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Guildford Grammar School
Battye 1912-13:
CHURCH OF ENGLAND GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
The Church of England Grammar School is situated at Guildford, opposite the East Guildford Railway Station, and eight miles from Perth. The school has no claim to be one of the older institutions of this State, but its short history is interesting as illustrating how a public body often takes over work started by private enterprise. The school started in February, 1895, on the initiative of Mr. Charles Harper, of “Woodbridge,” East Guildford, who engaged Mr. Frank Bennett as master and placed at his disposal a spare room at “Wood-bridge.” There Mr. Bennett began teaching with seven pupils. That a need was being supplied was soon evident, for the number of pupils increased, till in 1898, when Mr. Bennett died, there were twenty-five day boys and eight boarders.
In 1899, under the headmastership of Mr. Gillespie, the school moved to new buildings on its present site, and soon obtained recognition as one of the secondary schools of Western Australia. When Mr. Gillespie died in 1903 Mr. Harper gave the control of the school to a council appointed for that purpose, who took in hand the completion of the school buildings so that they would have accommodation for fifty boarders and seventy day boys. Mr. W. Stewart-Corr, M.A., till then senior master at King’s School, Paramatta, was then appointed headmaster, with a staff of three others to meet the present requirements of the school. From 1904 till 1909 the school remained under the guidance of Mr. Corr, who made every effort to instil public school principles into the boys and to emphasize the place of sport in the development of character, without neglecting, however, the scholastic side of education. In the competitions with the other schools the athletic record of the school from 1904 onwards reflected great credit on such a young school.
At the beginning of 1909 the Church of England, after having through lack of funds and other difficulties had no school of its own in this State, took control of the management, and with a view to purchase at the end of a two years’ option appointed a new council and made arrangements for a new headmaster to come to the school. At the beginning of 1910 the Rev. P. U. Henn succeeded Mr. Corr, who had returned to his old school at Paramatta. The new headmaster was entrusted with the task of reorganizing the school on Church of England lines. At the end of the two years’ option the Diocesan Trustees of the Church of England bought the school and nearly 30 acres of land surrounding it from Mr. Harper, and as the increase of members attending the school seemed to justify it embarked on a vigorous building policy. A new wing of classrooms and dormitories was erected in 1911, and during the same year the headmaster was provided with a separate residence. During this year (1912) a beautiful college chapel, given by a generous English donor, has been commenced, and when completed will form one of the finest ecclesiastical edifices in the State.
There are at present over a hundred boys at the school, of whom more than seventy are boarders from different parts of the State. This is the limit of the old accommodation, but with the new buildings in use there is room for nearly a hundred boarders and teaching accommodation for 200, and the Church of England Grammar School should be able to more than hold its own with the other secondary schools of the State. The staff at present consists of the headmaster and five assistants:—The Rev. P. TJ. Henn, M.A. (Oxford), Mr. H. A. Brown, M.A. (Melbourne), the Rev. L. W. Parry, M.A. (Oxford), Mr. C. L. Riley, B.A., LL.B. (Cambridge), Mr. E. F. Cameron, and Mr. A. B. Montgomery. (Battye, J.S. 1912-13: 75)
The school has a remarkable chapel.
References and Links
Battye, J.S. 1912-13, The Cyclopedia of Western Australia, Cyclopedia Co., Perth.
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 18 September, 2021 and hosted at freotopia.org/schools/ggs.html (it was last updated on 6 December, 2023). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.