1985 School Magazine

On July 24, 1985 th e first School hi story was launched: " Brisbane Girls' Grammar School - The First Si xty Yea rs 1875 - 1935". Th e author, Mr Peter Prideaux, has had a long assoc iation with the school as his wife (Anne Thompson) attended as well as hi s daughter, Dr Joan Fitzsimmons, and hi s three grand-daughters. Mr Prideaux 's eldest grand-daughter, Larissa, is now studying at the University of Queensl and , Dana is presently boarding at the school and Carla will be commencing next year. The function was held in the school Dining Hall , with representatives of the Department of Education , Brisbane Grammar School and Commonwealth Schools Commission attending, as well as many past pupils and staff members past and present. One of the highlights of the afternoon was the presence of four students dressed in the style of students of early years. Dr Elsie Harwood A.M.,M.A . ,Ph .D.,D.Sc . (Hons), F.A.Ps.S.,A.B.Ps.S., a Past Pupil of the school (1926-1930) and Honorary Research Consultant in . the Department of Psychology at the University of Queensland agreed to launch the book and her most informative and enjoyable address is printed below: The Lady Principals, as they were called , were a contentious lot of people. Mr Prideaux wisely does not take sides in the conflict between them and the Trustees, but his account and his selection.of Reports reads like a " who dun nit", as Lady Principals and Trustees joust with each other, and the Ladies come to grips with subject masters from Brisbane Grammar School , who seem to have come uneasily to help with the teaching (sometimes chaperoned in class) . 18

I must confess that, after reading these excerpts from Speech Day Reports, Trustees' speeches, articles and letters to the Editor of the Brisbane Couri er from both parties, I too should be reluctant to take sides, in the absence of more firm evidence. But I understand that there is much more evid ence that has not been included in this book . There is nothing much more tedious than a humdrum Speech Day Report, though there is no alternative to such a presentation on these occasions. Mr Prideaux has done more than justice to some fifty of these reports, as they grind their repetitive way through numbers enrolled , numbers attending, numbers late or absent - usually with admonition to parents to do better next time and send their girls regularly and punctually. Now that these reports, or excerpts, have been collated , it remains for future historians to cull the relevant material and to do as Mr Prideaux has done, in a few well-known instances- i.e. , to place the onward march of the Brisbane Girls' Grammar School into its historical and sociological background. The material on the 1890 and 1893 floods, the General Strike of 1912, the First World War, and the ensuing pneumonic influenza epidemic, makes good reading and animates the school predicament in times of crisis. It came through . It is unfortunate that the story of the first Lady Principal (Mrs O'Connor) was not written while survivors of that period could be interviewed . She appears to have been a lady with strong belief in the virtue of " cultivated gentlewomen ." (I am reminded of one Thomas Becon- probably in the 16th Century) who wrote' "Why do we not have schools for th e young of the female kind? And let us put over them goldy matrons, who will bring them up in the paths of virtue" - or words to that effect.)