Melbourne Grammar School is an Australian private Anglican day and boarding school. It comprises a co-educational preparatory school from Prep to Year 6 and a middle school and senior school for boys from Years 7 to 12. The three campuses are Grimwade House (Prep to Year 6) in Caulfield, Wadhurst (Years 7 and 8) and Senior School (Years 9 to 12), both in the suburb of South Yarra.
Founded on 7 April 1858 as the Melbourne Church of England Grammar School, the school currently caters for approximately 1,900 students from Prep to Year 12, including 120 boarders from Years 7 to 12.
Melbourne Grammar is affiliated with the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia (AHISA), the Independent Primary School Heads of Australia (IPSHA), the Australian Boarding Schools' Association (ABSA), the Association of Independent Schools of Victoria (AISV), and is a founding member of the historic Associated Public Schools of Victoria (APS). The school is also a member of the G20 Schools Group, and officially a partner school with Waseda University and its affiliates in Japan. Three of Australia's former prime ministers were educated at Melbourne Grammar School.
History
The origins of Melbourne Grammar School (colloquially known as Grammar) can be traced back to 1849, with the establishment of an experimental grammar school at St Peter's Eastern Hill, East Melbourne. This school had been established by Melbourne's first Church of England bishop, Charles Perry, who founded the Diocese of Melbourne, and had been opened to meet the growing educational needs of the young colony. In 1853, Bishop Perry commenced planning for the diocesan experimental school to become permanent, although on a larger site and not under his direct management, and so he set up a committee of eminent men to consider the task. The school however did not thrive and was suspended at the end of 1854.
The first board of governors was elected in 1854 to take over from the committee, and it set about drawing up a constitution, finding a headmaster and a new site. Locations considered included Carlton, Prahran and St Kilda.
Perry's dream of building a permanent, centrally located grammar school, based on the principles of the great English public schools, was realised in 1855, with a grant from Governor Charles Hotham of on St Kilda Road. This is the inner South Yarra land now occupied by the Senior School and Wadhurst, next to the Royal Botanic Gardens and a short walk from the city centre. At the time it was considered relatively isolated and remote. The governors chose architects Charles Webb and Thomas Taylor, well known Melbourne contractors George Cornwell and Co. undertook the construction, and Bishop Perry laid the school's foundation stone on 30 July 1856.
The Melbourne Church of England Grammar School was finally opened on 7 April 1858 with 76 pupils, and with John E. Bromby as the first headmaster. Enrolments grew to 136 during the first year, with four students being the sons of Bromby, and about one quarter of them boarders.
The school's first 40 years proved to be a struggle, exacerbated in the 1890s by economic depression, financial concerns and changes of headmaster. Senior school enrolments fell from 272 in 1889 to 117 in 1894 prompting a group of former students to do something to save the school. They formed The Old Melburnians Society in 1895 "to be the means of bringing together many former schoolmates, reviving pleasant recollections, and at the same time benefiting the life of the School as it is today".
Two significant developments of the late 19th century were, firstly, the recognition that with a limited site, one storey buildings were not a wise use of space. A move began, continued now, of adding second stories or replacing buildings with two- or three-level structures. The second was the dedication of the Chapel of St Peter in 1893, the first school chapel in the colony of Victoria.
The beginning of the new century saw the school's future assured, with enrolments increasing and the Jubilee celebrated in 1908. Hundreds of former students enlisted in the Great War of 1914–1918, as they had in the South African War, and more than 200 did not return.