Scotch College

School Numbers

To Kane Walker (Year 7)

Dear Kane,

When you visited the archives on Grandparents' Day recently, you and your friend David Wollermann asked me, as brand-new Year 7 boys, who had held your School numbers before you.

The answer turns out to be very simple: no-one.

When we spoke, I said that several people would have held your number, as they are only four-digit numbers and are rotated over the years. However, when I looked into the registration books-large leather-bound tomes half as tall as you are-I found that for most of Scotch's history the numbers only went to about 3000 before they started again.

However, nowadays the numbers are allocated automatically by the School's computer, which has kept on past 3000 (it is now up into the 8000s). I wonder if it will restart at 9999 or just keep going?

So your question has prompted me to find out things that I did not know.

It has also led to another discovery that would not have happened had I not had School numbers on my mind.

Last Friday someone brought in the Scotch cap worn by an Old Boy of the 1930s named Keith. (Let me use some generic Scots names here.)

In Keith's day the metal cap badge had the owner's School number engraved on the back, and sure enough there on the back of the badge on Keith's cap was: 1224. For some reason, I checked this against the registration book and found to my surprise that Keith's number was 1683.

Was it the cap of Keith's elder brother Ian? No his number was 1237.

However, one of Ian's fellow boarders did indeed have the number 1224. Perhaps somehow their caps were exchanged (a friendly swap or a midnight raid?), and then what had become Ian's cap went in turn to his younger brother, Keith?

With my best wishes (and with my congratulations on your being the first and only boy to bear your number),

Dr Jim Mitchell
Co-Archivist