MEMORY AND HISTORY

A letter written by Edith Banks, one of the original 1889 students of Princes Hill to Headmaster William Gibson, 1965.

Dear Sir, You do not know me, and I do not know you, so I had better explain. I am old now - in my 87th year, and feel somewhat ‘nostalgic’. I am one of the scholars who came to Princes Hill State School, on the opening day.

Some years back, now, there was held a re-union of old scholars in the Town Hall. I attended with my brother (Ernest) and my sisters Minnie and Lily. There was published a photo of us in the Melbourne daily paper. Of the four of us, I am the only one left.

Prior to the opening of Arnold Street school we attended Lee Street when Mr. Lewis was the Headmaster there. Our family live in Camborne Cottage 79, next door to Mona Cottage 77, in McIlwraith Street. I think the two little cottages still exist - they were there three years ago, when I had a trip to Melbourne, and was driven down McIlwraith Street. My father and mother were Cornish folk and lived in Camborne Cottage, where I was born on April 25th, 1879. The folk in Mona Cottage came from the Isle of Man. My father was Mr. W. R.J. Reynolds (Camborne) and Mr. Gawne was the gentleman next door (Mona).

They were friends and worked as ‘Fitters and Turners’ with T. Robinson’s firm, then in Franklin Street, Melbourne. There were two houses there on the Hill before our houses were built. One belonged to a lady, and the other to a Mr. Norman. There were no streets made then only Lygon and Garton Street leading down from the cemetery to Sydney Road. My mother and Mrs. Gawne would ‘fly kites’ with us, out on the open ground around us.

In due time the streets were made. My sister, a younger sister who was a baby then, has a photo of Mother looking over a paling fence of our garden watching the men at work. When the four streets, McIlwraith, Wilson, Arnold and Garton were finished, houses and terraces were quickly built much smarter than our happy little homes. A family (from Scotland) named Greig came to live in a house in a new brick terrace in Wilson Street. There were four studious sisters, Janet, Jane (twins) and Clara and Flossie. These lasses walked up and down on their balcony every day after school (studying, a la Bronte). Janet became a Doctor and was afterwards at the Melbourne Hospital, Clara (my friend) did a business course and afterwards had a business college in Collins Street and Flossie became a lawyer. I think she was the first lady admitted to the Bar in Melbourne . . .

Princes Hill soon became overcrowded, and the 5th and 6th grades (top grades) were housed in a shop in Purves Building’s in Lygon Street. The children there got a bit out of hand and one day they shouted derisively at some Chinese men. The Chinese got some carving knives and stabbed at the door of the school room. Order was soon restored but additions were built to the school proper, and we all were back in our school again. Here, I would like to pay a tribute to a 6th grade teacher named Mr. McShane. (Paddy McShane we lovingly called him.) One day a few of us in the back row upstairs saw a poor lass the worse for drink, swaggering past on the other side of the street. We ignorant carefree girls giggled. Mr. McShane came up to see what was amusing us. He saw; came back to his desk, and said ‘I’m going to read something to you.’ He opened a book and read excerpts from the ‘Lady of the Lake’ (Sir Walter Scott). We listened, fascinated, to his beautiful rich voice. The contrast between what we had seen, and what Mr. McShane read to us, left a lasting impression on our minds. It showed the kind of girls we could become. It was better than any ‘sermon’ he could have given us.

From McPherson Street we could look through the bars of the cemetery fence and watch the Chinese roasting a pig, alongside the grave of a relative. It was some kind of religious ceremony. We were too afraid to enter the cemetery lest we be made a sacrifice too! Also we were forbidden to go in alone without an adult. Our folk had a family grave there in which my grandmother was buried in 1885 and my mother’s first baby in 1875. It was opened again when my sister was buried about 1958. . .

Best wishes and great happiness to you and the ‘Old School’ from yours sincerely,

Edith Banks’