‘Our South Australian Schools
and the Great War’
History Council of South Australia
Annual Lectures
Adelaide: 7 August 2015
Mount Pleasant: 8 August 2015
Dr Rosalie Triolo
Monash University
The research trail begins with a
photograph
• Perth State School, Tasmania, 1916 –
four children from one family. By the time the
photograph has been taken, they have lost one
older brother in the Great War. In 1918, they lose
a second brother …
• Two teachers of 81 students – what are those
teachers’ wartime experiences, including their
challenges with loved ones or teacher-colleagues
serving overseas? What are the wartime
experiences of other children in the photograph?
‘[S]chools waiting anxiously for the men to
return are … “unfamous history”.’
John Fox, Forgotten Divisions: The First World War
from Both Sides of No Man’s Land, Sigma, Cheshire,
1994, p vi
‘The Children’s Hour’
* First ‘number’ published in March 1889, 4 pages, ½d
* Last number, December 1963
* Compulsory reading so ‘every child would have approved –
and inexpensive - material from which to read and learn …’
* Contained formal officially approved knowledge, and
expected values, attitudes and behaviours
* Teachers were expected to use it
* Inspectors ‘checked’
* Tens of thousands were issued over the period and entered
all government schools, most independent, many Catholic and
Lutheran
* Now ‘very rare’ …
Other major sources
for ‘Schooling, Service and the Great War’ and today’s presentation:
* Heather Bonnin, Hours to Remember: Reflections on Life in South
Australia, 1889-1929 from ‘The Children’s Hour’, SAGP, Netley, 1987
* Jacqueline Kent, In the Half Light: Reminiscences of Growing up in
Australia, 1900-1970, Doubleday, Sydney, 1992
* Elizabeth Kwan, Flag and Nation: Australians and their National Flag since
1901, UNSWP, Sydney, 2006
* Elizabeth Kwan, ‘Making “Good Australians”’, JAS, no 29, Jun 1991
* Janice Pavils, ‘The emergence of SA Anzac Culture, 1915-1925’, JRAHS, vol
89, no 2, Dec. 2003
* Colin Thiele, Grains of Mustard Seed: A Narrative of State Education in
South Australia: 1875-1975, Education Department SA, Adelaide, 1975
* Rosalie Triolo, ‘Our Schools and the War’, Australian Scholarly, Kew, 2012
More generally …
* Australian War Memorial - online
* State Library of South Australia – online
* Australian National Museum of Education
collection at the University of Canberra
* SA school histories available in Victoria
Availabilities of sources:
government vs independent, Catholic,
Lutheran, Quaker …
What did South Australian students
learn during the Great War
about the British Empire, its Allies
and its Enemies?
Empire Day, 24 May,
Rhine Villa (later Cambrai) School, 1905
SLSA: B 34275
Empire Day, Coonalpyn School, 1906
SLSA: B 36887
‘Saluting the flag’, Free Kindergarten, Adelaide, 1912
SLSA: Searcy Collection PRG 280/1/6/354
Empire Day, Pyap West School, 1914
from ‘The Children’s Hour’, in Heather Bonnin, Hours to Remember, p 105
Girls of Sturt St School, Adelaide, dressed as the
peoples of Australia, Empire Day, 1915
SLSA: PRG 280/1/10/431
Caricature of King George V: JH Chinner
Australian War Memorial (AWM): ART96320
British General Douglas Haig: JH Chinner
AWM: ART96322
British Admiral John Jellicoe: JH Chinner
AWM: ART96321
French General Joseph Joffre: JH Chinner
AWM: ART96317
French Field Marshall Ferdinand Foch: JH Chinner
AWM: ART96323
‘Show and Tell’? French Souvenir Sachet, sent to
Janet and Theodora Ekers, by Pte Frank Botten of Prospect, SA
AWM: REL42738.001
‘The Bank of Thrift’, erected in front of
Government House, to encourage war loans:
‘Vive La France’, North Terrace, 1915
SLSA: North Terrace Collection B 61736
School children at ‘The Bank of Thrift’:
‘Vive La France’, North Terrace, 1915
SLSA: Searcy Collection PRG 280/1/15/766
The Bank of Thrift: ‘Help Wounded France’,
North Terrace, 1915
SLSA: Searcy Collection PRG 280/1/15/237
Children of the North Shields School,
Empire Day, 1912
SLSA: B 54026
SA children dressed in the national costumes of
other countries, almost certainly at a patriotic event,
location unknown, 1917
SLSA: Searcy Collection PRG 280/1/15/561
The Germans?
‘German Flat
to be known as Benara Flat.
Gnadenfrei
to be known as Marananga.
Hermann’s Landing
to be known as Moramora.’
South Australia Education Department, in Thiele, p 132
At Prince Alfred College, some families with German surnames
changed their names: ‘Mahnke became Jones, Kreusler became
Waterford, Schmelzkopf became South’.
Ron Gibbs, A History of Prince Alfred College, Peacock, Kent Town,
1984, p 169
At one school, a 13-year-old boy had the following
poem published in the school magazine:
‘You awful, murderous, “Kultur’d’ swine,
We’ll drive and rout you over the Rhine;
We’ll beat you round and up and down;
We’ll beat you out of every town!”
(Gibbs, p 170)
SA Lutheran schools closed in 1917
Attitudes in many schools to ‘the Germans’ …
‘Rather than hate your enemy, love your Empire all
the more …’
What patriotic activities did many
students and teachers perform on
the home front during the Great
War, and why?
‘Everyone and everything helps the Cause’, 1917
SLSA: Searcy Collection PRG 280/1/15/561
Hog Bay School, girls and boys knitting, 1917
from ‘The Children’s Hour’, in Bonnin, p 105
Boys of Quorn School, knitting, 1916
from ‘The Children’s Hour’, in Bonnin, p 105
Small fund-raising badge, made in South Australia,
c 1916-18
AWM: REL39133
Small fund-raising badge, made in South Australia,
1918
AWM: REL39114
Small fund-raising badge, made in South Australia,
1918-19
AWM: REL39132
Small fund-raising badge, made in South Australia,
1917
AWM: REL39109
Small fund-raising badge, sold in support of homes on
the Myrtlebank site for repatriated SA soldiers,
c 1916-18
AWM: REL34062
Small fund-raising badge, sold in support of homes on
the Myrtlebank site for repatriated SA soldiers
c 1917-18
AWM: REL39110
Small fund-raising badge, sold in support of homes on the
Myrtlebank site for repatriated SA soldiers,
c 1916-19
AWM: REL34060
Small fund-raising badge, sold in support of homes on
the Myrtlebank site for repatriated SA soldiers,
1919
AWM: REL34061
Small fund-raising badge, sold in support of homes on
the Myrtlebank site for repatriated SA soldiers,
1919
AWM: REL34057
Small fund-raising badge, made in South Australia,
c 1918
AWM: REL33174
Patriotic fund-raising Australia Day silk ribbon,
made in South Australia, 1916
AWM: REL37725
Cardboard and fine-ribboned fund-raising badge honouring SA
Anzac units, 1914-18, made in South Australia, 1918
AWM: REL39138
Celluloid-coated paper fund-raising badge with
ribbon, made in South Australia for ‘Remembrance
Day, 1918’ (being Anzac Day), 1918
AWM: REL39139
Girl and women badge sellers at a SA patriotic fete,
location unknown, c 1918
SLSA: Searcy Collection PRG 280/1/15/504
‘Schoolgirl flower sellers’. Paskeville School, 1916
from ‘The Children’s Hour’, in Bonnin, p 110
Burdett School girls and boys selling flowers on
Arbor (Tree) Day, 1916
from ‘The Children’s Hour’, in Bonnin, p. 75
Women, girls and boys at Mt. Gambier
selling fund-raising wattle blossom, 1914
SLSA: Searcy Collection PRG 280/1/13/365
Tickera School children in the school garden, 1915
from ‘The Children’s Hour’, in Bonnin, p. 76
Eudunda School children in the school garden, 1917
from ‘The Children’s Hour’, in Bonnin, p. 76
Gilles Plains school children with horse nets they have
made to keep flies out of army horses’ eyes in
the Middle East, c 1916
SLSA: Gilles Plains Collection B 55267
Sandbags made by Heathfield School pupils, 1916
from ‘The Children’s Hour’, in Bonnin, p 112