The Hermitage (Australia)

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The school badge and motto - Esse quam videri
The school badge and motto - Esse quam videri
The Hermitage, Newtown, Victoria
The Hermitage, Newtown, Victoria
Hermitage girls and GGS boys in the Quad at GGS Corio, 1970
Hermitage girls and GGS boys in the Quad at GGS Corio, 1970

Geelong Church of England Girls' Grammar School, The Hermitage was founded in 1906. It was first proposed in a meeting between the Archbishop of Melbourne, Henry Lowther-Clarke, and the Head Master of Geelong Church of England Grammar School, L.H. Lindon and opened with Sidney Austin as first Chairman Council and Elsie Morres as first Headmistress.

The Hermitage, a mansion in Newtown built for the Armytage family, was bought for £6,000 with the same amount being spent on wiring and furnishing the building and constructing an assembly hall. The school advanced the education of girls in Australia in many ways including being the first girls' school to have a uniform and to have compulsory team sports. The curriculum combined academic subjects, crafts, and home economics, aiming to provide both what Miss Morres thought of as a serious education as given to boys and those things the families expected their girls to learn to be good wives.

In the 1960 Krome House, the new middle school, was opened in Highton and in 1973 the rest of the school moved to the site. In 1976 C.E.G.G.S. "The Hermitage" amalgamated with Geelong Church of England Grammar School and Clyde School, which continue to-day as Geelong Grammar School.

Contents

[edit] Headmistresses

  • Miss Elsie Morres (1906 - 1933)
  • Miss Anne Peterson (1933 - 1942)
  • Miss Victoria Krome (1942 - 1962)
  • Mrs F.L. Coggin (1962 - 1968)
  • Miss Elizabeth Britten (1968 - 1975)

[edit] Houses

Mottoes in brackets

  • Austin (Honour above honours)
  • Morres (The chain is as strong as its weakest link)
  • School (Play up, play up, and play the game)
  • Volum (Non sibi, sed toti)

[edit] Coo-ee School Journal

Journal of The Hermitage published from 1910 until the school's amalgamation with Geelong Grammar School and Clyde School in 1976. Its title is shared with the school song, also Coo-ee.

[edit] Coo-ee School Song

To school fellows, near us or distant,
We send out our "Coo-ee" to-day;
Wherever you be may you here it,
Whether hard at your work or at play.
In our own sunny home, or in lands far away
Do you hear it? Just listen! We greet you to-day -
Coo-ee! Coo-ee! Long live the school.
Australia's own call to her daughters
Is the call of your school now as well;
May its echoes ring cheerily around you,
Making feelings of gratitude swell.
May it be that your conduct will aye prove the worth
Of your love of your school and the land of your birth -
Coo-ee! Coo-ee! Long live the school.
May lessons you learn in your school days
Through life make your path ever bright;
May you grow in all virtue and beauty,
Gentle, honest and strong in the right.
In all games that you play, in all work that you do,
Do the work, play the game, as a girl straight and true -<
Coo-ee! Coo-ee! Long live the school.
May our song in far days waken mem'ries
Of comrades and friends, tried and true;
Days bright with the freshness of morning,
Pleasures many and sorrows but few.
Then here's to you, schoolmates, young, old, far and near
Accept our glad greeting and ring it back here -
Coo-ee! Coo-ee! Long live the school.
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