History Hub

During our 70th anniversary year we are opening up the Archives to reveal stories and events linking our rich past with the 2025 school year. 

First University Graduates

Elga Nagels, Bettye Dixon and Carole Nixon were the first students from the erstwhile Mentone Girls' High School to graduate from university which they did in 1963. 

Both Elga and Bettye achieved their degrees in Science, while Carole graduated with a Bachelor of Arts. This was a highly meritorious achievement as in those times many fewer people went to university and not many women were afforded this opportunity. The school community at the time was very proud of them and acknowledged their academic achievements in the official 1964 magazine. 

House Names 

Sister Elizabeth Kenny (20 September 1880 – 30 November 1952) was a self-trained Australian bush nurse who developed an approach to treating polio that was controversial at the time but her principles of muscle rehabilitation became the foundation of  physical therapy in rehabilitating patients to reduce spasms.

Marjorie Jackson is an Australian former star athlete and politician. She was the Governor of South Australia in the early noughties and finished her sporting career with two Olympic and seven Commonwealth Games Gold Medals, as well as six individual world records.

Dame Nellie Melba GBE was an Australian operatic lyric coloratura soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early 20th century. She was born Helen Porter Mitchell but she took the pseudonym "Melba" from her hometown of Melbourne.

Isobel Marion Dorothea Mackellar  OBE (July 1885 – 14 January 1968) was an

An esteemed Australian poet, she is arguably best known for her poem ‘My Country’, especially the second stanza featuring the lines -: "I love a sunburnt country / A land of sweeping plains, / Of ragged mountain ranges, / Of droughts and flooding rains.

Ms Anne Gamble

English Teacher