Scotch College

Scotch College's Role in the Birth of our Nation

Regular readers of Great Scot should by now be well aware of a very busy year of wide-ranging activities coming up to commemorate the school's sesquicentenary in 2001

But Scotch will by no means be alone in celebrating 2001 as a special anniversary. The year will also be celebrated by a number of others, perhaps most notably the Commonwealth of Australia, with nationwide celebrations planned to mark the Centenary of Federation.

Others celebrating will be the State of Victoria, also 150 years old next year, and Monash University (named, of course, after one of Scotch's most famous sons, General Sir John Monash), which will be celebrating its 40th with a program which will include a special Monash Lecture.

It is interesting to realise that Scotch was actually founded half a century before Australia as such became a nation, and that Victoria had become a State in its own right only just a few months before Scotch's foundation on 6 October 1851.

The British Parliament had passed the Australian Colonies Government Act (which separated Port Phillip District (Victoria) from New South Wales) the previous year, but it did not take effect until 1 July 1851. The act provided for Legislative Councils in Victoria, South Australia and Van Diemen's Land (renamed Tasmania in 1855) with the Assemblies being established later.

It was also in 1851 that the discovery of gold in Victoria was announced, sparking a gold rush and period of prosperity that lasted almost to the end of the century.

Although originally mooted much earlier, the first serious moves towards joining together the six Australian colonies under a Federal system of Government really began in the 1880s.

However, the birth of the nation was arduous and protracted, with some 20 years of difficult and tedious negotiations taking place before culminating in the inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia 1901.

It was not achieved with a grand flourish of independence and nationhood, but after several national conventions and a series of complex compromises and referenda.

A number of old Scotch boys were among those who played various roles in the push towards Federation, both in and out of Parliamentary circles.

Most notable among these was possibly Sir George Houstoun Reid (1845-1918) who left Scotch in 1858 and later became a lawyer in New South Wales, where he was an MLA from 1880-84 and 1885-1901, serving as Premier 1894-99.

An ardent free-trader, Reid was initially critical of the Federation proposals put to the 1891 convention, but later changed his position and became a strong supporter. He subsequently became leader of the free-trade party in the Commonwealth Parliament in 1901 and was Australia's fourth Prime Minister (after Edmund Barton, Alfred Deakin and John Watson).

He was the first Prime Minister produced by Scotch College. (To this stage, alas, given the brilliant leaders we have contributed to so many other fields of endeavour, he is still the only one).

He was forced to retire in 1909 and became high commissioner to London. The appointment was terminated by the wartime Labor government and he then stood successfully for a seat in the British Parliament, serving from 1916 until his death in 1918.

Another major contributor to the Federation push was George Henry Wise (1875-1950), who was born and educated in Melbourne, leaving Scotch in 1868 and subsequently moving to Sale in 1875 where he practised as a prominent solicitor for many years.

Wise was a leading figure in popularising the cause of Federation among the general community, as opposed to those who were working at the parliamentary level.

He was a very active member of the Australian Natives' Association Friendly Society, (ANA) which was keenly pushing Federation as part of its national agenda. After serving as President of the Sale branch, Wise had a high profile as Chief President of the ANA in 1891-1892.

Wise stood for both the Victorian State Parliament and later the Senate (3 times) without success, but his parliamentary ambitions were finally rewarded in 1906 when he became MHR for Gippsland, which seat he held until 1922.

Another keen ANA activist was Charles Carty Salmon (1860-1917) who graduated in medicine after he left Scotch in 1874, and later became a frequent public speaker on the cause of Federation.

Elected MLA for Talbot and Avoca in 1893, he became a minister in the Victorian Government. He was a life-long friend of Alfred Deakin and served as an MHR for Laanecoorie (Western Victoria) from 1901-12, including a term as speaker 1909-12.

One of the most enthusiastic supporters of Federation in legal circles was Sir Arthur Robinson (1872-1945), founder of the eponymous law firm now known as Arthur Robinson Hedderwicks.

A nephew of the man who became Australia's first prime minister, Sir Edmund Barton, Robinson left Scotch in 1887, and soon became a highly regarded lawyer.

He later served with distinction in three parliaments, as MLA for Dundas (1900-02), MHR for Wannon (1903-06), and MLC for Melbourne South (1912-25).

As Minister for Supply in his last term in the Victorian Parliament, he played a key role in the enabling legislation for the founding of the State Electricity Commission, with foundation Chairman, Sir John Monash, and another old boy as chief scientist, Dr Hyman Herman (1890), widely credited as being the father of the briquette.

Sir Arthur Robinson became one of Scotch's most honoured sons and faithful servants, as a long serving member of the School Council including a distinguished term as Chairman, from 1929-1945.

He set up the highly successful building fund for the move to Hawthorn in 1919 and in the 1920s oversaw the granting of a new coat of arms, the one we still have to this day.

Sir Arthur's grandson, Michael Robinson ('55), current senior partner at the same law firm, has been a member of the Scotch College Council since 1986 and Chairman from 1996 to the present time.

It is indeed fitting that Arthur Robinson Hedderwicks was the first Victorian group to make a substantial financial commitment this year in support of the Centenary of Federation Victoria (CFV) through the unique 'Friends of Federation' corporate sponsorship program. Some 20 of these major sponsors will be recognised perpetually on the Federation Pillars to be erected in the Grand Plaza between the Royal Exhibition Building and the new Melbourne Museum.

Another leading light in the earlier parliamentary days was William Knox. Born in 1850, he left Scotch in 1866 and was a one-time manager of the Bank of Victoria, then a public accountant who successfully floated the Broken Hill Company on a trip to England in 1885 for more than a million pounds.

He was president of the Malvern City Council and councillor for many years, and later a member of the Legislative Assembly. He was elected (our first) member for Kooyong in the first Commonwealth Parliament.

A keen golfer, he was the first president of the Caulfield Golf Club, and still in office when the club moved to Oakleigh in 1908. Members of the successor Metropolitan Golf Club will recognise the name as the man behind the Knox Trophy, one of the club's most highly sought-after awards.

Next year, our Victorian readers will note that the State will be the focus of much of the national Centenary of Federation celebrations as so many of Victoria's early leaders played a pivotal role in the drive to Federation. They have made major contributions over the 100 years since then to the Commonwealth of Australia.

Scotch may have only produced only one Australian Prime Minister to date, but our Old Boys still have more entries than any other school in the epic reference series, the Australian Dictionary of Biography (an ongoing work now up to 16 volumes, one of whose major authors was former general editor and distinguished historian, the late Geoffrey Serle ('40).

We may sometimes wonder how it could be that any one school could make such a significant contribution to all of the historians' 'Four Estates' (and nowadays so many more!!), but let's wonder no more and just rejoice and be proud!

Among the Parliamentary leaders we have produced are numerous Premiers of four states (Vic, NSW, SA, Tas), and countless members of parliament in Upper and Lower Houses in most states as well as many long-serving Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in State and Federal parliaments.

And then there are our two most distinguished Governors-General, Sir Zelman Cowen ('35) who served from 1977-82 and was succeeded by Sir Ninian Stephen ('40), term 1982-89.

Back in 1901, the First Commonwealth Parliament was opened in the Melbourne Exhibition Building on 9 May by the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York (who later became King George V and Queen Mary).

Their Royal Highnesses returned to the Exhibition Building on 14 May to attend a combined public schools speech day and present the prizes. Scotch's then Principal, Alexander Morrison, was, of course, a leading speaker in the order of ceremonies.

Australia's school children will again be remembered on 9 May 2001 when every primary school child in the nation will be presented with a Federation medallion.

The foregoing should indeed establish a pretty strong and impressive connection between Scotch and the foundation of our great nation, but let us finish on a wee note of serendipity.

Where is the headquarters of the Centenary of Federation Victoria located today? Why, where else, but in Casselden Place, the building that now stands on the site occupied by Scotch's own birthplace in Spring Street!

Mr Frank Shew

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Australian Schools' Longevity Ladder

Our recent reports of next year's 150th celebrations may have got some readers wondering about the ages of Australia's longest established schools.

Well wonder no more, here's the answer. It is generally accepted that Scotch College, Melbourne, is the oldest surviving secondary school in Victoria and the ninth oldes surviving independent secondary school in Australia.

Here's the 'First Nine' and their foundation dates.

1	1831	The King's School (Paramatta, NSW)
2	1840	St Patrick's College (Campbelltown, NSW)
3	1846	Launceston Grammar School (Mowbray Heights, TAS)
4	1846	The Hutchins School (Sandy Bay, TAS)
5	1846	Mercedes Catholic Ladies' College (Perth, WA)
6	1847	St Peter's College (St Peters, SA)
7	1847	Pulteney Grammar School (Adelaide, SA)
8	1850	St Andrew's (Primary) School (Walkerville, SA)
9	1851	Scotch College (Melbourne, VIC)