Lowther Hall is a school for girls from Kindergarten to Year 12. It is located at 17 Leslie Road, Essendon. It is close to the Essendon Station which is on the Broadmeadows railway line. At Overnewton Road in Keilor there is a 13 hectare sports and leisure campus which the students use.
Earlsbrae - McCracken Family
The history of Lowther Hall is more than the history of a school. It’s also a story of a landmark based well back into the nineteenth century and reflected in the history of Essendon itself. The history of Lowther Hall began not in 1920, when the school opened, but eighty years previously with the McCracken brothers’ migration from Scotland, and their first tentative essays in Victorian Colonialism.
The
historic building which is the centrepiece of Lowther Hall was originally known
as “Earlsbrae Hall”. Collier McCracken constructed it in 1890 in Essendon on
Leslie Road. In
1911, he had an idea to build “Earlsbrae Hall” a mansion of truly heroic
proportions. It took Collier McCracken two years to build. It contained 27 rooms
and stood in almost 3 acres. Collier
died in 1918. The mansion was then offered for sale and purchased by the
Anglican Church the following year. It was remodelled as a girls’
Grammar School. The remodelling was completed in February 1920.
Earlsbrae Hall or as it is known to the school “The Mansion”, is still an imposing building reminiscent of a Greco-Roman temple with Corinthian columns, portico pediment and podium. Inside the Mansion, there are richly coloured stained glass windows and carved woodwork.
Early Days Of Lowther Hall
More than one in five students of Lowther Hall were younger than six years old when the school started. One hundred and thirty five students commenced at Lowther Hall in 1920 under the school’s first Headmistress, Miss Florence Hutton.
The school was closely associated with one of Melbourne’s most remarkable characters – Edward Cole, the flamboyant owner of the Book Arcade in Bourke Street Melbourne which was destroyed by fire in 1928.
The school was named after Archbishop Lowther Clarke who directed the purchase of the building.
When boarding finished in 1955, the Mansion was remodelled to accommodate Art and Craft, Home Economics and Music. The boarders' dining room became the school Chapel.
In 1920, the matter of school uniform was “no colour will be worn but navy blue”. The following year, black was an alternative for gloves, ribbons, stockings and footwear. The winter uniform was a navy blue tunic and blazer, with white blouse and navy blue tie. The summer version was a navy blue caesarene frock with white cuffs.
The school was one of the largest girls’ Anglican educational centres in the northern suburbs, fully owned and operated by the church and willing and able to train its students to the highest level of proficiency.
The subjects offered in 1920 were: English, French, Latin, Divinity, Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Physiology, Botany, Elementary Science, Class signing and Needlework. Optional subjects included violin, singing, elocution, drawing, painting, physical culture and dancing. Greek and short-hand typing were introduced in 1921.
Open house at Earlsbrae saw the arrival of the wealthy, the famous, the ambitious and the merely curious. Some came to contract publishing business, some to admire the staircase and vestibule, or to pass comment on the Italian craftsmanship of the mosaic floors and stained-glass windows; others were motivated purely by friendship.
Archbishop
Lowther Clarke arrived in Melbourne in February 1903. His role as Bishop of Melbourne was greeted with certain euphoria by a diocese made apprehensive by
the disarray of the educational scene at the time.
Since
1890, there had been education for girls in Essendon, firstly at Blinkbonnie
Ladies’ College in Moonee Ponds and at Winstow Girls’ nearby, which merged
in 1920 under the name of Lowther Hall Anglican Grammar School.
Archdeacon Hindley proposed a significance to the school which was “That the official title of the school be ‘the Church of England Girls’ Grammar School (Lowther Hall) Essendon', in commemoration of the strong lead which the Archbishop has given to the Church, during the 18 years of his episcopate in matters concerning education."
Tragedy visited the school in its most appalling form, arriving at the doorstep on the afternoon of 5 October 1944. A seven year old Lowther Hall student was discovered, soon after leaving school, lying in a nearby lane. She had been savagely attacked, and left for dead. There were signs that life still lingered. She was rushed to the Childrens' Hospital but died soon after midnight. The funeral service was conducted on the 7th at St .James’ Church, Moonee Ponds.
World War 2 produced the Lowther Hall Patriotic Society, a club or group of clubs, which met daily in the assembly hall at 3:15pm. One group distributed wool to knitters; the results were dispatched to Puckapunyal and to the League of Soldiers’ Friends. Other girls tore up material for bandages, winding them with the aid of machines.
By the late forties, the Lowther Hall choirs had achieved a certain celebrity, and those fortunate enough to be members could look forward to radio broadcasts, to demonstrating their collective talents in theatres, town halls and miscellaneous schools, and performing at civic functions before such luminaries as Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh.
A student reported in the 1940 school Year Book: "The School Ghost still lingers in the boarding house. Sometimes he gets too lively, and we have to lock him up. In revenge, not long ago he broke loose, and thanks to his pranks, part of the hall ceiling fell down, and the wall of the sleep-out blew away. His latest effort is to smash the concrete facing of the balcony roof. Occasionally he hides in Miss Collisson’s rooms and alarms her with his creakings and groanings.
Looking back to the 1920's, Lowther Hall has come a long way from the days when the two-storey class room block was the site of the coach house of the old mansion. Raymond House and IVA classroom of course did not yet exist. Yet in those days, in spite of a very small enrolment the standard of scholarships was exceedingly high. Classics – Greeks and Latin - were included in the senior curriculum and a high proportion of pupils stayed on until they were seventeen, eighteen and even nineteen. It was fashionable to do so.
1966 was the year the school had its opening remarks. The Chairman of the School Council, the Reverend Gerald Muston, announced plans for the development of a new secondary school block. This consisted of Science laboratories, eleven classrooms, and other rooms.
In
1934, Miss Collisson became Principal of Lowther Hall at the beginning of this
year, having leased the school from the Diocesan Council. The
Lowther Hall chapel is Miss Collisson’s surviving material monument. It was a
symbol of the spiritual values bestowed upon her pupils. The chapel was built
immediately on her arrival and dedicated by Archbishop Head in March. Most of
the equipment and aids to worship were donated, either then or later and their
inscriptions bear testimony to the chapel’s influence upon both parents and
students. The school farm was
started, with two cows, some fowls and a vegetable patch. On
March 19th 1934, the Archbishop of Melbourne, Dr.Head, dedicated as a
Chapel the large room hitherto used as a sitting room for the boarders. The
great gain to the school has more than compensated for the loss of the boarders.
All
sacraments – confirmation, communion (over 5,000 had celebrated
communion by 1944). Baptism, absolution and marriage are known to have been
performed. The list of clerics who celebrated there, or were in some sense
associated, provides a virtual Who’s Who of the local and wider Anglican
ministry.
In 1920, it was interesting to note that the Assembly Hall at Lowther Hall was originally a recreation hut outside St Paul’s Cathedral during the last war.
Lowther Hall Today
1995 was the 75th anniversary of the opening of Lowther Hall. As part of the celebrations a new Learning Resource Centre and a VCE common room was constructed and officially opened in October 1995. In 2000 the school celebrated its 80th birthday and the new Junior School building was opened in February 2002.
In 2003, some work is still currently being undertaken on the “Mansion” and the building program will continue with plans for new staff accommodation and students' areas. At the moment, there are 725 students at Lowther Hall and today it has a reputation for the excellent education it offers girls from Kindergarten to Year 12. Students who attend the school are encouraged to take part in its Christian education and worship. The girls from other religions find it interesting and acceptable.
References:
The Gold The Blue - The History of Lowther Hall, A.D. Pyke 1983, Wilke & Company Limited for The Council of Lowther Hall Anglican Grammar School, Leslie Road, Essendon.
The Chronicle. The Magazine of Church of England Girls Grammar School, Essendon, 1978 Lowther Hall Chronicle. Author: Lowther Hall Church of England Girls Grammar School.
Schools & Libraries: History of educated Essendon. Source - Essendon Gazette, Centenary edition 24/8/88.
Schools. Chapter 15. Source - The Stop-over that stayed by Grant Aldous. Moonee Ponds, City of Essendon 1988
Written & Researched By Alberta Cutrona