A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog-entry about an old 1930s cigarette-lighter I found at my local flea-market. Although it was rather worse for wear, I was able to pull it apart, clean it, put it back together and with a bit of cotton-wadding, a fresh wick, a new flint and a squirt of lighter-fluid, was able to get it working again.

I recently got a chance to head back to my old school, and while I was there, I got the chance to visit the archives. Many thanks to Paul, the school archivist, for giving me such a detailed tour of the archives and the various record rooms filled with all kinds of historical papers and records from the school’s past.

I fully admit that the main purpose in heading to the archives was to get a better idea about the history and context of the lighter that I’d found:

It had my school’s coat of arms on it, and I wanted to know why. In going to the archives, I wanted to find out more about it, and the sort of world it came from.

The school’s museum didn’t provide a direct answer, but it did show me that old school-branded merchandise was not nearly as rare as I had first supposed. I was surprised to see that there quite a lot of school branded objects on display, including crockery, napkin-rings, an ashtray, cigarette cases, books and educational equipment, and various other pieces of bric-a-brac donated to the school over the course of many years.

Modesty forbid, but while I had known that Scotch has long had a reputation for being a rather prestigious private school, and rather an old one, I’d never realised the extent to which it went, when it came to merchandising! Nor how far back this merchandising went.

One of the things I saw was a selection of antique cigarette lighters, most similar in one way or another, to my own. None of them were in working condition, but I was surprised about the extent to which the school went in selling branded products to its students, parents, and presumably – schoolmasters, back in the 1920s and 30s.

In walking through the archives, I saw all kinds of tantalising hints of the school’s history, and the sort of institution it started out as. Most of the artefacts dated to around 1916-1926, the ten-year period during which the school moved to its current campus in Hawthorn, in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It never really dawned on me until now, just how much Australian schools tried to model themselves on the old ‘public schools’ of England, like Eton, Harrow and St. Peter’s. They even had the boater hats!

Paul said these classic icons of summertime headwear came and went over the decades, finally dying out after the Second World War. Apparently, some students still wear these during specific sporting events (rowing races, and so-forth), but it’s been many decades since they were a regular part of the school uniform.

Talking of things which didn’t stand the test of time, here’s another one: the school dressing gown! Bright red with decorative piping on the cuffs…wow!!

That’s something you definitely don’t see every day!

Here’s some of the other school tobacconalia that I found:

Here we’ve got a tobacco jar, with its airtight lid, an ashtray, a matchbox holder, and a school-badged bottle-opener, which I thought was pretty neat. In the corner you can also see a cigarette case. One thing that Paul said they got a lot of was crockery and china, which you can actually see quite a lot of:

I’d like to imagine that these things were used up in the boarding houses, or in the staff-room or the headmaster’s residence, back in the 1910s and 1920s. Most of the stuff is from the 20s or 30s, easily dated by the school coat of arms, some is a bit older, again, dated by the coat of arms.

One thing which the school doesn’t really have anymore, and which I’ve never seen anyone wear, apart from junior-school students, are the school caps or hats. Personally I think this is a bit of a shame – it can get surprisingly nippy in Melbourne in winter, and blazing hot in the summer! I still remember the bloody ugly grey floppy bucket-hats we had to wear when I was in Year One! The school badges were stuck on with some sort of sloppy glue, and it peeled right off if the hat got wet.

One of the more interesting things on display at the archives was this amazing contraption:

This beast of a thing looks more at home in a machinist’s shop than a school classroom! And it’s a pretty impressive bit of kit, even if you’ve no idea what it even does!

So uh…w-what is it?

It’s a dual-purpose mechanical apple-peeler and corer! You stick the apple on the end of the spike, crank this puppy at high speed, and watch the blades peel the skin off, and drill through the middle of the apple at the same time, removing the core and seeds! I’m guessing this was used back in the days when tardy students paid for their lateness or truancy with apples for the teacher. There must’ve been quite a lot of tardy students if they needed an industrial apple-peeler to handle all the peace-offerings!

Right?

Nah! Actually this was used in the boarding-houses up on the Hill, the boarding-house area of the campus. It was used to process the hundreds of apples eaten by the boarders every day.

In looking through the archives, I was amazed to see the extent to which the school had gone to in preserving its history – and the type of history it preserved, as well! Not just uniforms and hats and badges, bags and badged paraphernalia, but also all kinds of documents.

There were two huge steel fireproof safes in the archives, loaded with old account books of school fees and admissions, record books loaded with the names, ages, addresses, and parents of students, going all the way back to the 1850s, including that of a certain…John Monash…aged 12!

After being given a truly comprehensive and impressive tour of the archives, which also included a glimpse into all the stuff they had put away in storage, it made me feel a little sad that all these items were all vying for space in such a tiny museum, made up of just two small rooms and four specially-built display towers.

While the layout and organisation of the archives and museum have certainly changed (and in my mind – improved!) since last I was there – which was a bloody long time ago!…I feel that there’s still a fair way to go. There’s so many amazing things which the students and past students, and parents could see…but can’t, because there’s nowhere to put it, nowhere to show it, and as the archivist told me himself – no chance to see it, even if there was somewhere to show it – purely because the curriculum at the school is so packed. Even in the history classes, which would be the ones most likely to make use of the archives.

Indeed, when I was in Scotch…which was over ten years ago, now…I remember visiting the archives exactly…ONCE. In thirteen years.

Rather sad, isn’t it? Hopefully in the years to come, things will change, and more students, and past students will become aware of the archive and museum, and perhaps take a bit more interest in it, although even those who want to don’t often get the chance – even when they’re at school, which I think is a shame.