis IRSS 33 (2008) 19 important Toorak charge had two New Zealanders from 1914 to 1967. Knox Dunedin also had two Australian recruits. St David’s Auckland, however, also recruited thrice from Australia. Four Australian Moderators-General between 1901 and 1977 had been recruits from New Zealand. On the other hand, they were not just moving between wealthy, big parishes. The majority were moving between rather ‘ordinary’ parishes. Ministers were called from and to such places as Kumara, Martinborough, Springburn, Pukekohe, Arrowtown and Matamata, all over New Zealand, and Cooma, Donald, Penrith, Northam, Stanthorpe and Sorell, all over Australia. Australasia’s first Presbyterian Theological Hall was that of Victoria in Melbourne (later at Ormond College), established in 1866; most of the teachers into the twentieth century were Scots. A theological hall commenced in Dunedin ten years later. The relationship between these two was particularly close. Ormond College between 1928 and 1994 had a New Zealander on staff for 58 out of 66 years. Similarly, Knox College had ‘Aussies’ for 56 out of 73 years. Again, the Victoria-Otago link was maintained, though in the twentieth century New Zealanders also went to Perth, Brisbane and Sydney as well. This tended to homogenise antipodean theology, creating a sort-of Australasian consensus, initially ‘liberal evangelical’. Full- blown ‘liberal’ and ‘neo-orthodox’ influences were more likely to come from Scotland or Northern Ireland than from Australasia. Movement from Australia to New Zealand was espe- cially strong in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. On the other hand, movement from New Zealand to Australia was stronger from the middle of the twentieth century. This later period coincided with struggles over liberal versus orthodox theology and church union. It was noticeable that several leading advocates on both sides of these differences in Australia were from New Zealand, including the influential Clerk of the Australian General Assembly, L. Farquhar Gunn. 20 Minister and Dominie: Creating an Australasian Scottish World?
The extensive interchange of Ministers is but the tip of the iceberg. Beneath it lies a network of lay people which ran deep and spread widely in urban, suburban and rural areas. Presbyterianism has a ‘call system’ for Ministers; members and adherents had to sign a formal document which would be presented to the Minister being called. More than in episcopally-governed denominations, the people in the pew had to know about Ministers they could call. Some members of Churches on both sides of the Tasman, therefore, had to have personal knowledge because of their own prior migration, or family, friendly or business contact, in order to tell their fellow members about a poten- tial Minister. This involvement of ‘lay’ members in the process underlines the depth, breadth and variety of connec- tions across the Tasman. The contacts were not just between Theological Halls, church bureaucrats and ‘elite’ parishes. And they were obviously not just between merchants and professionals, but also between farmers, shop-keepers, miners, housewives and bank clerks. This was an important way in which these two neighbouring segments of the Scottish diaspora related to each other.
Presbyterian Teachers and Schools The free, compulsory and secular systems of education established in the Australasian colonies in the 1870s were by and large accepted by Scots Presbyterians and most other Protestants as a way of spreading education widely and equally. The Presbyterian Church accepted the system along with its drawbacks from a Christian point of view, but attempted to compensate for them through Sunday Schools and various youth movements. In the meantime, Presbyterians were strongly committed to the new unified systems and were disproportionately represented in the teaching services of all colonies. State school systems were influenced by Scots as teachers, as administrators and as teacher educators. The role in Otago of William Sanderson Fitzgerald (whose brother was a minister in New South Wales and who studied teacher education in Victoria Malcolm D. Prentis IRSS 33 (2008) 21 in 1876) could be compared with the later roles of Alexander Mackie and Peter Board in New South Wales.40 They brought strong ideas of equal opportunity, democracy and progression on merit and a preference at post-primary level for a classical education supplemented by mathematical and practical studies. Like ministers, teachers may also be seen as a part of Arnold’s ‘Perennial Interchange’. They may exemplify his second and third dynamics: ‘Australasian career patterns within professions lacking formal trans-Tasman institutions’ and the ‘Australasian market for scarce professional, indus- trial and managerial skill’.41 Interestingly, the more visible movers from New Zealand to Australia were mostly moving from the public to the private system; whereas those moving from Australia to New Zealand were moving as much from the private to the public system as from private to private. The Presbyterian schools in Australia needed to recruit from outside; the public system in Australia had less need to do so. Australian state schools were obviously able to recruit from a very large pool. However, Arnold noted with regard to Victoria, that single women teachers crossed from New Zealand in much greater numbers than single men, especially to private girls’ schools. New Zealand Presbyterian schools were founded later, were smaller and fewer and could more easily draw on ‘home’ resources. Until 1912, New Zealand had no Presbyterian girls’ school. Arnold also noted many members of Roman Catholic teaching orders of brothers and sisters; they moved both ways.42 Presbyterian schools had a long history in Australia, though most of the primary schools and some of the high schools were taken over by the state from the 1860s onward including in New South Wales and New Zealand. Other, private Presbyterian schools (often in the provinces) were sometimes taken over by the church or went completely private. The church’s elite secondary schools started with Scotch College Melbourne in 1851 and Presbyterian Ladies’ College Melbourne in 1874. In their heyday, these schools 22 Minister and Dominie: Creating an Australasian Scottish World? demonstrated a blend of Presbyterianism, duty, sport, acad- emic rigour, militarism and imperial loyalty. Increasingly in the twentieth century, these same Scottish-Australasians were promoting an education modelled as much on the English public schools as on Scottish Presbyterian traditions. The two Melbourne schools were to become immensely influential as models and as sources of teacher-recruitment for Australian church and private schools and later for church schools in New Zealand. Similar schools followed in the other colonies between the 1880s and early twentieth century. Overall, the movement of senior teachers from New Zealand to Australia was more common than the reverse. The movement may be broken down into three ‘waves’ or segments. One was the movement of Scottish-New Zealanders from the public school system to Presbyterian schools in Australia. Another segment consisted of the movement of Scottish-Australians (and some others) to the public system in New Zealand. The third component was the movement of educators from the Australian Presbyterian schools to the new Presbyterian schools in New Zealand. From the late nineteenth century, Presbyterian schools in Australia had several heads recruited from New Zealand. Scotch College Melbourne, Presbyterian Ladies’ College (PLC) Melbourne and Scots College Sydney (established in 1893) between them boasted seven New Zealand heads. Most of these were also in some sense moving from public to private schools. Most of them illustrate the Victoria- Otago link. The shortage of Presbyterian talent for Church schools in Australia pulled them; personal ambition often pushed them. The two Heads of Scotch Melbourne from New Zealand were both actually Scottish-born; the three at Scots Sydney were all New Zealand-born. James Bee (1864-1941) was Headmaster of PLC Melbourne from 1907 to 1913. He was born and educated in Otago, with an MA in mathematics and later a MSc from Wellington. He trained at Dunedin teachers’ Training College and played international rugby. He was Science and Malcolm D. Prentis IRSS 33 (2008) 23
Mathematics master at Wellington College from 1889 to 1907 where he built physics and chemistry laboratories. G.H. Uttley, MA, BSc, who succeeded Bee as Headmaster of PLC from 1913 to 1915, was also from New Zealand. The Principal from 1912 to 1937 was William Gray, another New Zealand recruit. He had been a pupil teacher, Vice- Principal of the Dunedin Training College for five years, then Chief Inspector of Wanganui District. Gray made PLC more publicly and consciously a ‘Church’ school; though ‘authoritarian’ and espousing conservative social values and not much of a feminist, he was a good administrator who was willing to experiment and allow teachers with fresh ideas some freedom.43 Scotch College Melbourne had two New Zealand heads for nearly half a century from 1904 to 1953, both born in Scotland but one educated in Dunedin. The Scots College, Sydney had three New Zealand heads for over half a century between 1913 and 1974: the first two were born and bred in Otago/Southland. The third Sydney man and Dunning, however, came from the north island. What were their common characteristics? They were mostly from a Scots milieu, upbringing and education, all possessed qualities liked by Councils: strong educational ideas, not necessarily the same (traditional or progressive but not too progressive), some had a military background, sporting prowess (usually rugby and cricket) and a ‘man among men’ look. William Still Littlejohn (1859-1933) was born and educated in Aberdeenshire. After graduating MA in 1879, he taught at Hamilton, then emigrated to New Zealand in 1881. From 1882 to 1898 he was assistant master and then from 1898 to 1904 Principal of Nelson College, which had been partly modelled on the model of the Scottish grammar school. As did many evangelicals at the time, he accepted the compatibility of the theory of evolution, reasoning above rote learning. He played rugby himself and promoted it in the schools; similarly, he was a Captain in the New Zealand militia and promoted the Army cadets. He was appointed 24 Minister and Dominie: Creating an Australasian Scottish World? to Scotch in 1904 and was Principal for 29 years. He insisted on science labs. In ten years, the enrolment rose from 240 to over 500; he moved the school to a more spacious site at Hawthorn and in another nine years, the enrolment was 1200, making it the largest school in Australia. A Scotch old boy, the novelist Graham McInnes, described him as ‘an administrative dynamo driven by evangelical Scots fervour’ and a ‘mark fiend’ who drove the boys to exam success. He paid high salaries for good teachers, knew the educational literature and exercised ‘a broad humanity’. He introduced prefects and encouraged the boys to run the library, museum, societies and the Scotch Collegian. The Great War had a huge impact and it was Littlejohn who changed Scotch’s motto from Deo et Litteris by adding Patriae.44 Colin Macdonald Gilray (1885-1974) was born in County Angus and moved to Dunedin when his father Thomas Gilray was appointed Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Otago in 1889. He was not a Presbyterian but as a Scottish Congregation- alist fitted quite well the Scots Presbyterian milieu of Dunedin. He was educated at Otago Boys’ High School (partly modelled on the Scottish Grammar School) and at the University of Otago (BA, with Honours in English and German 1906). He also played rugby for both Otago and New Zealand and was a Rhodes scholar in 1907, obtaining his MA in Greats at Oxford in 1910. He taught and studied for the Bar and practised as a lawyer in Otago from 1913 to 1916. Then he joined the British army and was awarded the Military Cross in 1917. Marrying in that year, he returned to the law in 1919. But in 1922, he succeeded the Australian A.G. Butchers as Head of John McGlashan College (a Presbyterian boys’ boarding school) in Dunedin. In 1934, he moved to Scotch College Melbourne where he was Principal until 1953. As a liberal humanist, he developed the cultural side of school life and stressed public service obligation of the privileged. Also like Littlejohn, he was devout and preached and taught divinity classes. Though distant and Malcolm D. Prentis IRSS 33 (2008) 25 stern, he was respected for his sportsmanship and military manner.45 Scots College Sydney has had three New Zealand Principals, starting with James Bee from 1914 to 1934. A reserved and quiet but energetic man, apart from his academic and sporting achievements, he was also an elder of the Church.46 He brought J.C. Pope over from Wellington as English master and first assistant from 1914 to 1927. He worked to improve salaries, superannuation and to promote inter-school competitive sport.47 He was, like Littlejohn and others, increasingly influenced by the Arnoldian tradition of the private school. Though he built up the College, he lacked the resources he had had at PLC to broaden the curriculum too much. Alexander Knox Anderson (1892-1955) was born in Southland and educated in Otago, at Port Chalmers District High School, Dunedin Teachers’ Training College. He was master in the preparatory school of Waitaki Boys’ High School (again, partly modelled on the Scottish Grammar School). At night at the University of Otago, he acquired a BA in 1914 and an MA (with Honours in history) in 1916. He taught at Otago Boys’ High School and the University of Otago from 1918 to 1920. Like Littlejohn, he played competitive sport (in his case, hockey and shooting) and was a Captain in the New Zealand Army Reserve. After being Rector of St Andrew’s College Christchurch from 1920 to 1933, he was appointed Principal of Scots College Sydney in 1934, serving until his death in 1955. He was a strong disciplinarian with a firm commitment to Christian duty and morality, and an elder of the Church. 48 Despite his Scottish-sounding name, Guthrie Edward Melville Wilson (1912-1980) was of Northern Irish and English descent, not Scottish heritage, and was raised an Anglican.49 He was a high achiever and sporting champion at Palmerston North Boys’ High School and Victoria University College, Wellington from whence he graduated as MA with first class Honours. Assistant master at Marlborough Boys College from 1937 to 1940, he had played 26 Minister and Dominie: Creating an Australasian Scottish World? rugby for North Island Universities and for Marlborough. He joined the army and served in North Africa and Italy, was commissioned in the field, won the Military Cross and was a POW. Afterwards, he wrote popular novels based on his war experiences, including the international best-seller Brave Company (1951). He returned to Marlborough College in 1946, where he taught English, Latin and History, became head of department and coached cricket and rugby. He returned to Palmerston North Boys High School in 1946 until 1955. His departure was allegedly prompted by reac- tions to his fiction from narrow-minded School Governors.50 He joined Methodist Newington College in Sydney as Latin Master in 1955, later becoming Senior Master. He was recruited by Scots College as Assistant Principal in 1964 and was appointed the first non-Presbyterian Principal in 1966, retiring in 1974.51 Born in North Auckland, John Angus Dunning (1903- 1971) was partly of Waipu Scots descent. He was educated at Auckland Grammar School and Auckland University College, later graduating MSc (Honours) in Mathematics at the University of Otago. He was Rhodes Scholar in 1924 and, at Oxford in 1925-26, he obtained his MA in Mathe- matics. He played test cricket for New Zealand in 1933 and in 1937 as well as minor representative rugby. Said to be ‘thoroughly versed in the New Zealand public school system’, he taught at John McGlashan College, Dunedin in 1923-25 and 1927-1939, where he was sports master and was ordained an elder of the church. His sister was also a school Principal. Seen as somewhat ‘dour’, he was recruited to lead Scots College, Warwick in Queensland from 1939 to 194952 and Prince Alfred College, Adelaide from 1949 to 1968, where he was said to exhibit ‘Scottish carefulness’.53 Prince Alfred had champion cricket teams: there were eight old boys in South Australian teams in the 1960s and 1970s. Trevor Chappell was in the first XI for four years, two as captain. His Scots Presbyterian credentials led to his being approached by Scots Sydney in 1956. Did these educators bring or reinforce a Scottish Malcolm D. Prentis IRSS 33 (2008) 27
Presbyterian ethos? They could not do otherwise, given their backgrounds and the criteria of the schools hiring them. Increasingly, however, this was a kind of Scottish Presbyterian ethos refracted through antipodean lenses. In the nineteenth century, the teacher’s task was to serve the church and influence society by maintaining the Scots Presbyterian ethos and values. There was a gradual and seemingly inevitable move towards the English Arnoldian tradition, as prefects, ‘character-development’ and games were added to a broad academic curricula. Into the twentieth century, the Presbyterians sought to keep up with the Anglicans and maintain their image as elite schools. With muscular Christianity and the rugby tradition coming to the fore, it became less necessary for the educator to be Presbyterian. In relation to Littlejohn of Nelson College and Scotch, Arnold speaks of ‘Seeking the prophet of greater honour from abroad’, a graduate of Aberdeen ‘unhampered by familiarity among Australians’ and an alternative to direct British recruitment which would have been ‘slower and more costly and have lacked the assurance that the appointee could adapt to the colonial scene’.54 Three outstanding examples help illustrate the Otago- Victoria link and involve reverse movement, not only geographically, but sectoral, from private education in Australia to public education in New Zealand. Margaret Gordon Burn (nee Huie, 1825 – 1918) was born in Edinburgh into a privileged family. After private tuition, she attended Circus Place School and later studied languages with private tutors. She worked as a governess in Liverpool until the death of her father in 1852, whereupon Eliza Huie and her eight children emigrated to Geelong, Victoria, Australia, where Margaret opened a small private school. In 1857, Margaret married Andrew Burn, then a teacher at Scotch College, Melbourne, and later principal of the Presbyterian school at Geelong. In 1864 he suffered severe sunstroke from which he never fully recovered, although he lived until 1892. To support herself and her 28 Minister and Dominie: Creating an Australasian Scottish World? three young children, Margaret Burn opened the very successful Geelong Ladies’ College along the lines of Circus Place School. In 1870 she was chosen from 28 applicants for the position of lady principal of the Girls’ Provincial School (later Otago Girls’ High School) in Dunedin, New Zealand, which opened on 6 February 1871. Margaret Burn was regarded as an outstanding teacher, as ‘strict but fair’ and was a staunch Presbyterian who ensured that worship was part of the school day. The school grew strongly and the curriculum was wider than in most girls’ schools at the time, including also science. Early on, several graduates went into teaching careers. In 1884, Margaret Burn retired but in 1887 accepted the position of lady principal of the new Waitaki Girls’ High School in Oamaru. A small school, it was firmly established by the time she retired again in 1892.55 Donald Petrie (1846-1925), was born in Moray and educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and the University of Aberdeen (MA 1867). He taught for a while at the Glasgow Free Church Training College and Glasgow Academy and emigrated to Melbourne in 1867. He was appointed as classics teacher at Scotch College by the Principal, Alexander Morrison, his uncle. In late 1873, Petrie moved to Otago, New Zealand, where he became provincial Inspector of Schools. He published and revised textbooks on geography between 1878 and 1886 and had considerable impact on the teaching of infants. From 1894 until he retired in 1910, Petrie was chief inspector of schools to the Auckland Education Board.56 There was also movement from Australian Presby- terian to New Zealand Presbyterian Schools. Presbyterian schools were established later in New Zealand than in Australia, beginning in 1914-1919. And five of the first six were for girls.57 Malcolm D. Prentis IRSS 33 (2008) 29
Table 6: Presbyterian Schools in New Zealand
School Location Pupils Founded Iona Havelock North girls 1914 St Cuthbert’s Auckland girls 1915 Columba Dunedin girls 1915 Solway Masterton girls 1916 Scots Wellington boys 1916 St Andrew’s Christchurch boys * 1917 Melrose Invercargill ? 1917-23 John McGlashan Dunedin boys 1919 Queen Margaret Wellington girls 1919 Lindisfarne Hastings boys 1953 St Kentigern Auckland boys 1953 St Oran’s Lower Hutt girls 1958 * later co-educational.
Because of this later start, the New Zealand schools tended to look to their Australian counterparts for both educational models and staff. For a start, nine founding Principals had to be found in a rush; three of them came from PLC Melbourne as well as another one two years after foundation. Arthur Gordon Butchers (1885-1960) was born in Melbourne, the son of a Methodist minister. He was thus not even a Presbyterian and nearly all his experience was as a student and teacher in Anglican schools in Geelong, Launceston and Ararat. He left rural Ararat Grammar School to become the founding Principal of John McGlashan College from 1917 to 1922. His experience in fund-raising, recruiting pupils, designing buildings and establishing school programmes was urgently needed. As headmaster for five years over a difficult war and post-war period, he saw the school firmly founded with excellent facilities and a blossoming tradition. He had also been influenced by Frank Tate, the virtual author of the Victorian state system. He later moved to the New Zealand state system, in 1923 becoming senior mathematics master at Southland Boys’ High School in Invercargill and carving out a notable New Zealand educational career in the 1930s and 1940s. He 30 Minister and Dominie: Creating an Australasian Scottish World? wrote voluminously on the history of New Zealand education, having written a Melbourne M.Ed. thesis on that subject.58 Isobel Macdonald, MA, left PLC Melbourne in 1915 to become founding head of St Cuthbert’s College for girls in Auckland from 1915 to 1922. She later returned to Australia, to PLC Armidale in rural New South Wales and ended at PGC Adelaide. Amacie Haydon was a French teacher at PLC Melbourne, which she left 1920 to become Principal of Queen Margaret College in Wellington from 1921 to 1923. Dr G.H. Uttley left PLC Melbourne to return to New Zealand to become the founding Principal of Scots College Wellington, 1916-1923.59 Clearly, some of these senior educators were not of Scottish Presbyterian heritage; but that is not the point. They were specifically recruited because of their experience within Presbyterian schools and their ability to transfer to the new New Zealand schools the ethos and approaches established in schools like Scotch and PLC. The individual senior teachers mentioned here were the tip of an iceberg of uncertain dimensions. Though there seems to have been no large flow of public school teachers from one colony to another or from one state to another, there was and still is an Australasian common market for church and private schools. Roman Catholic teaching orders such as the (Irish) Christian Brothers taught on both sides of the Tasman.60
Conclusion With the clergy and teacher movements, the closest relations were between Victoria and Otago. The purposes of move- ment slowly changed from the early twentieth century’s more assuredly Scottish Presbyterian purposes to subtly different purposes. These different purposes were theolog- ical in the case of ministers and social in the case of school heads. In the earlier phase, it was clearer that the bolstering of the collective Scots-Presbyterian identity was involved. Otago and Victoria tended to act as Scottish Presbyterian reservoirs for Scots-Presbyterians in less Scottish parts of Malcolm D. Prentis IRSS 33 (2008) 31
Australasia. The tenacity of their identity was perhaps assumed to be based on the density of Scottish settlement and the greater impact on civil society. For instance, even though the structure and ethos of the Australian state systems were often close to Scottish norms, those of Otago were an even closer match. The older New Zealand state secondary schools seemed to have more independence, and structure and ethos more compatible with church, especially Presbyterian, schools in Australia and therefore some Australian Presbyterian schools freely recruited from Otago. On the other hand, Presbyterian teachers in Australian state schools did not often move to leadership in church schools. In Rollo Arnold’s ‘Perennial Interchange’, his second and third dynamics apply to both ministers and teachers: ‘Australasian career patterns within professions lacking formal trans-Tasman institutions’ and the ‘Australasian market for scarce professional, industrial and managerial skill’.61 Arnold speaks of ‘Seeking the prophet of greater honour from abroad … unhampered by familiarity among Australians’, which certainly applies to New Zealand recruitment of Australian teachers and ministers. It also applies in reverse. Arnold also sees trans-Tasman recruiting as an alternative to direct British recruitment which would have been ‘slower and more costly and have lacked the assurance that the appointee could adapt to the colonial scene’.62 This also seems valid on closer inspection. Scots in Australasia gradually (and sometimes quite suddenly) became Australasians or, rather, Australians and New Zealanders. The moves of ministers and teachers both ways across the Tasman seem contrary to a strict recolonization thesis, more obviously in the case of Australian schools recruiting from New Zealand. Teachers across the Tasman blended into the Australian scene quite readily. It did not happen in a sudden moment but there was a gradual trans- formation from isolated migratory groups in the antipodes to an Australasian Scottish Presbyterian diaspora.63 One of our fond generalizations about the difference between Australia and New Zealand involves the implications 32 Minister and Dominie: Creating an Australasian Scottish World? of the fact that the Irish were number two in Australia but the Scots were number two in New Zealand.64 In reply to the green-tinged, radical nationalist ‘Australian Legend’ view of Australia, a former Registrar of the University of Sydney once said: ‘As far as long-term influence on Australian attitudes and culture is concerned …, let me suggest that it may be more important to have captured the country’s education system, rather than its folk song market.’65 How much more is this the case for New Zealand? And how important were both sides of the Tasman to each other for this cultural and educational mission? Malcolm D. Prentis IRSS 33 (2008) 33
Notes
1 T. Brooking, ‘“Tam McCanny and Kitty Clydeside”: The Scots in New Zealand’, in R. Cage (ed.), The Scots Abroad: Labour, Capital, Enterprise (London: Croom Helm Ltd., 1985), p. 156. Other reasons for New Zealand superiority concern convictism, climate and the Maori. 2 See K.D. Butler, ‘Defining Diaspora, Refining a Discourse’, Diaspora, 10, 2 (2001), pp. 189-219. This discussion begs the question about the extent to which Australia or its individual pre-federation colonies and New Zealand qualify as ‘nations’ for the purpose of being ‘trans-national’. 3 The 2001 Conference of the New Zealand Historical Association in Christchurch and the 2002 Conference of the Australian Historical Association in Brisbane had well-attended sessions concerned with redeveloping the links and ‘Heads of History’ meetings sponsored by the AHA conferences since then have included New Zealanders. A large research grant for 2003-5 enabled the development of the project ‘Anzac Neighbours: 100 years of multiple ties between New Zealand and Australia’ at the University of Canterbury. 4 Butler, pp. 207-8. 5 F.L.W. Wood, ‘Why did New Zealand not join the Australian Commonwealth in 1900-1901?’ New Zealand Journal of History, 2, 2 (1968), pp. 115-129; M. Fairburn ‘New Zealand and Australasian Federation, 1883-1901,’ New Zealand Journal of History, 4, 2 (1970), pp. 138-159; K. Sinclair, (ed.), Tasman Relations, Auckland 1987; R. Arnold, ‘Some Australasian Aspects of New Zealand Life, 1890- 1913’, New Zealand Journal of History, 4, 1 (1970), pp. 54-76. 6 Brooking, 163-181; T. Brooking, ‘Sharing out the Haggis’, in T. Brooking & J. Coleman (eds.), The Heather and the Fern: Scottish Migration & New Zealand Settlement (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2003), also chs by T. Hearn on gold miners and J. McAloon on the colonial economy. 7 P.J. O’Farrell, ‘The Irish in Australia and New Zealand’, in W.E. Vaughan (ed.), A New History of Ireland Vol 5 Ireland Under the Union 1801-70 (Oxford: Oxford Universtiy Press, 1989) and see A. McCarthy, Bibliography of the Irish in New Zealand.
10 E. Olssen, ‘New Zealand-Australian Relations’, in G. Davison et al. (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Australian History (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 466. 11 G.A. Carmichael, ‘New Zealanders’, in J. Jupp (ed.), The Australian people: An Encyclopedia of the Nation, its People and their Origins (2nd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 603. 12 R. Arnold, ‘The Dynamics and Quality of Trans-Tasman Migration, 1885-1910’, Australian Economic History Review, 26 (1986), pp. 1-20. 13 J. Belich, Paradise Reforged: a History of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the year 2000 (Auckland: University of Hawaii Press, 2001), pp. 29-31, 53-86 and passim. 14 Butler, 204. 15 T.M. Devine, The Scottish Nation 1700-2000 (London: Penguin, 1999), p. 91. 16 ibid., pp. 98-99. 17 There has been vigorous debate about the extent and quality of Scottish education, with R.A. Houston, Scottish Literacy and the Scottish Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) questioning the traditional ‘optimistic’ view. D.J. Withrington, ‘Schooling, Literacy and Society,’ in T.M. Devine & R. Mitchison (eds.), People and Society in Scotland, I: 1760-1830 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1988), pp. 163-188 and R.D. Anderson, Education and the Scottish People 1750-1918 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995) essentially recon- firmed it. Research on the literacy of convicts and assisted immigrants to Australia shows that the Scots were consistently and clearly the most literate national group until very late in the 19th century: see M.D. Prentis, The Scots in Australia (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2008), chs 2 and 3. 18 Devine, p. 95. 19 ibid., p. 93. 20 J.G Kellas, Modern Scotland (2nd ed., London: Harper Collins, 1980), p. 56. 21 T.C. Smout, A Century of the Scottish People 1830-1950 (London: Yale University Press, 1986), p. 210. 22 T.C. Smout, A History of the Scottish People 1560-1830 (London: Collins, 1969/1972), p. 83. 23 Kellas, pp. 64-65. 24 S. & O. Checkland, Industry and Ethos: Scotland 1832-1914 (London: Edinburgh University Press, 1984), p. 155. 25 Devine, p. 26. 26 Smout, History 1560-1830, p. 341. Malcolm D. Prentis IRSS 33 (2008) 35
27 Brooking, ‘Sharing out the Haggis’, p. 50. 28 Devine, p. 392. 29 Smout, Century 1830-1950, p. 212. 30 For a comparison of a similar situation of a Scots minority promoting public education in another colony, resolved in a slightly different way, see R. Macleod, ‘“In the Hallowed Name of Religion”: Scots and Public Education in Nineteenth-Century Montreal,‘ in P.E. Rider & H. McNabb (eds), A Kingdom of the Mind: How the Scots helped make Canada (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006), pp. 227-241. 31 Kellas, p. 72. 32 See Belich, esp. pp. 53-86. 33 Ministers’ Register, Archives of Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand,
46 G.E. Sherington, ‘Bee, James (1864-1941),’ in J. Ritchie (ed.), Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 7 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 1979), 242-243; G.E. Sherington & M.D. Prentis, Scots to the Fore: a History of The Scots College Sydney 1893-1993 (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1993), pp. 55-57. 47 Sherington & Prentis, pp. 70-72. 48 ibid., pp. 81-83. 49 J. Millen, Guthrie Wilson: writer, soldier, educator (Wellington: First Edition Publishing, 2006), ch. 1. 50 E. Brookie of Palmerston North Boys’ High School, pers. comm., 22 February 1990. 51 Sherington & Prentis, pp. 141-143. 52 B. Shaw, The Lion and the Thistle: A History of the Scots PGC College, Warwick 1918-1992 (Warwick, Qld: Council of Scots PGC College, 1993), pp. 137-164. 53 R.M. Gibbs, A History of Prince Alfred College (Kent Town, SA: Peacock Publications, 1984), pp. 277-329. 54 Arnold, p. 9. 55 Eileen Wallis, ‘Burn, Margaret Gordon 1825-1918’. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, updated 31 July 2003, URL: http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/ 56 Fiona D. H. Pitt, ‘Petrie, Donald 1846 – 1925’. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, updated 31 July 2003, URL: http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/ 57 Elder, pp. 363-367. 58 Rollo Arnold, ‘Butchers, Arthur Gordon 1885-1960’. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, updated 31 July 2003, URL: http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/ 59 Fitzpatrick, pp. 131-134; Elder, pp. 364-365. 60 Hempenstall, ‘Following the Stars’. 61 Arnold, p. 5. 62 Arnold, p. 9. 63 Butler, p. 207. 64 A ‘popular belief”, as summed up by Brooking, p. 59. 65 K.W. Knight, ‘Some Scottish Educators and their Influence on Australian Education’, Descent, 15, 1 (March 1985), p. 18.