Scotch College

Archives - Who belongs to number 1252?

'About 18 years ago my family purchased a small rural block at Cooberrie which is inland from Yeppoon,' writes Helen Gallehawk from Central Queensland. On clearing land for a home site, she found a metal badge 'in the scrub ' far from any old homesteads or old homesites.'

The motto on it was Deo Patriae Litteris, and since she found the meaning 'so close to my own heart and priorities, I did a web search and came up with the Scotch College.' Also, says Helen, the badge 'has in the centre the same 'burning bush' as depicted on your website Ö On the back is scratched a number 1252.'

That number had been recycled by the School many times. It would have appeared between 1925 (when the burning-bush cap-badge superseded the seated-scholar badge) and 1968 (when caps became optional).

During those 40 years, number 1252 was given to Colin Conway Dyte in 1925, Norman David Guthrie in 1929, John Frederick Kellock in 1931, Keith George Patterson in 1935, Robert Alfred Bruce in 1939, Richard Langdon Buller in 1941, John Hugh Sutherland McCallum in 1943, Robert Fairbairn Hudson in 1947, William Ross McIndoe in 1952, Hugh William Davies in 1955, Peter McDonald Brett in 1957, Douglas Raymond Harrison in 1963, and Euan Shaw Kilpatrick in 1969.

Whose cap badge was it? Perhaps our readers have the key to this mystery.

Brooch gift

A woman's brooch incorporating the Scotch badge was recently donated to the School Archives by Janet Morgan, daughter of Everard Herman Noske (1918).

The brooch was in use up until 1925.

A man of style and charm

Old Boys continue to sing the praise of John Bishop, the school's first Director of Music, appointed by Principal Gilray in 1937.

David Laver ('47) writes:

'I began at Scotch in 1944 at the age of 14. Music was a major sport in the inter-house competitions, counting equal with cricket and football. Each house had it own choir and its own orchestra, and there were two nights set aside where the choirs or orchestras would compete with each other. The genius behind all this was John Bishop, a little man with enormous energy and great charm. I hero-worshipped him.

'Johnny', as he was affectionately known, started me playing the double bass, and within a year I was playing in the Melbourne Junior Symphony Orchestra. For a schoolboy it was a wonderful experience.

Music activity was intense right through the four years I was at school. The quality of choirs and instrumental work was very high. There were festivals at school of Beethoven's music, and of English music, and most of Melbourne's best musicians were involved at some time or other, performing or adjudicating.

'Johnny' played the piano with great style and had also a beautiful baritone voice. He founded the Junior Symphony Orchestra, the Victorian School Music Association, the Music Camp Movement, and broadcasted a music appreciation program for children on radio station 3DB.

Each year the whole school of 1500 boys rehearsed major portions of choral works and performed them in four voice parts in the Town Hall. All the seventh form, for example, (Year 10) sang the tenor line, probably partly modified but a great strain on the adolescent voices of this age-group, although perhaps no worse than happened at football matches. One year we did Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, another year several large choruses and sections from the Messiah, another year a large part of Elijah. These made up half the programme, and in the other half the School choir, various soloists and ensembles performed, and the whole School sang a large number of traditional school songs, finishing sentimentally with 'Good Night, Ladies'.

'Johnny' later became the Elder Professor of Music in Adelaide, and the major force in establishing the Adelaide Festival.

Although not one of the great musicians himself, his charm and political skills were so great that he was always surrounded by musicians of far greater ability who were happy to work with him, and he saw that they were properly looked after'.

Morrison portrait survives

Isidore E. Gelberg, a 32-year-old Russian immigrant died of phthisis exhaustion (TB) at the Alfred Hospital on 1 September 1895. He had been in Victoria for only five years. He was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave in
St. Kilda Cemetery's Jewish section the following day. From at least 1893 he had worked as an artist from 481 Bourke Street, Melbourne. In 2003 his name was unknown to Victoria's art experts.

Who commissioned Gelberg's 1891 portrait of Principal Alexander Morrison? Perhaps Morrison's eldest son, Alexander Fraser Morrison (at Scotch from 1867-72), a barrister, Bohemian, and linguist who spoke Russian and toured Russia in 1883, befriended and commissioned the struggling young artist.

On the back of the painting is written
'I.E. Gelberg 1891 Dr Morrison Principal of Scotch College Melbourne. Property of Mrs. G.W. Letts from McRae pupil of Morrison and uncle by marriage of Mrs. Letts'. Mrs. Godfrey William (nee Armour) Letts was the mother of Robin Letts, donor of the painting. Although three of her four sons attended MGS, a grandson, Stephen Letts, was very properly sent to Scotch from 1972-77. 'McRae' was Donald McRae (at Scotch from 1876-78). In 1883 he married Agnes Hopkins Armour (1861-1927), a sister of Marion Wyllie (Med) Armour (1863-1958), Matron at Scotch from 1899-1903.

Morrison died in Med's last year at Scotch. She then worked in schools in South Africa and Hong Kong for decades. Did she flee Australia with the portrait? Did Morrison, a widower since 1883, and 34 years her senior, fancy the young matron, and give her the portrait? Morrison's granddaughter, Nancy Adams, lived at Scotch with him from 1898, and wrote of 'that awfulÖpainting of him already mentionedÖ' facing the front door, and yet she earlier referred to one painted after his death. Perhaps the 1891 portrait was poorly regarded by the family, and given away?

The portrait probably passed from Matron Armour to Donald McRae and subsequently to Robin Letts' mother. For years it rested under her house, and later between pallets of paper in Robin's newspaper printing office. It is a miracle it survived. Fittingly, it returned to Scotch for the 100th anniversary of Morrison's death. Fitting too, that Jeremy Armour (Year 1) with whose family the portrait is inextricably connected, currently attends Scotch. A great great great nephew of Matron Armour, he follows in grandfather John Armour's ('46) footsteps.

Paul Alexander Mishura

Photos wanted

Do you have any photographs of the Hawthorn Sports Ground? Perhaps some snaps of tennis, swimming or bowling activities? If so, they would be greatly appreciated for the celebration of the centenary of the Glenferrie Oval.

Please contact David Neyland on 9815 1314
if you can help.

Scrapbook mystery

Wendy Manning, from Sydney, has sent us a book of newspaper cuttings about Scotch College compiled by Geoffrey Hembrow ('18). Wendy said she found the book amongst a pile of photos and overdue bills at a house her family rented in West Pennant Hills in 1998.
A man called 'Norman' had previously lived in the house, but had been evicted for not paying his rent.

Quite how the book came to be there is totally unknown. Wendy Manning has tried unsuccessfully to locate the evicted man, and still hopes to trace the link between this house and the scrapbook: 'I will keep searching as I love a happy ending to a good story,' she writes.

Newspaper clippings are always fascinating, because they bring together a range of material that would be hard to assemble now, if not impossible, and because they give us a glimpse into the life of the School which is very personal ' the compiler chose these items and carefully cut them out and stuck them in because they seemed to him to be interesting and relevant. They are certainly much more personal than most of our records, which tend to be stiff and official in comparison.

To judge from its contents, Geoff Hembrow ceased compiling his scrapbook in 1917 while using Sydney newspapers (perhaps he was staying in Sydney and inadvertently left the book with his hosts?).

Geoff Hembrow died the next year in Melbourne, in November 1918, while still a schoolboy, aged only 17.

Spaced out

Do you have a spare wall?

Scotch has a large number of copies of Great Scot which need to be shelved neatly in chronological order but which will not be accessed much. They may take up to 15 metres of shelf-space.

We do not wish to throw them out (as one day people will be delighted to see them) but in the short term we need space to store them and to add extra copies as they turn up.

Can you help? Contact Jim Mitchell 9810 4293

Our 20 oldest Old Boys

Alfred William Herbert Chandler ('23)
b 1 June 1905. Aged 98.

Kenneth Dodgshun ('22), b. 13 Feb 1906.

William Balleny Howden ('23), b. 14 Mar 1906.

Francis Campbell Stuckey ('24), b. 14 Apr 1906.

Roy Riggall Prentice ('18), b. 26 June 1906.

Charles Melbourne Glide ('23), b. 25 Apr 1907.

Alan George MacAndie ('24), b. 7 May 1907.

William John Wark ('25), b. 8 Mar 1908.

Charles Spencer Mann ('24), b. 19 July 1908.

Lionel George White ('23), b. 3 Aug 1908.

Robert Jarrett McCullagh ('25), b. 17 Aug 1908.

Leslie Winsall Hall ('23), b 18 Sept 1908.

Ronald William Coto ('25), b. 26 Jan 1909.

Leonard Denton Kemp ('27),
b. 6 June 1909. Prefect.

Keith McKinley Wilson ('26),
b. 16 Sept 1909. Prefect.

John Hewitt Pope ('24), b. 18 Sept 1909.

Albert Alexander Willis ('25), b. 29 Sept 1909.

(John) Alexander Lyne ('28),
b. 23 Oct 1909. Prefect. Dux 1928.

Leslie Charles Blair Barker ('27), b. 29 Dec 1909.

Walter Alexander Forbes ('27), b. 21 Mar 1910.