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Ballarat High at war | |
State Schools and the Great War Ballarat High at war
At the time of the First World War, most Victorians left school when they turned fourteen. There were only a few secondary schools, offering three or four more years of education for students planning to enter a profession. Most of these schools were new, and developing their traditions. From 1914, teachers and students worked under the shadow of war, conscious that many boys would be enlisting immediately after they left school. The experience of one school, Ballarat High, was probably typical. The school's motto, 'Duty Always', was ready-made for a time of national and personal trauma. Teachers and students were caught up in the rhetoric of sacrifice and patriotism. View an extract from the school magazine in December 1914. After the Gallipoli landing in 1915, the Senior Mistress at the School, Miss Jeannie Jobson, published a letter expressing her pride in the soldiers. It met with an enormous response, and hundreds of letters flowed into the school from soldiers overseas. The school community raised funds for the war effort, and the girls joined their mothers and aunts in knitting scarves socks and balaclavas for the troops. School opinion was strongly in favour of conscription, and in 1916 the editors of the school magazine wrote that the vote against conscription in the first referendum was 'a disaster'.
The school was proud of its involvement. Nearly three-quarters of the eligible ex-students enlisted. The school's Honour Board was unveiled in 1919. There were 270 names on it. They included 111 wounded and 45 dead. The Principal, John Refshauge, tried to make sense of the deaths of so many young men of promise. He wrote obituaries for many of the casualties, and published their photographs in the school magazine. A common theme was that the soldier's death was not the end, but the beginning of a new sphere of life and service. Other themes were the bravery of those who gave up their future for their country's sake, and the pride that the students could feel in Australia's feats of arms. View an extract from an obituary in the school magazine.
When Peace came at last, a War Memorial, designed by mural artist George Dancey, was unveiled in the school hall. The mural expresses the hope that the war was 'the war to end all wars'. It shows the archangel St Michael with drawn sword triumphing over Satan, symbolizing the triumph of Good over Evil. The words 'To God and Right' at the top of the memorial take up the themes of sacrifice and duty which had been so strong throughout the school during the war. |
