Scotch College

Influenza and Scotch

We add to the earlier Archives report on influenza and Scotch (Great Scot, May 2005, page 43) two further items, both arising from the worldwide pandemic of 1918−19.*

It killed the mother of George Kerr Haines (1918), after which he had to leave to go to Queensland. John Fordyce Hammond (1919) was ‘forced to give up schooling in 1919 as a result of a very severe flu’, says his brother Owen. He died in 1971, aged 67.

Of course the most famous flu death at Scotch occurred in 1933: that of Littlejohn, the Principal, who died on 7 October that year.

*We found these by searching our impressive database for the string of letters ‘flu’. As well as influenza we found flute, fluent (as in another language), fluoridation (it was an Old Boy who first introduced fluoridation to Australian drinking water), and Flushing (one boy here was born at Flushing Hospital, New York). Although these proved to be distractions they do illustrate how wide-ranging are the data we have amassed.

Edwin Fullarton Borrie (1894-1968)

Edwin Borrie was one of many Old Scotch Collegians to give his name to a geographical feature – but few others attract regular visitors from Alaska and Siberia.

The famous bird habitat Lake Borrie in the Werribee Sewage Farm (and Borrie Street in Reservoir) are named after Edwin (‘Peter’) Borrie (1911).

In World War I he won the Military Cross. In World War II he was Director of Engineering with the Allied Works Council, responsible for constructing defence works, such as airfields, roads, camps, etc.

A civil engineer in the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, he was chief engineer of sewerage 1929–50 and Chief Planner 1950–59. (It was only when he retired that the MMBW began to plan freeways across our ovals.)

On the western shores of Port Phillip is Melbourne Water’s Western Treatment Plant at Werribee. Within this, Lake Borrie is a wetland area that provides a haven for thousands of birds. The lake was originally a small swamp with paper bark trees and a few red gums, but it is now a part of the sewage treatment lagoon series.

‘Lake Borrie is the most significant wetland in Victoria for migratory shorebirds, and one of the most significant drought refuges for ducks. During the 1982/83 drought the site had almost a third of all of Victoria’s ducks on it. Migratory birds travel to Lake Borrie from as far as Alaska, Siberia, China and Japan, doubling their body weight on the abundant food over summer before heading back overseas,’ says Melbourne Water’s website.

A web camera overlooking Lake Borrie provides constant images. GS