Page 19 - Potted History 2017

Headmaster Matthew Wilson’s son Frank
(born 1916), who attended High School,
between 1924 and 1928, and lived with his
parents at the George Street site before
the new boarding house was completed
in 1926, wrote the following regarding the
School in the 20s:
Havelock Street - July 1927
Havelock Street Laboratory with ‘Dil Newbery, 1920s

I believe that the site and some of the buildings, perhaps two pound and the senior cook Edith, who There were few motor cars or trucks; buses had just diagonal path flanked by big oleander bushes, along the
including our family quarters, were originally a military was on top of the pecking order, got an enviable three started a Perth-Fremantle service and the successful side of Parliament House, then across Harvest Terrace and
hospital, conveniently situated across the road from the pounds. ascent of Malcolm Street by them when fully loaded was up through ‘the sandhills’ and the area where the new
Barracks (the Public Works offices in the 1920s) and that sometimes in doubt. boarding house was to built in 1926, and finally to the
an underground passage joining the two sites passed The maids got a half day off each week on which, if lucky, main classroom buildings on Havelock Street, to merger
under George street, through which patients and staff they were taken to ‘the pictures’ (the Price of Wales or Trams ran along Hay street from the ‘Car Barn’ terminal in with the ‘dagoes’, the despised but envied day boys with
could be evacuated should someone (one wonders who Grand in Murray Street, the Palladium or Pavilion, Hay East Perth (alongside Queen’s Gardens and the W.A.C.A. homes in West Perth, Subiaco and South Perth.
… Aborigines? Germans? Things from outer space?) Street) by their boy friends to see Douglas Fairbanks ground) through West Perth to far-off places like Subiaco;
ever attack. Certainly in the 20s there were still extensive and Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino (in ‘The Sheik’ or the Nedlands swimming baths, even in time as far away Scrub covered the ‘sandhills’ area; hovea, leschenaultia,
cellars under the Headmaster’s quarters, but I was a timid ‘Blood and Sand’), Charlie Chaplin (‘The Kid’ with Jackie as Claremont, to the Showgrounds and down by Bay View smoke bush, banksia and other wildflowers were quite
child and too impressed by the blood-curdling accounts Coogan) and, of course, Garbo. It was more or less an Terrace to the river. profuse, and the sandy slopes falling away to Harvest
of my brother Ron and other ‘big kids’ about convict obligation for their escorts to buy them a small box of Terrace and Wilson Street (now Parliament Place) gave
skeletons still chained to the walls and the like to venture MacRobertson’s excellent chocolates (‘Old Gold’, ‘Dolly The dormitory … was basically a ‘sleep-over’, open on splendid scope for toboggan runways for boys seated on
down and see for myself (almost surely there was nothing Vardin’ or ‘Vanity Fair’) costing perhaps 2/6d, the empty the inward side, of wooden construction with a roof of the polished lids of kerosene tins.
down there other than mice and cockroaches, of which, boxes being displayed thereafter as trophies on top of corrugated iron. It was airy and comfortable but had one
understandably for such old buildings, there were quite a their wardrobes. serious defect, in that it was situated right alongside the The school day began at 9.00am with all classes lined
few around). George Street picket fence, and therefore hopelessly up in ranks on the floor of the main assembly hall and
Catering for the appetites of 50 or 60 hungry boys must vulnerable to stones thrown on its tine roof by larrikins in the Headmaster, masters and prefects facing them from
There were many fine old trees around the perimeter have been quite a challenge for these girls. Mutton, the dead of night, usually accompanied by derisive shouts the raised dais. My father, Matt Wilson, would stand at a
fences: I recall Cape Lilac, Pine, Moreton Bay Fig, potatoes and cabbage were predominant, I think, and I of ‘water melons’ (an unkind reference to the rather lectern and intone the Lord’s Prayer at a brisk pace, after
Mexican Pepper and two fine fig trees bearing excellent recall enormous, tubular shaped ‘steamed roly-poly’ and distinctive design of the school cap of that period, with which we would file over to our respective classrooms,
fruit, somewhere near the main buildings. ‘spotted dog’ puddings, larded over with IXL plum and its alternative segments of light and dark blue). From my the youngest in the care of the cool and elegant Miss
raspberry jam from Tasmania. And, of course, endless own ‘sleep-over’ a short distance away, I could hear the Doris Green (‘Greeneyes’) and others to such notables as
…The domestic staff were mainly young girls recruited boring custards of rice, sago and tapioca (ugh, not frogs enraged cries of ‘larries’ from pyjama clad boys in hot but ‘Fuzzy’ Rankin, ‘Jerry’ Polan, ‘Billy’ Whitton and on to the
from the goldfields where mining was suffering from a eyes again?!), with plenty of golden syrup to mix in. generally hopeless pursuit down George to Hay Street new wing … with its Olympian rulers, ‘Dil’ Newbery and
recession at that period. They were a cheerful lot and in and beyond. E.P. Clarke.
my pre-school years I spent most of my days with them Food supplies and laundry were delivered by horse and
in the kitchen, laundry and dormitory… They sang rude cart; and now and then dray carts carrying barrels from Twice daily on weekdays and once on Saturday mornings, P.T., known as ‘drill’, was supervised by ‘Buckety’ Wells,
songs of the day about “Kaiser Bill”, or “Germany You’re the Swan and Emu Breweries down on the river’s edge the boarders would walk to and from the main school an old soldier of rather forceful mien, bristling hair and
Up the Tree!” or “Mademoiselle from Armientieres would role by from the direction of Mill or Spring Streets, and classrooms at Havelock Street. The route crossed moustache, whose annual ‘tour de force’ was the Drill
(parlez-vous)”. They lived on the premises, getting food pulled by teams of superb, brawny Clydesdales and George Street, through the main gate of the Barracks Display on the school lawn on Speech Night before and
and keep plus the princely wage of one pound, two bound for pubs nearby. (the arch still stands), up a wooden stairway and along a assembly of admiring parents and families, culminating
shillings and sixpence a week. More senior girls got