Geelong Grammar School - History

History

The school was founded in 1855 as a private diocesan school with the blessing of Bishop Perry by The Ven. Theodore Stretch, Archdeacon of Geelong, with an initial enrolment of fourteen boys. The school grew rapidly and in 1857 it was assigned £5,000 of a government grant for church schools by Bishop Perry, the foundation stone was laid for its own buildings, and it was transformed into a public school. The school closed due to financial difficulties in 1860, only to re-open in 1863 with John Bracebridge Wilson, who had been a master under Rev. George Vance, as Head Master.

For many years Bracebridge Wilson ran the school at his own expense and through this time boarders came to compose the greater part of the student body. In 1875, James Lister Cuthbertson joined the staff as Classics Master. He had a great influence upon the boys of the school and was much admired and loved by them in spite of his alcoholism. Upon the death of Bracebridge Wilson in 1895, Cuthbertson became acting Head Master until the appointment of Leonard Harford Lindon early in the next year.

Lindon ran the school for 15 years, but was never fully accepted by the old boys because he lacked the personal warmth with the boys that had been seen with Bracebridge Wilson and Cuthbertson. By the turn of the century the school was outgrowing its buildings in the centre of Geelong, and so it was decided to move. The school council chose to open the Head Mastership to new applicants. Lindon re-applied, but was rejected, and the Rev. Francis Ernest Brown was chosen as the new Head Master.

In 1909, the school purchased a substantial amount of land in the then rural Geelong suburb of Belmont, bounded by Thomson, Regent and Scott Streets, and Roslyn Road. On 21 October 1910, Chairman of the school, W.T. Manifold turned the first sod at the site of what was expected to be a new era for the school. These plans had faded by August 1911, when adjoining rural land was offered for sale as the Belmont Hill Estate. The school council judged that the adjacent suburban subdivision would work against their plans for a boarding school, not one catering for day boys. The decision was rapidly made to buy land on the opposite side of Geelong at Corio, and the land at Belmont was sold for further residential subdivision.

At the end of 1913 the school left its old buildings near the centre of Geelong and opened at its expansive new site at Corio in February 1914. Brown put a greater emphasis on religion than his predecessors, and the new isolated location with its own chapel was ideal for this.

Upon Brown's retirement in 1929 the school council set out to find a 40 year old married clergyman as the next Head Master, but they ended up choosing James Ralph Darling, a 30 year old layman and bachelor. This proved to be a most successful choice, and ushered in an era of creativity and massive expansion, following the purchase, in 1927, of Bostock House, the Geelong Church of England Grammar Preparatory School in Newtown, and Glamorgan Preparatory School in Toorak in 1928. Darling's boldest initiative was the starting of the Timbertop annexe, in the foothills of the Victorian Alps near Mansfield, in 1953. He attracted many acclaimed in their fields to work as masters at the school, including the historian Manning Clark, the musician Sir William McKie, and the artist Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack.

Thomas Ronald Garnett succeeded Darling in 1961. He took the school down a liberal path, most notably in early steps towards co-education, with girls from Geelong Church of England Girls' Grammar School "The Hermitage" taking certain classes at Corio by the early 1970s, but also by making chapel non-compulsory; a policy later reversed. At the start of 1972, co-education was formally introduced when girls were accepted into the two senior years.

Garnett was succeeded by the Hon. Charles Douglas Fisher, who continued the move towards co-education. In a staff meeting in which the votes for and against co-education were equal, he cast the deciding vote that led to the school accepting girls through all levels. In 1976, after a year of negotiations, G.C.E.G.S., G.C.E.G.G.F.S. "The Hermitage", and Clyde School amalgamated. Fisher died as the result of a car accident on the way to Timbertop for an end of year service in 1978.

An interregnum of a two years was followed by the appointment, in 1980, of John Elliot Lewis, who was headmaster of Eton College. Under the leadership of Lewis the school set about renovating the boarding and day houses to bring them up more acceptable modern standards, and there was a focus on improving academic results in addition to the generally rounded education offered. In part, this was achieved through introducing timetable flexibility to allow able later-year high-school students to undertake Victorian Certificate of Education studies ahead of their cohort. The school is now one of 43 high schools in Australia to offer the International Baccalaureate Diploma programme as an alternative to the VCE. The later years of Lewis' Head Mastership saw an effort (which has been largely successful) to make the school less hierarchical.

The period since Lewis has seen two Head Masterships by Lister Hannah and Nicholas Sampson, and in 2004 the appointment of the current Head Master, Stephen Meek.