...
Throughout the history of the Princes Hill schools, children have been called upon to raise money for public charities, community projects and famine relief, as well as for the school itself. These are important activities: as well as periodically contributing extra funds to the school, they fostered the school’s corporate spirit and developed students’ sense of social responsibility. Students at Princes Hill have fulfilled these obligations with enthusiasm, initiative and enjoyment. The earliest money-raising by Princes Hill students was in 1891 - ironically, for their own benefit. Lacking funds to buy the annual selection of academic prizes, the Carlton Board of Advice organised a concert on Friday evening, 10 December 1891, at St Michael’s Hall. The performance included displays of music, elocution, bayonet exercises by the cadets, a drawing-room entertainment entitled ‘Chignons’ and tableau representations of ‘Red Riding Hood’ and ‘Roma Girls at the Shrine of St Agnes’.5’ Friday Penny Concerts, bazaars, cake selling, the Queen’s Carnival, the contests for the most popular boy and girl all helped. There were also weekly grade donations to the Social Service League, formed in the early 1940s to continue the work of the Junior Red Cross. Children in Mr Robinson’s class in the 1940s brought old toys, scooters and tricycles, which were donated to local hospitals after repairing and repainting. As part of the Social Service League activities, every form at the high school nominated to assist one special cause. Art competitions, dances, twist sessions, talent quests, plays and record sessions were among the many activities devised to raise money.52 Many charities have benefited from student fundraising, including the Gippsland bushfire victims in 1896, the Red Cross, Yooralla, Japanese earthquake victims in 1923, the Save the Children Fund, the United Nations National Appeal for Children, UNICEF, Blind Children, Aboriginal Children, the Aboriginal Hostels Building Fund, Kew Cottages, the Japanese-Austro Adoption Fund (set up to help the children of Australian ex-servicemen and Japanese women), Lort Smith Hospital, Legacy, the Spastic Children’s Association and the Deaf and Dumb society. Carlton institutions have included the Orthopaedic Hospital, Carlton Creche, Queen Victoria Hospital, Carlton Home, the Blind Institute, Dr Singleton’s Old Ladies’ Home, Mount Royal Home, Melbourne Boys’ Home, the Almoner (Infantile Paralysis) Fund, Royal Park Home for Boys and the Royal Children’s Hospital. For some years, gigantic Christmas stockings filled with toys were donated to Carlton institutions. In 1962, form 4C chose Kew Cottages as their project. After visiting the institution and observing the work done with mentally retarded children, a number of the students spent part of their vacation helping with physiotherapy and accompanying children to the zoo. More recently, the Ethiopian and Kampuchean Relief funds and the State Schools’ Relief Funds, which provide shoes and clothing for State school children, also received assistance from students of the Princes Hill schools. Undoubtedly, however, the largest amounts of money raised by students were those to fund Mirimbah and the gymnasium and assembly hall for the new building at Princes Hill High School in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Again, all the ingenuity and enthusiasm of youth were applied to raising money. With the Mirimbah Snow Flake sticker, the ‘Princes Hill’ gangsters, walkathons, raffles, Lapathons, school plays and donations, thousands of dollars were raised. With unemployment, poverty and deprivation afflicting the families of Carlton and Princes Hill in the 1890s and the 1930s, the students at the school were encouraged to help each other.53 During the second depression, one Greek family survived meal to meal from the soup kitchens; others tried to hide the stigma of ‘susso’; others were split, as fathers took to the road in search of work. Children came to school barefoot, wearing patched clothes, cold and hungry. Again, the children were called on to help. The depression was talked about in the classroom. Those who could afford it gave clothing and toiletries, and brought two lunches to school each day - one for themselves and one to share.5" Desperation drove some students to steal lunches from the school’s lunch-bin.55 Early in the depression, the school participated in a concert for the unemployed at Brunswick Town Hall.5" By the end of the 1930s, at least 17,000 Victorian households had received unemployment relief and more than 14,000 men laboured on government projects in return for state sustenance.57 The school caretaker gave Ron an after-school job sweeping out a couple of classrooms. Head Teacher Mylrea found work for boys and established grade 9 classes to keep them at school; at times, he gave desperate families money from his own pocket.58 Teachers bought work books and pencils for children, and the Mothers’ Club provided soup and hot chocolate. Money was also raised from penny concerts and sixpenny afternoon parties, where drinks, games, bread and butter, and hundreds and thousands were provided.59 War also brought requests for support for the troops. As Director of Education, Frank Tate in August 1914 committed the State’s schools fully to the war effort. By the end of the war, the Patriotic Fund had collected £442,471 for the War Relief Fund."" More than 400,000 articles of comfort were sent abroad and 460 tons of supplies went to hospitals."’ At Princes Hill the girls knitted socks and balaclavas and sold penny bouquets at the park gates; mothers sold cakes, jams and cut flowers at bazaars; and children performed at patriotic concerts. Patriotism ran wild: dances were held with children dressed in costumes to represent Britannia and the nations of the Commonwealth. Maps adorned the classroom walls, and children followed the course of the war with coloured pins. The school paper published news and details of the various theatres of war, along with patriotic songs, poems and letters from soldiers on the front. Miss Walker’s 1918 fourth grade wrote letters to lonely soldiers for homework. On Armistice Day, Belle Warnell, who lived in Arnold Street, rang the school bell and Sebire announced the end of the war to the assembled school."2 The Second World War again saw the State’s students engage in enthusiastic fundraising, and again the Education Department orchestrated their efforts. In 1941, Princes Hill students contributed £137 to War Saving Certificates and £114 to the Patriotic Fund, as well as depositing £560 in the State Schools Bank Deposits, raising the money from knitting, concerts and selling lunches at school. In 1946, the Social Service League donated £8.85 and forwarded more than 800 parcels to the Food for Britain Appeal."3 Fundraising was not the only way that the wars touched the students of Princes Hill. Fathers, brothers and ex-students left for war."“ During the First World War, Doris’s thirteen-year-old brother disappeared, to be found some days later at Broadmeadows army barracks. Les Furney was an early casualty at Gallipoli."5 Ray Aarons, who had joined the Royal Navy in 1938, spent the war at sea. As a member of Special ‘Z’ Commando Unit, he served on the Krait, a little ship active behind enemy lines in sabotage work against Japanese ships. Phil Levy served in the RAAF; Florence Mitchell was a signalwoman on the LHQ heavy wireless; Evelyn Cuthbert joined the WAAF; Anne Haylock’s father, a professional soldier, was seldom stationed in Melbourne. Arthur Sparks, famous for his uninterrupted attendance record, was fatally wounded.6" Teachers left too. Frank McNamara, Eve’s grade 2 teacher, was still a lad when he left. When he returned to visit Princes Hill after the war, he brought his Victoria Cross to show his old students. He remained in the air force and rose to the rank of Air Vice Marshal."7 The return of another teacher was not as happy. His nervous disorder forced him to quit teaching."" Not everyone returned. One student recalled that the death of Mr Fletcher, who had enlisted in the AIF, ‘deeply saddened me, and I truly grieved about him’."9 The casualties were honoured on the school’s Honour Roll. Bronze plaques honouring ex-pupils who had lost their lives in the First World War were also placed at the base of each palm tree planted at Pigdon Street on Arbor day 1924.70 These men and all who died were remembered on Anzac and Armistice Days. On these days, Mylrea allowed the boys to wear their fathers’ medals.“ In time, however, the role of Anzac Day changed. In 1985, the School Council at Princes Hill Primary School resolved that the school’s Anzac Day ceremonies should draw attention to the human cost of warfare, rather than the glorification of war, and should take into account the multicultural nature of the school and society, rather than encourage a patriotic stance.72 The advent of the Second World War also disrupted daily life. Food was rationed, windows were blacked out at night, troop trains rumbled along the Northern line in the dead of night, and armies bivouacked on Royal Park. Despite Australia’s geographical distance from the European war front, footage of the blitz in England, the Japanese bombing of Darwin and the submarine intrusion into Sydney harbour awakened Australia’s sense of vulnerability. Air-raid shelters sprang up everywhere, and progress bulletins reported the determined diggings in suburban reserves and vacant allotments. In August 1942, air-raid shelters were dug along McPherson Street and Pigdon Street - both within easy distance of the school. Shelters were not constructed on the school grounds because of the lack of space. While adults pondered the gravity of war, children used the shelters to play hide-and-seek.7" The army drilled behind the Pigdon Street Infant School, and the school band’s bugles were donated to the army.” The unused cloak room at Arnold Street was used as a First Aid Wardens’ Post for air-raid precautions, and the school was used as a training centre.75 Someone, recognising the profits to be made from lead, stole the lead flashing from the school.7" And, although the Japanese did not invade Australia, Americans invaded Melbourne, and the students of University High School invaded Princes Hill.
...