Grammar Gazette- Issue 2, 2010

B R I S B A N E G I R L S G R A M M A R S C H O O L

It is sometimes said that women in their ventures into life do not display the qualities which men possess: self restraint, good fellowship when pursuing a common aim, ability to take defeat in good part, esprit de corps, qualities which men first gain as boys, from their games. If this be so, there is all the more reason why girls should be given, equally with boys, the chance to receive such beneficial effects and no longer be debarred from the education of the playground . (Milisent Wilkinson, Headmistress, 1908 Annual Report)

Miss Milisent Wilkinson, appointed Headmistress in 1900.

HELEN SPENCE (LOVE) WAS ENROLLED FROM 1903 – 1908

“A thing of beauty is a joy to forever”. As a punishment you must find out who wrote that and then write an essay on him. That is how I know Keats! Wilkie made a rule never to visit the parents of the pupils. She had a soft spot in reply to a letter from my mother asking if I could have two days off and go to the Gatton College Ball and stay the night there. She sent for me to go to the dreaded office and I went in fear and trembling, and she said “You may go, dear”. I was interested to know that my mother was one of the first girls at Girls Grammar – she was Lucy Davidson – one of the ten children of the Surveyor-General of Queensland – William Montgomerie Davenport Davidson. She afterwards married Wilton Love. He was at the Boys’ Grammar, won the Gold Lilley medal of the Upper School and the Silver Lilley medal of the lower School.

In my day pupils never wore uniforms, just their ordinary frocks. Large shady mushroom hats, with a pretty ruching around the crown. Before we left school for home we had to put on our gloves – otherwise we were “kept in”. We all feared and admired Miss Wilkinson. She always wore a long black, or navy, taffeta dress – which rustled as she came along the corridors to the classroom and so gave us warning and chaos became calm! The maid used to take her lunch tray across the Assembly Hall – we could see that on the tray every day was a little bottle of champagne and if there was a winter salad on it, in chopped beetroot was a large “M” (Milisent). I remember in Form III pupils used to take it in turns to put a vase of flowers on mistresses’ tables. One day the girl forgot – and it was “Wilkies” French lesson day. The flowers were as dead as doornails – Wilkie put the vase in front of her and said

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