Scotch College

EMG lunch: all about an illustrious Scotch/Wesley man

Words: Keith Weymouth

A wonderful gathering of 220 people thoroughly enjoyed the East Melbourne Group’s Christmas lunch on 15 December, at which pre-eminent historian, Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Blainey AC spoke about Neil Harcourt MacNeil (1911), Old Scotch Boy and former Wesley College headmaster.

Old Scotch Executive Director Tim Shearer welcomed guests in Dr Alan Watkinson’s absence (Alan was overseas at the time), and Hugh Melville (’41) stepped in as chair of the EMG when illness prevented Jim Shaw (’41) from attending the lunch.

Prof Blainey, who was a Wesley student when MacNeil was headmaster, spoke eloquently about a man held in high regard by both Scotch and Wesley. MacNeil was a Scotch prefect in 1910 and ’11, was Dux of Classics, and won an Ormond College scholarship. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University in 1914, when World War I intervened.

In England on the outbreak of war, MacNeil joined the Highland Light Infantry, and in 1915 he was awarded the Military Cross for ‘conspicuous gallantry’ near Loos in France. He later joined the Royal Flying Corps, in which he also served in France.

After the war, MacNeil read history at Oxford, completed a Master of Arts degree and received a rowing blue. He was awarded a teacher’s diploma from London University, and taught at Cheltenham College in 1922 and 1923.

Returning to Australia, MacNeil was appointed first headmaster of Knox Grammar School in Sydney in 1923, and then became headmaster of Wesley in 1939. During his term, Wesley spent two harmonious years at Scotch when their St Kilda Road campus was requisitioned for war purposes.

One August day in 1946, MacNeil took a Latin class in the morning, and seemed to be his normal self. However, later in the day the boys were summoned to a special assembly and were shocked to hear that their respected headmaster had died suddenly after morning classes, at the age of just 53. It was a sad and abrupt end to the life of an illustrious Scotch Old Boy and Wesley luminary.

After Prof Blainey’s address, the Principal, Dr Donaldson, spoke enthusiastically about a wide range of current School issues and achievements, before handing back to Tim Shearer to close what had been one of the best-ever EMG lunches.