The King's School - Parramatta
Early Enrollment History
The above extract is from a paper in Volume I of The Australian Historical Society Journal at pages 141-148. Its author Archdeacon William James Gunther was a committee member of the AHS (now RAHS) when it was inaugurated in March 1901. From 1867 to 1910 he was the Rector of St. John's Church of England at Parramatta and a scholar at The King's School from 1852 to 1857. He was well placed to know the early history of the school, as in addition to attending it during the Rev. Robert Forrest's second period as headmaster, he had access to the records of both St. John's church and of the school through his membership of the School Council as a Governor from 1885 until his death. His sons also attended the school. Prior to reading the above paper to the Society in Feb. 1903 he was recorded in a Sydney newspaper as having lectured on the history of the school.
Rev. Gunther's precise knowledge of the twelve names given in his paper may have come originally from the St. John's parish records. The Rev. Samuel Marsden (1765 - 1838) of St. John's was a member of the committee of the Church and School Corporation under whose auspices the school was established. He was closely involved with its establishment and the leasing of the original George Street building from the Rev. William Walker who was the brother-in-law of Marsden's son-in-law the Rev. Thomas Hassall. Marsden's name also appeared on a contract for the building of extensions to the George Street building that commenced five months after the opening. Presumably some days prior to the opening the Headmaster Rev. Robert Forrest, who was also Rev. Marsden's licensed assistant at St. John's, would have reported to Marsden and to Archdeacon Broughton and the Clurch and School Corporation in Sydney on progress made in attracting enrolments resulting from the press advertising campaign seeking scholars that began only 19 days prior to the 13 Feb. 1832 opening. Thus the source for Gunther's list may have been a pre-opening letter from Forrest to the Church and School Corporation copied to Marsden reporting on the enrolments achieved and the fitting out and readiness of the building etc. that Gunther had found in the St. John's parish records. The list may have just been an extract made by the Rev. Forrest from his accounting records, with the order of the six names in each category simply reflecting the order in which the tuition or boarding fee had been received from a parent thus confirming the enrolement of their son.
William J. Gunther
1839-1918
A possibility is Rev. Marsden's grandson Rev. James S. Hassall found such a letter among his late grandfather's papers and had shown it to Gunther. However rather than an early report by Forrest it seems more likely, because it gave the names of the first six boarders, that the list of twelve was compiled later in the first year, perhaps mid-year at the end of the first term from a more lengthy list of the names of enrollees to that time, and it was merely a list of the first six enrolled in the day boy category and the six in boarder category. In the digital age people think in terms of 10 but in the 19th century it was the dozen and the 12 apostles. Whatever its meaning and source Rev. Gunther was obviously satisfied as to its accuracy compared to for example the "over one hundred boys" before the year's end" that by his use of the wording "It is said" he was making clear was hearsay (likely derived from the year earlier published Rev. James Hassall book in which Hassall had said he "thought" the number after the mid-year holidays had been "over one hundred" - see below for Hassall book extract).
As the advertising campaign began only 19 days before the opening day it would be likely by the opening few if any country boarders had been enrolled and unlikely any would have made it from there to be present. Thus likely the three first day attendees were day-boys. Neither Gordon or Staff, whose names are not on the Gunther list of the first six day-boys enroled, could have been present that day unless prior enroled. In respect of Staff, who lived locally and did attend as a day-boy, an exceedingly strange aspect of the enrolment and attendance history is not merely the 1981 history's claim that then 6½ year old Staff was a first day attendee but also the listing of his name at the number four position in the 1982, 1990, and 2000 published registers of the names of all who attended the school since inception. Although these several Register publications acknowledge prior to 1896 no enrollment registers exist they appear to be numbered consecutively in a purported enrollment order. Except for the exclusion of the Walker/Waller names, about whom doubt apparently exists as to whether Walker ever attended and exactly when Waller first attended, the first twelve names in the register publications accord exactly with the names in the Gunther and below quoted Hassall lists with the sole exception of the addition of the 1981 history's claimed first day attendee James Staff at 4th position. By inserting his name at a position earlier than 6th these Register publications are in effect saying the school's earliest historian the Rev. Gunther was in error by omitting Staff's name from his list of the first six day-boys enrolled and three quarters of a century later the register's compiler P. J. Yeend had somehow managed to establish the true facts ! What appears to have happened is that he was just stuck in at fourth position immediately following the two Orr boys in order to make the registers appear consistent with the first day attendance claim their compiler was also making in respect of the same three. Placed at number one position was G. F. Macarthur who stated he was not present on the opening day but some had said was the first enroled.
In his 1902 published autobiography - In Old Australia : records and reminiscences from 1794 - Anglican clergyman Rev. James Hassall (1823-1904) gave the same twelve names as Gunther except he spelt one surname as "Waller" instead of Gunther's "Walker" spelling. Either may have just been a one letter printer's error. Another possibility is Hassall obtained the names from Gunther and changed the surname spelling of Walker to Waller because he recalled a James Waller had been present when he first attended the school in April 1832 but not a James Walker? It is possible Walker was enrolled early but never attended as an early enrollment would not necessarily have resulted in an attendance. It is known from records of the Church and School Corporation, that from 1826 until it was abolished in August 1833 administered the government funded church schools, that on 2 April 1832 headmaster Forrest advised it sixteen boys were on the roll. That number was likely the number then enrolled and not those actually attending as Forrest was not paid by the Corporation on a per pupil basis. As the Rev. James S. Hassall stated in a 1904 TKS magazine article that when he first attended the school in April 1832 he was the ninth to enter, it follows whilst sixteen were enrolled at 2nd April 1832, several had yet to attend. The below extract from the 1901 written and 1902 published James Hassall book clearly had the same original source as the above Feb. 1903 Gunther list:-
James S. Hassall
1823-1904
A February 1932 centenary of foundation commemoration issue of The King's School Magazine, edited by Robert Robertson, gave the same twelve names as Hassall indicating they came from the 1901 written Hassall book. However despite the book not having said the twelve it named attended on the first day, or were even the first twelve to attend, the commemoration issue made the amazing claim - "Twelve boys were in attendance at the school on its opening day in George Street, on February 13th, 1832 ... (there followed the 12 names as given in the Hassall book) ... The first six were boarders, G. F. Macarthur is supposed to have been the first enrolled, and John Watsford (afterwards the Rev.) claims to have been the first boy to enter the building when the doors opened".
The first part of the above quote that twelve were present on the opening day is a classic case (perhaps not dissimilar in effect to the 1981 history naming of the first day attendees as James Staff and the Orr boys) of mere conjecture as to meaning being incorrectly presented as fact! In this case the Robert Robertson assumption having been there was no difference between an initial enrolment and an opening day attendance! In view of a reported claim by the then headmaster George F. Macarthur, made in a speech he gave on 13 Feb. 1880 at the first foundation Commemoration Day ceremony, that only three boys attended on the opening day, and particularly the 1902 and 1904 Rev. James Hassall statements that when he first attended in April 1832 he had been the ninth to enter - a no doubt accurate claim for the memory association reason that his namesake James, the son of Alphaeus, is listed in four books of the New Testament - viz. Matthew 10:2-4, Mark 3:16-19, Luke 6:14-16 & Acts 1:13 as the ninth Apostle, the editor of the 1932 centenary mag. issue should have been aware it was incorrect to claim the twelve named in the Hassall book list were all present on the opening day. It was in fact nonsensical as Hassall had said in his 1904 school magazine article he had been ninth to enter but his name was not among the twelve he had listed in 1901 in his book.
A 1980 Macquarie University MA thesis, by then school archivist P. J. Yeend, titled: Aspects of the history of The King's School, Parramatta, just predated the Lloyd Waddy authored 1981 school history. It seems likely to have been the undisclosed source for that publication's extraordinary claim three boys named Staff and the two Orr's attended on the opening day. The National Library holds a copy of the Yeend thesis. The manuscript librarian has advised it makes an identical unqualified claim, citing archives of The King's School held reports of speeches made in 1880 on the occassion of the first Commemoration Day ceremony held to celebrate the anniversary of the 13 Feb. 1832 opening and a document classified by the archives as number 4100. The school has not seen fit to further identify either record. Two NSW newspaper reports of the 1880 Commemoration Day ceremony have been noted but neither quoted anything relevant from a speech, and brief quotes from the Macarthur speech in the 1932 published centenary school history and in the 1911 published ‘Jubilee History of Parramatta’ were similarly not relevant. Parramatta's then newspaper The Cumberland Mercury likely carried reports of the speeches. However no issues from the first part of 1880 have survived so the microfilms have not been consulted. If they were reported in this paper no doubt clippings of the reports held by the archives would be the source being cited. As indicated by the ellipsis the below quote at page 25 of the 1981 school history, from headmaster G. F. Macarthur's 1880 speech, was selectively quoted :-
George F. Macarthur
1825-1890
As it was being categorically stated in the 1981 history that the three boys were James Staff and the two Orr boys, if the omitted wording in the quote from the report of the Macarthur speech was readable and had said something about the three, one wonders why the full text was not quoted ? Macarthur was seemingly expressing in a nostalgic way a then 48 years old legend that only three boys were waiting on the doorstep at 7 a.m. on 13th Feb. when the doors were opened to admit the first scholars. There may have been others who arrived later that morning, and perhaps even a boader or two after lunch from the country to be accomodated on the upper floor. What Macarthur said about that morning is in no way inconsistent with what was later recorded as written by Rev. John Watsford and intepreted by the school magazine editor in Gordon's 1910 obituary as that Gordon and Watsford had been waiting on doorstep for the doors to open. However Gordon's reported query to Watsford "Do you remember two boys waiting outside ... for the doors to be opened" can equally interpreted as that Gordon and another unidentfied boy were waiting and that Watsford then arrived from next door to make it three. As Watsford had only to come from next door it would be likely he would have left his arrival until very shortly before the appointed opening hour and thus was the last of three first entrants to arrive. His father operated the coaches. Not only was he a next door neighbour to the school but would presumably have transported the headmaster to be around and to and from Sydney etc. after he had arrived in the colony from from England the previous month. There is every reason to expect prior to the opening Watsford Jr. would have already met the headmaster, and upon his arrival that morning would have knocked on the door for admittance, and accordingly as he said in his 1898 school magazine article re his attendance that he could "even claim to have been the first boy there". He may have knocked on the back door and already been inside when the two waiting on the doorstep were admitted - who knows what was the exact scenario? As the quotation from the 1880 Macarthur speech stands it is ambiguous. It merely indicates that legend he was recounting had it that three were present when the doors were opened on the 13th Feb. 1832. Whilst they may have also been the only three present also for the remainder of that day it was not necessarily so.
On a certain Monday, on 13 February 1832, three little boys wended their way towards a commodious house in George Street, Parramatta, rented as a temporary home for the King's School ... Doubtless their young minds were full of surmises as to what sort of place The King's School was to be - and of what sort that great tall man who had been noticed in Parramatta as a new arrival only a few days before.
As evidenced by Anglican minister and headmaster Rev. G. F. Macarthur's one shilling purchase price 1870 published booket titled, Methodism of 1870 opposed to Holy Scipture ... and by his newspaper letters, Macarthur was an entrenched Weslyan Methodist antagonist. First day attendee Rev. John Watsford was a prominent Methodist Minister throughout Australia. In 1871 he was President of the Australasian Methodist Conference and in 1878 two years before the speech the first elected President of the General Conference. Macarthur should have known the identity of the three little boys he spoke of so nostalgically as making their way to the school on the morn of its' opening day. After all he had ample opportunity to learn of the initial attendance from the school's first headmaster Robert Forrest, as after he left school with five others as a live-in student at Campbelltown, he studied for at least 18 months for the ministry under Forrest. However hardly surprising was that on such a public occassion, the man who a decade earlier had seen fit to advertise and disseminate his bigoted opinions condemning Wesleyan Methodist beliefs, seemingly without provocation other than perhaps a perception on his part that such attacks might have the effect of deflecting parents from sending children to the 1863 founded Wesleyan Methodist Newington College then located downstream from Parramatta at Silverwater and instead send them to his the previous year re-established King's School, when speaking of the opening day attendance managed to find a form of words to avoid acknowledging a distinquished and widely known Wesleyan minister had been a first day attendee at "his" Anglican school. Watsford was not only a prominent Methodist Minister but the son of a former convict which also may have not sat too well with Macarthur who was a grand nephew of John Macarthur the founder of the Australian wool industry and in his day the richest man in the colony. If anything G. F. Macarthur's failure to name the three boys indicates one would have been Rev. John Watsford!
The other document cited in the 1980 P. Yeend thesis as a source for his Staff and Orr boys attendance claim and, stated to be held by the school archives under classification Number 4100, is a mystery. A only clue as to what it may have been was a mention in the 1981 history publication that a list of pupils who attended the school from its inception was prepared in 1839 by then thirteen-year-old student James Staff - the same boy it named as a first day attendee and, who contrary to his name not being on the Gunther and Hassall lists of the first six day-boys enroled, has been listed as a ring-in 4th boy enroled in the various school registers publications also compiled by the same P. J. Yeend who was a full-time archivist at the school for two years. One would expect youngster James Staff to have begun his list with his own name at the top followed perhaps by those of his best mates who may have been the two Orr boys? Thus no significance can be attached to the order of names on it regardless of what wording may have been inserted to describe its content when it was drawn up or added later by someone else? The reason for the compilation of the Staff list seems likely to have been to establish the names of all who had attended the school during the time of the first headmaster Rev. R. Forrest to enable them to be incorporated in or to accompany an Illuminated Address presented to him by the boys at the time of his resignation and departure on 1 July 1839 to take up an Anglican church appointment at Campbelltown. Obviously the compiling of such a list, from the knowledge of boys who attended early and were still at the school and of old boys such as then King's school master and 1832 first day attendee John Watsford, would have been possible though some errors in the years some first and last attended and some name ommissions would be expected. The exercise would have been done for this purpose, or for some other practical reason in connection with the headmaster's departure such as to facilitate the raising of the funds for the farewell dinner or to pay the illuminated address artist etc. It would surely not have been possible for a then thirteen year old to have accurately compiled a list for the first seven calendar years in the actual day by day order each boy had first attended the school, and there would have been no reason to even attempt such an academic exercise for such a short time since established school. Then such would not have been of any real interest to anyone or have served a practical purpose.
Until a more open school administration chooses to reveal the content of school archives document #4100 and its provenance etc. any relevance of the 1839 list to the 1981 history Staff/Orr attendance claim will remain speculative. James Staff (1825-1893) had fourteen children so had many descendants. Any could in good faith have made erroneous claims to the school about the nature of his 1839 compiled list, either before or when presented to the school archives, that led to the archivist bestowing upon it an incorrect interpretation. However without need for any other consideration, it should be very obvious that if the Rev. James S. Hassall's name was not in the ninth position on the 1839 James Staff list then it was not arranged in the day-by-day order of each boy's first attendance - that is unless the school considered the Rev. Hassall was likewise to Watsford and Gordon deluded about when he first attended! Surely Hassall was not. He had ample opportunity to confirm or learn of his 9th attendance, as from about the age of seventeen years, with five others of a similar age, at a per student fee of £100 p.a., he spent two years studying under his old King's School headmaster the Rev. Forrest as a live-in student at Campbelltown followed by about two more years for three days a week at Ellerslie (a property near Camden) reading Greek and other subjects with him in preparation for the Ministry. However it is apparent from the listings in the published school enrolment Registers that the school must consider all the early old boys mentioned in this article were incorrect in what they wrote for publication about when they and others they named attended the school - seemingly instead preferring an obviously incorrect interpretation placed by a once school archivist upon on a list of names put together by a 13 year-old. At the link can be found details of some variations noted between what the published school registers prepared by the archivist state about the attendance years of some early old boys and what the old boys actually said about when they attended.Compiled Sept. 2004 by John Raymond, Brisbane, Australia
