Objects of Substance- Beginnings Script

Mrs Hancock’s Master’s thesis looked at the reasons why Queensland would be first in Australia to establish free, secular education for all children regardless of class, religion, or gender. She pondered whether Brisbane, being a frontier town, with no real social elite made it a prime setting to embrace new ideas and experiment with notions of equality. Sir Charles Lilley was passionate about the right for women to have access to quality secondary education and, in 1874, he chaired a Royal Commission into Education that found that there was wide public support for the idea of giving girls the same educational opportunities “as their brothers”.

1995 Beginnings – “Mrs O’Connor with the Trustees”.

Among his many achievements, from being a Queensland Premier and Attorney General, helping to establish Brisbane Girls Grammar School in 1875 was certainly one of Lilley’s finest. The play, “Sir Charles Lilley’s Legacy”, featured characters such as the cantankerous BGS board members who made life difficult for Mrs Janet O’Connor, our first Headmistress, to Charles Lilley’s thirteen children. We even had cameo appearances from the very young children of the Head of Lilley House, Marise McConaghy.