Lawrence Bragg copes with some bullying; mathematics brilliance at Queen's School in North Adelaide 1889-90
Lawrence Bragg went to Queen’s School, a private institution in North Adelaide, also attended later by famous flying Smith brothers Ross and Keith.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
As a young boy in the mid 1890s, Lawrence Bragg was sent to a convent school on the far side of North Adelaide.
This was most probably run by Dominican Sisters who had arrived in North Adelaide from England in 1883 to establish a convent hospital but switched to running an advanced day school in Molesworth Street. The nuns had enjoyed a liberal arts education and were skilled in music, drawing and painting, illumination and needlework. They also taught modem languages and astronomy. The school curriculum would have appealed to Lawrence’s mother Gwendoline.
On the family’s return from England in 1899, Lawrence went to Queen’s School, a private institution in North Adelaide also attended by the flying Smith brothers. It specialised in late-primary and early-secondary education, in 1899-90. Lawrence had a long daily journey to and from the school, with walks at both ends and a horse-tram journey from Adelaide city to the far side of North Adelaide. He encountered trouble with the local “larrikins” near both school and home.
In 1891, a small private school, owned by the Rev. Thomas Field and operating in the previous Christ Church school building, had been sold to J.H. Lindon and E.L. Heinemann, who renamed it Queen’s School and moved it to larger premises on Barton Terrace. When Lindon’s health failed in 1896 and Heinemann decided to leave teaching, the school was bought by R.G. Jacomb-Hood.
Lawrence recalled Hood’s belief in corporal punishment, some bullying from older boys, and not fitting in at the school. He was reluctant to play lunch-time hockey but very precocious in Euclidean mathematics and other studies. William Bragg was impressed that the school provided a good grounding in English, mathematics and modern languages. Latin, Greek, chemistry and physics were also available.
