Public Schools Club formed in Adelaide in 1960 from combining St Peter's and Prince Alfred old collegians
The interior of the Public Schools Club on East Terrace, Adelaide city. The South Australian state-heritage-listed building was originally build for future Nobel Prize winner William Bragg and his family, including another Nobel Prize winner, his son (William) Lawrence.
Image courtesy Public Schools Club
The Public Schools Club in Adelaide grew from a member’s suggestion, greeted by “disbelieving stillness” at its 1959 annual general meeting that the St Peter's Collegians' Association was moribund.
The response – to form a St. Peter's Collegians' Club – was condemned by the St Peter’s College headmaster Colin Gordon. Already, he said, Saints old boys tended too much to congregate together. Any scheme that might exacerbate that incestuous tendency should be nipped in the bud”. This prompted the rethink of fivding common ground with the Prince Alfred Colllege old collgeians to form a Saints and Princes (Princes & Saints?) Club.
St Peter's Collegians Club member Romilly Carveth Harry offered one year's rent free accommodation for such a club in his Hackney Road (Romilly House) premises. Guided by headmasters Colin Gordon and John Dunning from Prince Alfred College, members of the St Peters and Prince Alfred colleagians association agreed to forming a public schools (in the elite English public school sense) club.
St Peters Collegians' Association and Prince Alfred Old Collegians' Association each conducted a formal survey of members. In each case ,the response established beyond doubt support for a low-subscription club. At the first meeting in July 1959, two representatives each from what soon became the 10 founding associations – “20 people in the smallish boardroom of South British Insurance in Waymouth Street - 19 of them smoking - all but our red-eyed host, John Carne, the chairman of St. Peters Collegians' Association”.
With an initial membership from each of the founding associations, the club was steered by subcommittees for finance (chaired by Max Rungie), membership (Peter Trumble), rules (David Haese), house (Bob Thomas), squash sourts (John Carne) and premises (Brian Fricker), with Bill Ewing (chairman of committees), Ross Johnston (aecretary) and Ian Black (treasurer) on the executive committee.
The Public Schools Club gained premises at Sandford House, 207 East Terrace, Adelaide city (“Lady Sandford was sympathetic and believed that the late Sir Wallace Sandford would have approved”), with a National Bank loan. (The stae-heritage-listed house was originally built by Nobel Prize winner William Bragg.)
To gain a liquor licence for its 1,100 members, an intricate plan was devised (with legal advice from Trevor Taylor and Leo Travers QC, later Justice Travers, president of Sacred Heart Collegians) to take over the licence of the City Club (previously North Adelaide Cycling Club, also known as the High Bike Club) that faced disintegrating or being amalgamated.
At 2359 hours on June 30, 1960, 500 Public Schools Club members were admitted to membership of City Club that held one of the only five 24-hour liquor licences in South Australia. At midnight, the 300 members of City Club would resign and be admitted to the Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron Club membership in the basement of T&G Building. At 0001 hours on Friday, July1, membership of Public Schools Club would be same the City Club Inc (that owned a billiard table and a 24-hour liquor licence) and the clubs would exchange names.
The 1000 guineas to be paid to City Club as joining fees were fixed by the Public School Club’s president-elect Ian Hayward. The Public Schools Club was in play by the end of 1960.
