Camberwell Grammar School
| Camberwell Grammar School | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Address | |
|
55 Mont Albert Road Canterbury, Victoria 3126 Australia |
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| Coordinates | 37°48′55″S 145°4′2″E / 37.81528°S 145.06722°ECoordinates: 37°48′55″S 145°4′2″E / 37.81528°S 145.06722°E |
| Information | |
| Type | Independent, Single-sex |
| Motto |
Latin: Spectemur Agendo ("By our deeds may we be known") |
| Denomination | Anglican |
| Established | 1886 |
| Founder | A. B. Taylor |
| Headmaster | Dr Paul Hicks |
| Enrolment | 1,286 (P-12) |
| Houses | Bridgeland, Clifford, Derham, Macneil, Robinson, Schofield, Steven, Summons |
| Colour(s) | Gold, Navy Blue & Pale Blue |
| Website | www.cgs.vic.edu.au |
Camberwell Grammar School is an independent, Anglican, day school for boys, located in Canterbury, an eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Camberwell Church of England Grammar School was founded in 1886. In its early years, the school was housed at a number of sites in and around the suburb of Camberwell, Victoria. It has occupied its present site on Mont Albert Road on Canterbury's Golden Mile, since 1935. In 2016, it celebrated the 130th year anniversary of its establishment in 1886.
The school currently has around 1600 students. The school is divided into three sections – Junior School (Prep – Year 5), Middle School (Year 6 – Year 8) and Senior School (Year 9 – Year 12).
The school has eight houses, named Derham, Macneil, Robinson, Summons, Bridgland, Schofield, Clifford and Steven. The house colours are red, yellow, emerald green, blue, sky blue, magenta, orange and royal blue respectively.
The Camberwell Grammar School opened its doors on Tuesday, 2 February 1886, at Burke Road, Camberwell, in the grounds of St. John’s Church, near Camberwell Junction. The first headmaster and owner of this modest, private institution (modelled on an English Public School) was Arthur B. Taylor, a twenty-eight-year-old scholar and entrepreneur. The initial enrolment was also modest, but promising, at 66 boys, who were promised a modern environment and a course of instruction embracing ‘all the subjects necessary for a boy’s education, including his successful entry into the University of Melbourne’. This was the age of the land boom in “Marvellous Melbourne” and the fees of three Guineas per quarter were not considered excessive. Taylor soon acquired considerable property in what would become Fermanagh Road further to the east and the fledgling School was moved there to a more impressive building in 1887. This fine mansion is still standing and Heritage protected.
In July 1891, Taylor was ready for further business ventures elsewhere and he sold the School to two partners, Alfred Hall and Will Gosman, as joint proprietors. Enrolments declined once the Victorian land bubble unexpectedly burst in the early 1890s; by 1896-97 numbers had fallen to a meagre thirty-three boys and Mr Gosman had moved on, leaving Hall (affectionately known as the ‘Boss”, later the “Old Boss’) as the sole proprietor and headmaster for the next three decades, a school record. The straitened School was forced back to St. John’s in 1897, where in the following year nostalgic old boys met to form a club – there were only 363 potential members, but the formation of this social group was a testament to the affection that the School had already nurtured amongst its alumni. Affairs improved sufficiently by 1908 for another shift (the third in twenty-two years) to a more substantial Burke Road property just south of Rathmines Road and close to St Mark’s, a church that would become the School’s spiritual rock, destined to play a significant part in the life of the Camberwell Grammar to the present day. The Hall years laid the foundation of the modern Camberwell Grammar, a confident, friendly but focused institution that gradually grew in public estimation whilst many of its rival schools fell away. An Old Camberwell Grammarians’ Association was formed in 1910 to formalise that earlier club and by 1915 the School also had its own magazine, eventually known as the Grammarian, and Hall continued to guide his boys through the Great War (which claimed the lives of around forty of them) and into the 1920s, retiring in 1926, having sold his interest in the School to the Church of England. The School was now governed by a Council from 1 January 1926 and accordingly, Camberwell Grammar was declared to be an Anglican “Public School” at St Mark’s in May 1927, by which time it had a new headmaster, Dr M.A. Buntine and a new ‘mitre’ badge. The numbers were healthy, just short of 300 boys, but there was no avoiding the Great Depression and Buntine soon left for greener pastures in WA, disconsolate at the deteriorating physical condition of the Burke Road facilities. By 1933 the School was in danger of a rapid decline with many parents refusing to guarantee the return of their sons to these increasingly cramped and decrepit buildings. It was either move or perish, but the School was strapped for funds. A saviour appeared in the form of William Angliss, brother-in-law of a prominent Council member. In April 1934, Angliss, the ‘white knight’ of CGS, provided the funds for the purchase of the “Roystead” property of 7.5 acres, 52 Mont Albert Road as it then was, where the School now stands.
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