THE FRIENDS' SCHOOL HOBART : FORMATION AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT THE FRIENDS' SCHOOL HOBART : FORMATION AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT by William Nicolle Oats, B.A. (Hons.Adel.), B.ED. (Melb.) submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education University of Tasmania Hobart. October, 1976. I hereby declare that this thesis, The Friends' School Hobart Formation and Early Development, contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university, and that to the best of my knowledge and belief, this thesis contains no copy or paraphrase of material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis. (signed) 611/ (W.N . Oats) %S. ▪• TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Introduction • • • • • • 1 PART ONE FORMATION : 1832-1887 Ideas and events leading to the foundation of The Friends'School Hobart in 1887. 4 CHAPTER 1 : The Influence of James Backhouse and George Washington Walker .. CHAPTER 2 : A Question of Survival 30 Initial difficulties 31 The education and alienation of a young Quaker 49 Education - a key to survival 62 CHAPTER 3 : Moves to Establish a Friends' School 1864-1886 •• • • 74 PART TWO EARLY DEVELOPMENT : 1887-1900 CHAPTER 4 : Curriculum and Methods ,• 107 CHAPTER 5 : Problems of Development Accommodation, Finance and Staffing 146 CHAPTER 6 : The Anatomy of a Crisis 171 CHAPTER 7 : Impact 208 Appendix 1 : Particulars of Donations and Loans to The Friends' School Hobart 1887-1900 • • • • 239 Appendix 2 : Statement of Assets and Liabilities to December 1900. Working Account for 1900 Schedule of fees 1900 241 (iv) pa_fae Appendix 3 : Staffing from England and Australia 1887-1900 243 References • • .. • • 244 (v ) ABSTRACT The foundation of The Friends' School Hobart in 1887 was the result of a number of formative influences dating back to the arrival of the two English Quakers, Backhouse and Walker, in Hobart in 1832. Part One of this thesis examines the link between Backhouse and Walker's sponsorship of the British and Foreign School Society's principles and the support non-Friends ultimately gave to a Friends' School which appeared to offer an alternative both to the sectarianism of the Church Schools and the secularism of the newly-established State Schools. The .special characteristics of the small Friends' Meeting organized by BaCkhouse and Walker in Hobart in 1833 are outlined as a Ueda for showing how education came to be regarded by this group of Friends as providing a key to their survival. ' .Five attempts to start a.small'school for children of Friends failed in the mid-century decades and a move to set up a boarding-school by, Melbourne Friends in the mid-seventies also failed. The thesis attempts to answer the questions: Why then did a Friends' School succeed in Hobart in 1887, where previous attempts had failed? Why in Hobart' and not in Melbourne or Sydney? Part Two describes the early development of the school during the years 1887 to 1900 and the importance in this development of three key figures - Edwin Ransome in England, Francis Mather in Hobart and Samuel Clemes who came out from England to be the school's first headmaster. Support was given by English Friends with finance and (vi) with staffing. The school, however, was a viable proposition only because of the extent of support given by the non-Friend community in Hobart. The school made an impact on non-Friends by reason of its claim to offer something distinctive in curriculum and methods. In curriculum,emphasis was placed, for example, on science rather than on the classics, on the importance of the practical as well as the academic skills, and on training for leisure. The school was regarded as "modern" in its methods because of its introduction of co-education, its reliance on co-operative rather than on competitive techniques in the classroom and its attempt to formulate a non-sectar- ian approach to religious education. The years 1887 to 1900 cover the period of Samuel Clemes' headmastership. The reasons for his resignation in 1900 are analysed in some detail in the chapter,. "Anatomy of a crisis". The thesis concludes with a summary of the impact of the school as a Friends' school within the context of the philosophy and practices of the Religious Society of Friends and as a 'High' school within the context of the wider non-Friend community. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I gratefully acknowledge the help and encouragement of the following: Paul Cadbury, Brandon Cadbury, the Barrow Cadbury Trust, the Edward Cadbury Trust, the Juniper Hill Fund, Amy E. Wallis, R. Morgan Johnson, Headmaster of Wigton School, Edward Milligan, Malcolm Thomas and staff of the Friends' House Library, London, Robert Mather and the Board of Governors of The Friends' School, Hobart, Marguerita Robey, Nancie Hewitt, Jack Annells, John Clemes, Edgar Beale, Peter Walker for permission to use the Walker Papers, Shirley King, archivist of the University of Tasmania Library, the staff of the • Tasmanian State Archives, Nell Gill, Clive Sansom, Gerald Johnston, br. Edgar French, Dr. Michael Roe, Professor R. Selby-Smith - and Marjorie. ABBREVIATIONS B. & F.S.S. British and Foreign School Society C .J.H. Charles J. Holdsworth E.R.R. Edwin R. Ransome F.H.A.L. Friends' House Archives London F.S.H.L. The Friends' School Hobart Library G .W.W. George Washington Walker J.B. James Backhouse J.B.M. Joseph Benson Mather J.F.M. Joseph Francis Mather, son of J.B.M. J.B.W. James Backhouse Walker, son of G.W.W. M.M. Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends S.A.G. Society of Australian Genealogists, Sydney T.S.A. Tasmanian State Archives, State Public Library, Hobart T.U.A. Tasmanian University Archives, University of Tasmania,Hobart Y.M. Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends 1 . INTRODUCTION THE ROSE AND THE WARATAH The English rose and the Tasmanian waratah on the Friends' School badge are a reminder of the two traditions which came together in the founding of The Friends' School in Hobart in 1887. Quakers are not given to heraldry, nor to coats of arms, but when Ernest Unwin, Headmaster of The Friends' School from 1923 to 1944, was attempting to symbolize the traditions of the school, he chose the badge as a shield of faith, not as a symbol of war, with the Christian symbol of the cross against a field of simple Quaker grey. He represented the most significant historical features of the school by flanking the central torch of learning with an English rose 1 and a Tasmanian waratah. The rose was a reminder of the contribution which the Society of Friends in England made to the foundation and subsequent development of the school; the waratah was a declaration that the school was not merely an English transplant in a colonial setting but a genuine Tasmanian product. To Understand the characteristics of the school which developed as a result of the combination of English and Tasmanian influences it is necessary in retrospect to retrace the history of the small group of Friends in Tasmania at least back to 1832,.the .year of the arrival of 1. The heraldic description of The Friends' School badge is given as "Azure, a cross Quaker grey, English rose and Tasmanian waratah gules, torch azure, flame gules". The Friends' School Seventy - fifth Anniversary, Hobart, 1961, p.42. 2. the two' English Quakers, James Backhouse and George Washington Walker, in Hobart. Few schools will have had as long a period of gestation, or one as fully documented as The Friends' School Hobart. It is there- fore possible to identify the variety of influences, both within the local group of Friends and external to it, which finally culminated in the birth of the school. Although it was a Friends' School and has remained under the control of the Society of Friends from 1887 up. to the present, it never- theless departed somewhat from some of the educational practices of the traditional English Friends' schools. The main lines of development were worked out in the years 1887 to 1900. There was a second area of interaction. The school was operat- ing within the local Tasmanian community. Non-Friend members of this community gave the school strong and sympathetic support, because the school appeared to offer a type of education which had a strong religious base - the cross against a background of Quaker grey - and yet was not sectarian. Educational policy was not imported from England ready-made; it Was woven into a strong worsted on the spot in Hobart. It Is possible therefore to examine the fabric of these years and determine the characteristic strands of the pattern. Whatever. the metaphoric terms employed to describe the forma tion and birth of the school - hybrid product of rose and waratah, or new weave of varied strands, or surprising advent after a long and unsuspected period of gestation, the main body of this thesis is 3. directed to a study of the ideas which found expression in the early formative years of the school's'history and which shaped the subsequent development of the school. 4. PART ONE - FORMATION - 1832 to 1887 Ideas and events leading to the foundation of The Friends' School, Hobart, in 1887. The first fourteen years, 1887-1900, the period of the head- mastership of Samuel Clemes, were the formative years in the history of The Friends' School, Hobart. The birth of an institution, like that of a human being, is not an isolated happening. It is the out- come of a combination of influences, ideas and events.