The History of Hale School and its Old Boys - Old Haleians Association

1933
One of those to join the dwindling
boarding numbers was Miles De Courcy
Clarke. Boarding, in those days, was not
for the faint-hearted as described by then
thirteen year old Miles in one of his early
letters for his parents, which in part read:
‘… Last night we had new boys
boxing and there was good fights.
Mr Pervis, our new master who
used to fight for Melbourne Uni,
was the referee. At the finish there
was blood all over the floor and
walls. I fought a boy call McLarty,
only I was beaten. It was very close
and we had four rounds instead
of three to decide it … I am
writing in pencil because I have
just had my fountain pen and my
microscope pinched …
I am playing tennis a lot now
and am pretty good. I beat
a nephew of Jimmy Mitchell
yesterday 6-5. It was a good game
but the chap I played cheated so I
always had to be on the alert.’ 7
7 Miles de Courcy Clarke letter in Edgar, From Slate to
Cyberspace, pp. 166-167
W L (Bill) Brine
1939
Chairman of the Board of Governors, W.L. (Bill) Brine, had begun
the search for a new site in the middle of the 1930s. Brine heard
of a farm where aboriginals used to camp near Herdsman Lake.
In company with the then Headmaster, Dr Arnold Buntine, the
pair examined the site and recommended it to the Board of
Governors. In June, 1939 an agreement was entered into for Hale
School to purchase the ‘Herdsman Lake’ land of 48 hectares for
2,260 pounds.
Planning and preparations were begun to facilitate the move
to the new site, but in the interim World War II broke out, the
Headmaster went off to war in the Middle East and the prospects
of an early transfer of activities rapidly lost way. It was to be
another two decades before the move to Wembley Downs finally
took place.
3 September (Black Sunday)
This evening, the Prime Minister of Australia, Robert Gordon
Menzies, made the following announcement:
‘People of Australia, it is my melancholy duty to inform
you officially that, in consequence of the persistence
by Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has
declared war upon her, and that, as a result, Australia is
also at war.’ 8
8 R. G. Menzies in W. J. Edgar (1994), From Veldt to Vietnam, Haleians at War, Wembley
Downs, Old Haleians’ Association, p. 79.
1940
Rohdes Scholar No. 6
- Colin C Clarke (1936)