Pulteney Street School soon after its completion in 1848Revd Edmund Miller, the school's first headmaster, 1847–1850Herbert Hynes in the uniform of Pulteney Street School, about 1885Pulteney Street School, pictured in 1919 before the premises were compulsorily acquired by the Australian Government
In May 1847, some citizens of Adelaide met to discuss the establishment of a new school in the city. Twelve months later, on 29 May 1848, Pulteney Street School was opened at a newly constructed 30 by 60 feet (9 by 18 m) building at the corner of Pulteney and Flinders streets. Although established in the Anglican tradition, which continues to this day, it provided from the beginning an education for students of all religious denominations.[5]
Operating 10 months after St Peter's College was founded, the Pulteney Street School was aimed at a broader demographic, reflected in a monthly charge of 2 shillings and 6 pence for each pupil, considered to be "a rate which the poorest can surely afford to pay for the education of their children".[5] The school had 50 pupils by the end of its first week and 270 by Christmas; within two years the average attendance had reached 350. From an early stage, technical subjects were taught to prepare boys for a trade. The senior class had a wide syllabus: writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, mapping, linear drawing, mental arithmetic, geometry, dictation, spelling, reading, history, and "the prophecies".[6]: 67–69 It advertised, four years later, that "The children are taught a superior commercial education, and have the use of the globes and maps. The girls are taught needlework, &c., and are separated from the boys' school. The pupils' fee is three shillings per month, paid in advance, with all materials found."[7]
The inaugural headmaster, the Reverend Edmund King Miller, served in very difficult circumstances: when about 100 children had been admitted he applied to the trustees for an assistant, a request that was refused on the ground that there was a debt on the building they wished to liquidate. Emma Mitchell joined later in the year, mainly to take charge of the separate education of girls; but eventually an assistant for Miller, a William Pepper, was engaged. Miller remained on relatively poor terms with his trustees, largely owing to their failure to recognise the magnitude of the workload that fell on him, including his church work. He resigned in 1850.[6]: 67–68
Miller was succeeded by several headmasters of shorter duration, during which time the school's name became (for a while) Pulteney Street Central Schools and, on ceasing co-education, Pulteney Street Central School.[7][6]: 95 More durable headmasters – William Samuel Moore (24 years in office), William Percival Nicholls (41 years) and W.R. Ray (26 years) – led Pulteney to become a highly regarded educational institution among a field that included Scotch College, Prince Alfred College, and St Peter's College.[6]: 384
Girls' classes ceased about 1854 but were resumed in 1857, dwindling to none by 1861. During the tenure of William Moore from that year, however, classes resumed and in the 1870s, 74 girls were present out of a total enrolment of 270. But female enrolments again ceased in 1884.[6]: 82, 87, 95 The school did not again become co-educational until 1999.[8]
20th century
Opening of the new school on South Terrace, renamed as Pulteney Grammar School, in 1921. The building, facing Adelaide Park Lands, was for many years the middle school before it became the school's music and drama centre.The school's footbridge allows pedestrians to safely cross heavily trafficked South TerraceThe Middle School building, completed in 2018, was awarded an architectural prize
In 1915, space had become insufficient to house all of the classes, threatening the school's survival. While pupils studied in two unsatisfactory venues elsewhere in the city, the trustees looked further afield and in 1916 purchased an acre of land belonging to St Peter's College on South Terrace, facing the Adelaide Park Lands.[note 1]
In 1919, the school was forced out after its premises were compulsorily acquired by the Commonwealth Government "for repatriation purposes" following World War I,[10][6]: 384 Despite privations of finance and post-war materials and labour shortages and strikes, the building that was to become the core of the new school was opened on 3 July 1921. Its capacity, 300, was at last sufficient for the enrolment of 249 boys, if only temporarily: four new classrooms were built in 1923.[6]: 112, 114
The move occurred half-way through the tenure of the school's longest-serving headmaster, William Percival Nicholls, 1901–1942, under whom enrolments increased steadily. A highly principled man with a great sense of humour, he enlarged the curriculum and introduced a branch of commercial education through typewriting and shorthand; the school gained a solid reputation for its commercial classes.
A rivalry soon developed between pupils at the adjoining Gilles Street Primary School and those at Pulteney. During lunch hours there were pitched battles in the creeks that ran through the cow pasture opposite Pulteney, with both sides throwing rocks and cow-pats. The headmaster often stood at the windows overlooking the area and, with his binoculars, picked out the various students who were fighting; they were subsequently invited to a dreaded meeting in his office.[6]: 108, 118
The school's finances were on less firm ground than enrolments and academic standards. World War II, with its many privations including a severe shortage of teachers, took its toll and by 1944 the school was facing a crisis of such magnitude that its future was again in the balance. After two interim headmasters had been engaged during the end of the war and its aftermath, the Revd William Robert Ray was appointed in 1947 to bring the school back on to its feet in three years pending a further review, including by raising enrolments to 250 by the end of 1949. Ray, to whom the boys gave the nickname "Rufus", and later "The Boss", was described by his deputy as "something of a maverick: he made his own rules, was bound by nothing or nobody, and was a supreme headmaster whose care for his pupils and staff was infinite." He saw Pulteney as more than a school: to him, it was a community. He was a powerful orator who used his skill to publicise his school. And there were some external advantages in 1947: South Australia's burgeoning post-war economy brought many families to the state from interstate and overseas, and increasing financial aid for education became available from both the Commonwealth and state governments. During Ray's first seven years in charge, enrolment rose from 162 to 608 amid an almost continuous building program. Increased numbers of boys and staff, and the addition of Year 11 and Year 12 classes in 1953, led to a resurgence of confidence in the school.[6]: 134 [11]
21st century
During 1998, discussions commenced with Woodlands Church of England Girls Grammar School with a view to merging with Pulteney following several years of the former school's declining enrolments. Negotiations collapsed and no merger occurred.[note 2] In the event, Pulteney finalised its longstanding planning for co-education when it welcomed girls of all ages from the beginning of 1999. In 2002, the school opened an innovative early learning centre, Kurrajong, for pupils up to and including year 2.[11]
The school described itself in 2013 as "firmly established, soundly administered and growing".[4]
School structure and demographics
The school has four age-based sub-schools on the South Terrace campus, each overseen by a "head of school" who responds to the principal. They are the early learning centre, Kurrajong, for pupils up to and including year 2; prep school for years 3–6; middle school for years 7–9, and "one ninety" (senior school) for years 10–12.[11][note 3]
According to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, in 2022 there were 894 pupils (505 boys, 389 girls) at the school and 139.5 full-time equivalent staff (95 teaching, 44.5 non-teaching). The Distribution of Socio-Educational Advantage, for which the Australian distribution is 25% in each quartile, was: bottom quarter, 1%; lower middle quarter, 6%; upper middle quarter, 25%; top quarter 68%.[4] The attendance rate in 2022, previously 95%, was 89% – the significant variation being caused by the high Covid-19 Omicron variant and influenza infections.[12] Of 82 students completing senior secondary school, 81 were awarded a certificate.[13]
2023 educational innovation award
In 2023, Pulteney Grammar School was one of three South Australian schools recognised in The Educator publication's national Innovative Schools Awards for its teaching and learning approaches that develop learners' foundational literacies and transversal skills. The award
... celebrate[s] the people and collaboration at the centre of Pulteney's daily operations. A unique award-winning teaching and learning framework, The Learner Compass, provides a common language which students, teachers and parents use to communicate and share their unique understanding of quality teaching and learning at Pulteney Grammar School.[14][15]
Notable alumni
A large and active Old Scholars' Association maintains a strong connection between the school and its alumni. Membership is extended to students on graduation from year 12.
Some notable alumni of Pulteney Grammar School have included the following:
Dental academic and university administrator; vice-chancellor of the University of New South Wales, provost and executive vice president for academic and health affairs of the University of California, and provost of the United Arab Emirates University[21]
Sir Leonard Ross Mallen
President of the South Australian Branch of the Australian Medical Association; a fellow and federal AMA councillor; president of the World Medical Association [22]
As a RAAF member of the elite target-marking Pathfinder Force of RAF Bomber Command, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross after a very hazardous mission over Hamburg. His role, as observer, was to navigate the bomber to the target and to release the bomb load.[24][25]
Fellow in Music, Dean and Chattels Fellow at New College, Oxford; Director of New Chamber Opera, and Professor of Opera Studies in the Faculty of Music, University of Oxford[27]
Expatriate Australian artist who forged a distinctive style of realist painting with metaphysical overtones, widely regarded as Australia's greatest living painter until his death in 2013[32][33][34]
In 2009, heritage groups and members of the public criticised Pulteney's plan to demolish a two-storey bluestone mansion within the school's boundary. The building was not heritage listed, but it was one of the last remaining mansions on South Terrace and had been recommended for conservation under Adelaide's Townscape List. The school went ahead with demolition,[39] citing a need to act quickly to take advantage of the national economic stimulus program following the 2007–2010 global financial crisis[40] and that retaining the building was neither practical nor affordable.[39]
In August 2023, a petition was circulated by self-described "members of the Pulteney community" complaining about changes in the school's culture; the departure or reassignment of teachers, which had caused a deficit of experience and unreasonable expectations of remaining staff; a decline in university entrance scores and primary-level pupil assessments; and changes such as the merging of its middle school and the previously self-contained unit for year 11 and 12 students. The school's board promptly engaged an independent firm to conduct a review of its leadership, to be completed by mid-October.[41] The school's principal, Cameron Bacholer, who was appointed in 2020, resigned on 10 October.[15]
Notes
^The school, now intensively developed on its site, makes good use of the park lands: it leases 6 ovals, cricket nets, 3 lawn tennis courts, 2 grass volleyball courts and facilities, which are open for community use.[9]
^Woodlands closed its doors at the end of 1998. In 1999, the lower years of Woodlands amalgamated with those of existing co-educational primary school St Peter's Glenelg Anglican Grammar School, to become St Peter's Woodlands Grammar School catering for early learning to Year 6.
^Originally years 11–12; year 10 was in the middle school.
^ ab"Local Intelligence". The Adelaide Observer. Vol. VI, no. 257. Original, Adelaide; digital reproduction, Canberra. 27 May 1848. p. 2. Retrieved 17 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia – Trove digital newspaper archive.
^ abcdefghiGoulding, Lingard (2020). Under the kurrajong trees : Pulteney Grammar School from 1847 until 2020. Adelaide: Pulteney Grammar School. ISBN978-0-646-82801-5.
^"Old days and new". The Register. Vol. LXXXIV, no. 22, 722. Original, Adelaide; digital reprint, Canberra. 5 September 1919. p. 5. Retrieved 17 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia – Trove digital newspaper archive.
^Blackburn, R.A (1979). "Blackburn, Arthur Seaforth (1892–1960)". Blackburn, Arthur Seaforth (1892–1960). Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 7. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. pp. 307–308. Retrieved 18 November 2023.
^"Jeffrey Smart". Art Gallery of New South Wale. 2023. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
^Morgan, Patrick. "Bednall, Colin Blore (1913–1976)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
^"Death of Mr. J.A. Riley". The Advertiser. Vol. LXXXII, no. 25, 353. Original, Adelaide; digital reprint, Canberra. 8 January 1940. p. 16. ISSN1039-4192. Retrieved 12 December 2023 – via National Library of Australia – Trove digital newspaper archive.
^"Building the Education Revolution". Nation Building: Economic Stimulus Plan. Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Archived from the original on 17 April 2010. Retrieved 1 September 2023.
^Novak, Lauren (1 September 2023). "School leaders 'must go'". The Advertiser. Adelaide. p. 4. Retrieved 1 September 2023. subscription: the source is only accessible via a paid subscription ("paywall").
Further reading
Ray, William R. (1973). Pulteney Grammar School 1847–1972: a record. Pulteney Grammar School. Adelaide. ISBN 0959921400.
Brunton, Kenneth; Greet, Frank H.; and Moore, John R. (1997). Pulteney Grammar School 1847–1997: a record [by W.R. Ray]; revised and brought up to date. Pulteney Grammar School. Adelaide. ISBN 1862544158.
Goulding, Lingard (2020). Under the kurrajong trees: Pulteney Grammar School from 1847 until 2020. Pulteney Grammar School. Adelaide. ISBN 9780646828015.
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