The Playground

It was pleasant to find such a large playground attached to the school, as it was one of the most important parts of the school. The training of the mind went on almost exclusively in the school-room, but the training of the character of the pupils went on almost quite as much in the playground. [Dr Pearson] hoped that the children could carry into the playground the same feeling of loyalty to one another, and the same morals, as they exhibited in the classroom.¹

One wonders what the assembled audience listening to Dr Pearson on 2 September 1889 thought of his speech. Some must have chuckled cynically at his descriptions of the schoolyard and its role in the moral education of youngsters. The ‘large playground attached to the school’ diminished with every addition to the building. In 1889, it lacked asphalt and was littered with rocks and building rubble. Children remained without protection from the elements. In 1890, concerned parents kept their children at home when the scorching rays of the January sun took the temperature over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade.² In time, two shelter sheds were provided and a gum tree, planted in the quadrangle, reached serviceable proportions.

The shelter sheds also provided cover on wet days, but they were inadequate for the number of children, and they were smelly, sticky and uncomfortable.³ In conformity with the morality of the time, a low fence divided the playground into separate sectors for boys and girls. Seen on a rough outline plan of the school dating to 1908, the fence divided the school between the corner of the building and the wash-house along the rear boundary. Although the fence was dismantled in the early 1920s, an imaginary line still separated the sexes. Children caught on the wrong side of the fence or imaginary line were punished, although talking across the border was permitted.⁴ Fortunately, children are enterprising creatures. The students ingeniously manipulated, shared and enjoyed the ‘pocket-handkerchief sized playground’. Interweaving, dodging bodies, exasperated abuse, victorious war cries, frustration, anger, joy, quiet solace, abraded knees, broken bones and bruised egos filled the cramped asphalt quadrangle as groups vied for space, consciously and unconsciously pushing neighbours aside, and games cut across each other. The discipline, duty, loyalty and moral behaviour extolled by Pearson were unwitting nurtured on the tiny Arnold Street playing fields. The recreation hours were filled with basketball, hoppy, skippy, diabolo, gymnastics on the Princes Park fence rail, ‘what’s the time, Mr Wolf’, marbles, jacks, hopscotch, chasings, hide and seek, tunnel ball, rounders, marbles, keeping-off, British bulldogs, tag, crack the whip, fly, saddle the nag, cherry bobs, card flicking, hand cricket, ‘three goals in’ (with rolled newspaper or rag-stuffed socks). Some of the teachers on yard duty, such as Miss Walker or Miss Miller, would occasionally turn the skipping rope, and even skip with the girls. Bullies and gangs prowled darker corners seeking victims to intimidate. ‘Adult’ high school students had other distractions. Some attached themselves to teachers such as Emile Hamer, who impressed and inspired them with his enthusiasm and wide learning. Others sought the satisfaction of sport; others supplemented their pocket-money by gambling, or amused themselves in dimly lit, acrid, tobacco-smelling pool halls. Others became embroiled in romances - students with students, students with teachers; some of these attachments turned into long-term relationships, but most provided an ephemeral chance for social interaction and, occasionally, sexual adventure.

A view of the Arnold Street building in 1903, before the north wing of the building was added. The wide open space opposite the school was used as a playground.

Boys with bulging egos boasted of their ‘conquests’. The objects of their attentions, flirtatious girls with short dresses and bulging bosoms, were cruelly labelled ‘moll’, ‘slut’, ‘screw’. Most students, however, only nurtured private dreams. School heroes were idolised and befriended. The lonely remained outsiders, yearning to be noticed. One thousand children confined to an acre of asphalt was insufferable. But the efforts of parents, head teachers, school committee members and politicians could not persuade the Education Department to acquire more land. In 1904, the Education Department recommended that girls use the privately owned vacant land opposite the school as an extension of the playground, while boys could use Princes Park.⁵ When the sites were developed, the students returned to the street.⁶ In the 1960s, there were promises that land around the school would be purchased as it became available, but these also came to naught. In this context, the acquisition of the Pigdon Street site in 1924 was heaven-sent. No other inner-suburban school had five acres of playground. During the summer months, children would lose themselves in the vast, tall-grassed, adventure-land fields behind the school. Questions were raised in Parliament about fire hazards in the 1940s, and the grass was soon cut. A new adventure playground was built by parents in 1972. . There was no relief, however, at Arnold Street. The use of Princes Park was one escape. In the 1920s, the park was surrounded by a fence, and Tommy Warne, the caretaker of Carlton Football Club, grazed cows on the grass outside the football ground. The tall picket fences protecting the trees gave boys something to climb on, and were the means for more than one vagrant’s suicide. In the early 1960s, Arnold Street was blocked off to traffic during recesses so that students could use it as ‘a playground. In the late 1960s, when enrolments were exceeding 1000, students returned to the park. The fire and the period of rebuilding again closed off the streets around the school for the exclusive use of Princes Hill, and students reoccupied Princes Park. Attempts to restrict the movement of high school students about Princes Hill have had mixed results. Rules forbidding students to wander outside set parameters were regularly broken. The submarine-sized and amply stuffed salad rolls were cheaper at the Wilson Street shop than at Con’s in Arnold Street; also, the shop was far less crowded, and entry was not governed by prefects. The fire negated all the school administration’s efforts to control students’ movements. Of necessity, students roamed about North Carlton and Princes Hill to attend classes at the different centres. Princes Park and the streets of Princes Hill remain the domain of wandering students - much to the chagrin of local residents, who are unprotected by any buffer zone. Children pour out of the high school entrance onto Arnold Street. The half-street closure of Arnold Street, planned and designed by John Stirling, has helped ease the problem of space and has imposed some kind of buffer zone between the school and street. But it is far from enough.

In Sickness and in Health

In the wake of the Victorian Health Department’s ‘Don’t be a Norm’ campaigns and a growing appreciation of general health care, health consciousness has become one of the community’s highest priorities in the past decades. In keeping with this trend, Princes Hill High School organised a ‘Health Week’ in 1979 with lectures and demonstrations, culminating in a Fun Run.⁷ Health and hygiene have been a long concern of the Education Department. Although it allowed young children to clean their small writing boards with spittle and rag, the Department has always emphasised fresh air, light, cleanliness and dust-free conditions in the classrooms, to the point that walls and mantles were left bare to avoid dust collecting.⁸ Over the years, the Education Department and state health organisations have co-operated in fighting health problems in the schools. Courses in health and physical education were incorporated into the syllabus. There were regular tuberculosis tests, and medical examinations of children’s sight, hearing and teeth are a regular feature of primary school education. Not all examinations were appreciated by the students. Anne recollects quick medicals in the 1940s - ‘The doctors checked throat, hair, and a fleeting glimpse of private parts’ - the point of which still eludes her. In the 1920s and 1930s, malnutrition among large numbers of primary students became a serious concern in the community. An early experiment in 1926 with providing daily free milk to needy children produced a rapid improvement in the health of children at SS Auburn. In eight months, a correspondent to the Argus wrote, the children had gained a considerable amount of weight, and were much brighter. The cost was covered by private individuals.⁹ In 1933, the Metropolitan Milk Council began supplying milk during winter at very cheap rates to undernourished children at fifty schools.¹⁰ It was not until the mid to late 1940s that every child in the metropolitan area and the larger Victorian towns received free milk automatically.¹¹ Since some ex-students remember being provided with free milk in the 1930s, it would seem Princes Hill was one of those under-nourished schools.

There have been more critical health problems in the past. Outbreaks of typhoid, measles, diphtheria, bubonic influenza and poliomyelitis severely affected -the community and students of Princes Hill. The influenza epidemic in 1891 killed 1035 people in Victoria, and another 963 fell victim in 1899. The young and elderly were particularly vulnerable.¹² In 1891, some 100 Carlton pupils fell ill on a single day. At Princes Hill, Head Teacher Russell, First Assistant McShane and a number of teachers were all absent simultaneously, and the average attendance at the school dropped from 473 to 360.¹³ The close proximity of bodies stuffed into overcrowded, cold classrooms did not help. Nor did the Reilly Street drain, which contributed to Carlton’s reputation as a ‘sewer pit’, or the filthy right-of way that ran behind Princes Hill School. The school was touched by outbreaks of typhoid in 1890 and 1895, and measles in 1893, 1898 and 1925. The three waves of diphtheria which afflicted Melbourne in 1910 claimed 3530 lives; the schools were closed, classrooms sealed and disinfected. One girl who contracted the disease had her hair shaved and was interned at Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital. The poliomyelitis outbreak in 1938 closed the school for six months and claimed victims among the school’s population.¹⁴ Books were sent to students at home and parents were asked to supervise their study - usually to little avail.¹⁵ Tess’s parents bought a radio so that she and her sister could listen to school programmes. Her European mother insisted she wear a small bag of camphor around her neck to ward off the disease. The students attempting high-school entry were brought back briefly to sit the examinations. In 1949, the nursery school was closed for one week because of another outbreak of poliomyelitis.¹⁶ By comparison, the nits and lice infestations that occasionally afflict inner suburban schools today seem quite minor if irritating complaints.

‘Healthy Body, Healthy Mind’

Sport and physical education have always occupied an important place in education. Participation provides physical, social and moral benefits to students, and successes enrich the school’s reputation and spirit.

The boys’ gymnastic class in 1901. The teacher standing on the left is Stan Polglaze, teacher at Princes Hill School 1901-3.

From the start, Princes Hill’s sporting prowess was outstanding. At the first presentation of academic awards in 1889, the best bowler and batsman of the cricket team were also presented with prizes. Athletics and drill were rewarded in subsequent years. While the main activities of physical education classes in the earlier parts of this century were drill, gymnastics and marching, there were changes as facilities improved and the emphasis shifted towards enjoyment rather than discipline.” Posture, folk dancing, group activities, games and exercises were included in the syllabuses.¹⁸ In the 1960s, Tony Knight introduced a weight-lifting class for interested students, and his successor, Colin Ferris, designed the school’s first gymnasium in the old Sloyd centre. A half gymnasium was incorporated in the 1974 building. Swimming lessons have long been compulsory for primary school children.¹⁹ Before bussing, students walked to the Brunswick or Carlton pools. The journey there and back, however, took so long that little time remained for swimming.²⁰ The swimmers were rewarded with the Herald, Junior, Senior, Competency in Swimming, and Life Saving Swimming Certificates, and the coveted Bronze Medal.²¹

Competition among Princes Hill sport teams has always been fierce, whether among the sports houses or against rival schools. To catalogue every success and every hero is impossible. Details of many achievements since 1959 can be found in Heritage and Yabberstick.

Intra-school sport was played at Princes Park on Wednesday afternoons. House teams were organised around 1940. Each house was named after a famous Australian - Batman (blue), Monash (green), Lawson (yellow) and Flinders (red). The sports played have varied over the years: they include athletics, cross-country’ running, cricket, football, soccer, tennis, vigoro, hockey, swimming, softball, netball, basketball, volleyball, crossball, overhead passing of ball, rounders and tunnel-ball.

Competitions Sports at Princes Hill High School

 among schools in athletics, swimming, cricket, football were organised from the turn of the century by various amateur sporting bodies such as the Victorian Amateur Swimming Association, Victorian State Schools Amateur Athletics Association and the Schools’ Football Association of Victoria.²² Princes Hill students enjoyed defeating their rivals; whether it were Faraday Street, Rathdowne Street, Errol Street, the hated Lee Street, Alfred Cresent, Essendon, or the wider net of high schools - Rosanna, Moreland, Fawkner, Fitzroy, Lakeside, Banyule, Thornbury. Tempers and spirits ran high. Nancy remembers the girls’ rounders team being jeered by the boys after losing a match. Princes Hill High was the first school in‘ its district to have a cheer squad at inter-school sports. Organised by Bill Murdoch and Gary McAlpine, the squad waved blue and gold crepe streamers while a large pole adorned with a bull’s skull, labelled ‘Princes Hill’, led the procession.²³ The school’s war-cry rang out at every opportunity:

P.H.H.S.

We are P.H. - Yes

We are here to be our best

P.H.H.S. - HOORAY

At some time or other, Princes Hill has been successful at most sports against other schools. Perhaps inspired by the overshadowing Carlton Football Club, the school’s forte has been football. Its prowess in that sport was evident during the 1891 season. Having defeated the individual football teams of all the Carlton schools, ‘The Hill’ met a Combined Carlton Schools team at Royal Park on Monday l9 July 1891. The keen local interest in the battle was well rewarded. Princes Hill won, 3 goals 13 behinds to 3 goals 5 behinds. Kidney was named best man on the ground²⁴ The tradition continued. Coached by Mr Bock, the school collected district premierships and trophies in the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s, and the team’s arrogant victory song,

‘Princes Hill, Princes Hill, we cannot be beaten, for there’s a reason, we are the premier team’,²⁵

was sung ad nauseam. Similar feats were performed in the 1950s and 1960s, when the school annually fielded Lightning Premiership Teams, and the 1980s, when they remained undefeated district premiers. Princes Hill did suffer some losses. At one stage in the 1920s, the team was defeated in the Metropolitan final by Essendon.²⁶ Another difficult team was Errol Street. The team’s older brothers threw stones at the opposition from the boundary, and on occasion slipped the additional one, two, three and four illegal players onto the field.²⁷ Another period of sporting supremacy was in the early years of the high school. Athletics, football, and almost every other sport in the school programme benefited from the enthusiasm of the sports master, Tony Knight. One factor in the success was the annual training camp at Torquay, where athletes trained for a week among the sand dunes, lifted weights, held discussions about the individual and sport, and learned to live and work together as a team.²⁸ Besides the success of school teams, Princes Hill has had many individual competitors who excelled in their chosen sports, and went on to perform professionally or in State and national teams. Some of the cricketers and footballers are listed in the next chapter. In 1959, Heather Rice was the Under-13 All High School Swimming Champion for backstroke and freestyle. In 1960, Chester Polglaze represented the Northern Division schools in the All High School sports competition in running, broad jump and swimming. At the Inter-School sports in that year, he won every event he entered. In 1961, two boys reached the zone final of the schoolboys’ cycling championships of Victoria. Success in athletics were enjoyed by Chris Hilton, who broke record after record, year after year at the State level. Arnold Zable won the Cross-Country Championship in 1962. In 1964, Peter Wallis participated in the Victorian Schoolboy Golf Championships, and in 1966, Neil Watson and Ray Caldwell were selected as State representatives in basketball. In 1965, Chris Hilton, Peter Re and Angelo Martini attracted the attention of Melbourne sports journalists with more record-breaking efforts.²⁹ In 1963, Debra Hilton emulated her brother and Toni Adams joined the Schoolgirls’ State Basketball team. Margaret Woolhouse and Barbara Rubinowicz threw javelin and discuss; Julie Moxon swam.

Chris and Debra Hilton training under the watchful eye of the high school ’s sports master, Tony Knight.

While Australian Rules football enjoys the longer fame at Princes Hill, in the early 1960s, Princes Hill High had an outstanding soccer team. Victories became commonplace, and a number of team members played with professional clubs such as Hellas, St Kilda, St George’s Cross and Juventus. Attila Abonyi, the dazzling star of the team, was a member of the Australian National team while still a schoolboy. Rocco Santangelo also enjoyed international success with the Australian Under-18 Soccer team, which toured Europe and Asia in 1976. None, however, has surpassed Bryan Dennis’s brief moments of glory. In 1965, he was considered the world’s fastest backstroke swimmer in the under-12 age group, swimming 110 yards in 1 minute 12.4 seconds, and Australia’s fastest swimmer in his age group for the 100 yards freestyle, 100 yards butterfly and 220 yards medley.

Extra-Curricular Activities

School life is not confined to the classroom. Many extracurricular activities capture and stimulate the imagination and enthusiasm of students, broaden social awareness and responsibility, and teach group participation. Over the century, these have included cadets, the school band and choir, the school newspaper, excursions, clubs and fundraising activities. The Cadet Corps was one of Head Teacher Russell’s first innovations at Princes Hill.³⁰ Militaristic patriotism, uniform and firearms captured the imagination of many young boys, and the corps flourished.³¹ It also survived Head Teacher Robinson’ attempts to limit its intrusion into school hours³² Little is heard of the cadets after this initial exposure, and the corps seems to have been disbanded in the late l910s.³³ Then there were the school dances - junior ‘Deb’ Balls, Annual Balls and innumerable term socials, each an occasion of great excitement. Considerable pomp and ceremony accompanied the Balls at the Melbourne and Brunswick Town Halls. Everyone went along. Ballroom dancing rehearsals were held under the direction of an instructor with the manner of a sergeant-major, dresses were hired or sewn, and sketches were prepared by small groups to enliven the atmosphere.³⁴ Organised by the Mothers’ Club as a money raising event, the biennial Queen’s Carnival became a major event on the school’s social calendar. Full regalia was worn at the pageant to crown the king and queen who had raised the most money. One year, Miss Miller’s class won the title because the queen’s father donated £10 to ensure their victory. In 1934, Mr Clifford was the bandmaster. As the final event of the evening, his boys were to dance the Minuet with the Ladies in Waiting. The shambles at the dress-rehearsal brought the man to tears; but the performance on the evening was perfectly executed. Lillian Shanklin and Colin Shanley were the royals that year.³⁵ Balls never gained favour at the high school. Adults preferred socials, organised by the prefects or Students Representative Council. Ball gowns gave way to the latest fashions. Live bands performed, and students rocked, and twisted and ‘submarined’, swigged illicit drinks and pursued romances. Who present will forget the performances of our own Bertie, or of Doug Parkinson, The Zoot or The Masters Apprentices, before they were famous? Who will forget the brawls, or the violence inflicted on David Bucknall when he tried to stop a fight?

Queen’s Carnival Pageant in the 1930s, together with boys from the Brass Band.

Educational and recreational excursions delighted everyone. The zoo, museum, Phillip Island, Sovereign Hill, Puffing Billy and the American Navy were all favourite destinations. Geography classes studied rock formation at Bacchus Marsh, orchards at Templestowe, the layout and role of Port Melbourne in Melbourne’s trade on Port Phillip Bay, the Kiewa Valley Hydro-electric Scheme and the mines at Yallourn and Morwell.³⁶ The English Literature classes attended the theatre and cinema, the art classes the National Gallery or the Herald Art Show, and the music groups listened to Sir Bernard Heinze explain the magic of symphony orchestras and opera. Others went on Tasmanian trips, or on hiking expeditions with John Ireland and Tony Knight to Mt Bogong, Wilson’s Promontory and Bulla. Royal occasions were always a source of patriotic excitement and celebration. Seven thousand students from all the Carlton schools were involved in Queen Victoria’s Jubilee Celebrations at the Exhibition Gardens in July 1897. Students marched, sang songs, participated in sports, enjoyed the lunch and listened to speeches. A Princes Hill scholar won the boys’ foot race for 11-13-year-olds.³⁷ On 2 May 1927, Princes Hill students congregated at Richmond Park to wave at the passing Duke and Duchess of York.³⁸ In 1901, it was suggested that a framed photograph of Princes Hill students participating at a ‘Hoisting of the Flag’ ceremony be presented to the visiting Duchess of Cornwall and York, but the request was refused by the Minister of Education.³⁹

Equally enjoyable were the end-of-year excursions to the beach and picnics into the country. The notes of Stan Polglaze, teacher at Princes Hill between 1901 and 1903, record the preparations for a class expedition on Saturday 19 December 1903 to Black Rock beach. The group left the school at 8 a.m. Each member of the party was responsible for bringing an item: Mr Price supplied tea and sugar, Miss Denchy the milk, and others the tablecloth, kero-tin, billy, knives and spoons. Excursions to camps, where children were away from home for a number of days, provided them with a variety of experiences and introduced alternative forms of work. By playing and working together, children developed cooperation, confidence in each other’s ability, responsibility for their behaviour, and friendships among themselves and with teachers. The grade 5 trip to Lancefield in 1980 involved nature studies, environment, outdoor sports and a concert.⁴⁰ Similar aims motivated the pioneering development of Mirimbah Country Centre by Princes Hill High School. After twenty years, Mirimbah has justified the work of Alleyne Sier, Burnie Rhymer, David Bucknall, John Thurgood and many others who established it and kept it going. First mooted in 1967, the Centre was intended to enrich the General Studies course in environmental studies and outdoor activities such as bushwalking, canoeing, cross country skiing and horse-riding. By providing children from high-density, inner-suburban areas with an opportunity to live and work together in communal environments with peers and teachers, Mirimbah enhanced their sense of co-operation, self-reliance and individual identity, and enabled them to appreciate the bush environment and develop responsibility for its preservation. The cost of Mirimbah was $16,000. The Education Department contributed $6,000 and the one-hectare site at the foot of Mt Buller, twenty-four kilometres east of Mansfield. The balance was raised by students, teachers and parents. John Stirling designed the ‘snow-flake’ emblem, which students sold as a car transfer. Raffles, street stalls, rag, newspaper, and bottle collecting, walkathons, the Lord Mayor’s Appeal and generous assistance from businessmen, parents and ex-students all helped. Weekend working bees were held to repair, scrape and paint the two sleeping huts and the kitchen-cum-dining room-cum-recreational hut that the school had purchased second-hand from the army. Mirimbah was officially opened in February 1970 with David Bucknall as the first Director. Princes Hill Secondary College students attend for at least one fortnight each year, and the Centre is also used by other high schools, institutions and organisations such as the scouts." On 8 August 1895, Sir John Madden, the Acting Governor of Victoria, inaugurated the ‘Arbor Day’ movement at Princes Hill School. Two thousand students, parents and dignitaries were present.⁴² Arbor Day, intended to improve school grounds by tree planting and give practical training in horticulture to children, has since been celebrated at a different school every year. Arbor Day returned to the Princes Hill lnfant School on 9July 1924, only months after the new building at Pigdon Street was opened. Councillor Bell, the Lord Mayor, William Brunton, and the Leader of the Opposition, George Prendergast, addressed the gathering. Aided by ten men from the Melbourne City Council, Jean and her friends planted 400 hedge plants, 102 gums, thirteen shade trees and fifteen palm trees, all donated by the Melbourne City Council Parks and Gardens Committee.⁴³ More recently, trees were planted by thirty students at Pigdon Street on Arbor Day 1973 to complement the adventure playground built by parents the previous year. In 1976, the Australian Natives’ Association awarded Princes Hill Primary School the prize for the most improved school.

Within the school, students and teachers have organised a variety of student clubs. These have catered for many different interests: records, chess and draughts, needlework, coins and stamps, cameras, art, dancing, and model planes, boats and cars. In 1963, the high school’s debating team participated on the television programme, Parliament of Youth. The high-school students’ emerging literary aspirations and their awareness of political and social issues are seen in the wealth of articles published in Heritage, Yabberstick and Princes Hill News. Heritage, Princes Hill High School’s magazine, was issued annually between 1959 and 1968. Compiled by an editorial committee, it included contributions from the headmaster, the various school committees, each form, sports representatives and individuals. Student activities, sports reports, artistic and literary contributions, and photographs recorded the year’s passing. Keyhole, the first student newspaper at the high school, began life in 1963. Its successor, Yabberstick, began in 1966, printed on roneoed sheets. The editorial of the first issue (reprinted in October/November 1973) is worth quoting:

Our newspaper is called Yabberstick. This has a special significance. ‘Yabba’ is an original aboriginal word meaning speech and a Yabberstick was a stick which an aborigine of one tribe was required to carry with him when visiting another tribe. Before he could communicate with the other tribe he had to hand over his stick to them as a token of peace and friendship. Our school is composed of forms and this newspaper serves as a means by which all members of the forms or tribes may communicate with each other.

The newspaper was run by students, with the help of a teacher. The students researched and wrote the stories, photographed subjects, arranged the layout, organised the printing and distribution and sold advertising space to raise funds. Although Yabberstick lapsed briefly in the early 1970s, it was revived as an elective on the school curriculum in 1975.⁴⁴ In 1987, Yabberstick was superseded by Princes Hill News. At various times, the newspaper has run interviews with current and past students, teachers, politicians such as Don Chipp and Ralph Nader, international film and music stars (Danny Kaye, Lee Majors, William Conrad, John Wayne, Gary Glitter) and sports entities, political and social stories covering Vietnam, conscription, state funding to education, Turana, reviews of films, plays, bands and records,’ short stories, poetry, ‘Lucy and Linus’, football commentaries and school sports results. In 1970, Yabberstick received both the Age School Newspaper Award and the Australian Newspaper prize. It was particularly commended for the standard of reporting, the wide coverage and the general interest items that catered for all sections within the school. The Age award was $250 and an original watercolour ‘On St Kilda’ by Brian Hewley (the painting which hangs outside the general office); the Australian donated $100.

Besides watching theatre and music, the students of Princes Hill have also enjoyed fame as performers and creators on their own account. The School Band gained immense acclaim during its brief history. Better known during Headmaster Mylrea’s period, the band was established by Head Teacher Sebire. Wishing to copy the school orchestras that had been successfully instituted among NSW schools, Sebire purchased drums, bugles, violins and instruction books, and arranged for tuition for band members. Classes were held after hours.⁴⁵ Mylrea, however‘, provided the impetus. Slick uniforms - navy blue with green and gold trimming - sparkling brass instruments (paid for by the Mothers’ Club), an experienced bandmaster and long hours of practice, all brought results. The Brass Band won many Metropolitan and School Competitions, including the State Quick-Step Championship. During the football season, the band entertained Carlton football spectators at halftime. It performed to great applause for one week at the Old State Theatre (the Forum).⁴⁶ In October 1930, the Band performed in Ballarat; at Easter 1936 it travelled to Adelaide, where it played for schools and hospitals. Its two-hour public recital of marches, overtures and waltzes won the praise of old bandsmen.⁴⁷ Interest in the band saw its numbers grow to 71 members by 1933, and more were waiting to join.⁴⁸ Among its many members, Ron Davies played the solo Cornet, Maurice Jacques the solo tenor horn, Fred Freer the bass drum, and Charlie Goodwin, the bandmaster’s son, the double bass.⁴⁹ The school band was resurrected in the 1980s. As well as playing in annual competitions, it performed at the First Open Day at Government House in 1986.

The Princes Hill Brass Band, c.1929. Ernest Mylrea, Head Teacher 1925-36, is sitting in the front row, and Mr Goodwin, the bandmaster, is standing.

 The school choir first won praise from the Carlton Board of Advice in 1890 for its excellent performance at the end of-year celebrations, under the direction of Mr McShane. Mr von Putt was choirmaster in the 1920s. He was succeeded by Mr Maru, who was also the band conductor in the 1930s. The Choir sang at school functions, Speech Nights, Empire Day, Discovery Day and Education Day ceremonies. The public performance on radio station 3DB on Monday 18 August 1930 was an undoubted high point.⁵⁰

Theatre at Princes Hill High School has also enjoyed high praise. The makeshift stage in rooms 15Bl and l6Bl of the old building - where, transfixed, we watched Neil Armstrong performing on the surface of the moon - provided the school’s first usable venue. Under the direction of Nancy Kerrey and Bill Murdoch, comedies, drama, musicals and revues became annual events. From Oliver, Blythe Spirit and Our Town, the productions moved to Have a Wunderbar and Princes Hill is Burning Down, which were scripted by staff and students.

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’.⁵¹

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.⁵⁴ 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.⁵⁶ 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.⁶⁰ More than 400,000 articles of comfort were sent abroad and 460 tons of supplies went to hospitals.⁶¹ 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.⁶²

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.⁶³

Fundraising was not the only way that the wars touched the students of Princes Hill. Fathers, brothers and ex-students left for war.⁶⁴ 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.⁶⁵ 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.⁶⁶ 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.

Frank McNamara at far left in Egypt, May 1917

He remained in the air force and rose to the rank of Air Vice Marshal.⁶⁷ The return of another teacher was not as happy. His nervous disorder forced him to quit teaching.⁶⁸

Not everyone returned. One student recalled that the death of teacher Harry Fletcher who had enlisted in the AIF, ‘deeply saddened me, and I truly grieved about him’.⁶⁹ Fletcher survived the blackest days of Gallipoli, where he was wounded, Pozieres and Mouquet Farm in July to September 1916; he won the Military Cross for bravery in October 1916; he survived Bapaume, Bullecourt, Menin Road and Polygon Wood in 1917 and was promoted to the rank of captain. On October 5, 1918 he led his men on one last attack. Despite the knowledge that they were due to be relieved by American troops the following day, the Australian Second Division were sent into the last Australian action of the war to capture the little town of Montbrehain. Soon after 10am, Fletcher was killed by a shell that exploded nearby. The casualties of the great war are honoured on the school’s Honour Roll. Fletcher's name appears with others on a monument (below) to local fallen soldiers in Royal Parade near Melbourne University. 

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.⁷¹ 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.⁷³ The army drilled behind the Pigdon Street Infant School, and the school band’s bugles were donated to the army.⁷⁴ 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.⁷⁶

And, although the Japanese did not invade Australia, Americans invaded Melbourne, and the students of University High School invaded Princes Hill.

Girls in Fancy Dress on Break Up Day, 1902.