From The Archives
From the Archives: Before the School: A Letter from an Old Northcote Voice
As we continue our Centenary celebrations, one of the great pleasures has been hearing from former students who still feel a strong connection to the school, even from many years and many miles away.
Recently, I received a thoughtful letter from Robert Graham Stone, a former student of Northcote High School from 1956 to 1961. Robert was also editor of Ripples in both 1960 and 1961, working under the guidance of English master John Harris. After leaving Northcote, Robert went on to become a journalist with the Herald & Weekly Times Group and later an advertising writer-producer in Melbourne, London, New York and Dublin, where he has lived since 1979.
Robert wrote to draw our attention to a part of the history of our site that sits before the story of the school itself. Long before Northcote High opened in 1926, and before generations of students crossed the grounds between St Georges Road and Merri Creek, the land had already been part of the changing social story of Northcote.
Drawing on Andrew Lemon’s local history The Northcote Side of the River, Robert notes that the area now occupied by Northcote High School and Merri Park was once connected with the Melbourne Retreat for the Cure of Inebriates. The Retreat came into existence in October 1873 under the provisions of the Inebriates Act, on a 21-acre site between St Georges Road and Merri Creek. It was supervised for many years by Dr McCarthy, from 1873 until 1892.
At first glance, this may seem an unexpected detail to include in a centenary year. Our celebrations naturally focus on the school’s founding, its students, teachers, buildings, achievements, memories and traditions. Yet Robert’s point is a generous and important one: the history of a place does not begin only when our own institution arrives. The ground beneath Northcote High has carried many stories. Some are proud and public; others are quieter, more complicated, and perhaps less often told.
This earlier chapter also reminds us that the history of Northcote has always been linked to questions of care, community and social change. The Retreat, sometimes described in the language of its time as a place for “residents” or “inmates”, belonged to a nineteenth-century world that was trying, imperfectly, to respond to hardship, addiction and social disadvantage. Robert suggests that there may also have been links with the neighbouring Little Sisters of the Poor, a possibility that invites further research.
There is something fitting about this being raised by a former editor of Ripples. The school magazine itself was created to record the life of the school and the small events that make up a larger story. In our centenary year, we are doing something similar: gathering the “ripples” of memory that have moved across this site for generations.
Robert’s letter encourages us to look further back. Before the school song, before the first students in caps and blazers, and before Ripples began recording the life of the school, this land had another purpose and another community of people attached to it.
As we celebrate 100 years of Northcote High School, we are grateful to Robert for reminding us that history is not only found in official dates and foundation stones. Sometimes it arrives in a letter from an old student, still connected to his school, still curious, still asking us to look again at the ground beneath our feet.
