 | This article has multiple issues. Please helpimprove it or discuss these issues on thetalk page.(Learn how and when to remove these messages) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
|
| Ipswich Grammar School | |
|---|---|
.png) | |
| Address | |
 | |
Darling Street ,, 4305 | |
| Coordinates | 27°36′46″S152°45′7″E / 27.61278°S 152.75194°E /-27.61278; 152.75194 |
| Information | |
| Type | Independent,single-sex,day &boarding |
| Motto | Latin:Labore et Honore (Hard Work and with Honour) |
| Denomination | Non-denominational[1] |
| Established | 1863 |
| Principal | Adam Forsyth(Headmaster) |
| Employees | ~130[2] |
| Enrolment | ~1,300 (P–12)[2] |
| Colour(s) | Red & white (sports) Maroon & white (academic) |
| Alumni | IGS Old Boys |
| Website | www |
Ipswich Grammar School is a historic,independent,non-denominational,day andboarding school for boys, located inIpswich, a local government region of Brisbane on theBremer River inSouth East Queensland,Australia. The school is situated on Grammar School Hill, with its Great Hall occupying the crown of the hill. The originalIpswich Grammar School Buildings are listed on theQueensland Heritage Register.[3]
Founded in 1863, Ipswich Grammar is the firstsecondary school established in Queensland under theGrammar Schools Act 1860, making it one of Australia's oldest schools and Queensland's oldest boys' school.[4] Today theschool operates a P to 12 educational model, offeringpreparatory,primary, andsecondary education to over 1,300 students,[2] including approximately 150 boarders from Australia and throughout the world.[5]
Ipswich Grammar School is a founding member of theGreat Public Schools Association of Queensland Inc., an association of nine of the state's most prominent schools.[6] Ipswich Grammar is also a member of the Australian Boarding Schools Association (ABSA),[5]Junior School Heads Association of Australia (JSHAA),[7] Independent Schools Queensland (AISQ),[8] and Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia (AHISA).[9]
 | This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.(July 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Ipswich Grammar School was the first of ten grammar schools established under theGrammar Schools Act, passed by Queensland's firstparliament in 1860.[10] The Act allowed for the establishment of agrammar school in any town where£1000 could be raised locally. At the time of the Act, there was a push for the new system of education in Queensland to be free of denominationalism. TheGrammar Schools Act was passed to reflect this.
Despite these intentions of the legislation, it was theRoman Catholic Bishop Quinn who, by mid-1861, had raised sufficient funds to open Grammar Schools in bothBrisbane and Ipswich. Amidst an outcry from theProtestant section of the community, Bishop Quinn was informed by the Executive Council of Queensland that the intention of the legislation was to establish Grammar Schools on strictlynon-sectarian principles. This decision may have been influenced by the fact that not a single member of either House of the Legislature in Queensland at the time was a Roman Catholic.
Unperturbed, the Roman Catholic community in Ipswich raised the full amount of£1000.[11][12] On 20 August 1861, the first meeting concerning the establishment of a Grammar School in Ipswich took place.[13] Around 200 people attended.
It seems that despite the drive of the Roman Catholic's to establish a school under their denomination, the majority of people did not support the establishment of a school where one religion would predominate. Trouble erupted when a resolution was put forward that members of each religious denomination be appointed to a committee to make preparations for the new Grammar School. A member of the Roman Catholic group suggested that they would withdraw their funds if they did not get their own way – and the meeting ended in turmoil, with a brawl taking place. In the week following this first meeting, newspapers reported clashes in the streets of Ipswich between Roman Catholics and the Protestants.
On 27 August 1861, one week after the initial meeting, a second meeting regarding the Grammar School was held at the IpswichCourt House. Around 600 people attended. A local newspaper,The Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser, records it as "the largest and noisiest ever held in Ipswich". At one stage, police were called to settle another brawl that had broken out between the various religious groups.
It was in this turbulent spirit that a resolution for the establishment of IGS was passed, by 281 votes to 199. The Roman Catholic group promptly withdrew their financial support, and it would be March 1862 before the community of Ipswich would raise the £1000 required.
The first Board of Trustees, elected on 25 March 1862, called for plans and specifications to be submitted for the new school building. ArchitectBenjamin Backhouse made the only submission, and after a small problem with his initial design was overcome (he had forgotten to make provision for toilets), the plan was accepted. The original building (known as the Great Hall) was designed in arevival gothic style, and it was constructed by contractors John Ferguson and David McLaughlin.
IGS was opened on 25 September 1863 bySir George Ferguson Bowen,Governor of Queensland.[14] The School opened with 16 students, 4 staff and the inauguralHeadmaster, Stuart Hawthorne, a graduate of theUniversity of Sydney.[15]
The firstcurriculum reflected the traditional Grammar School education – it includedLatin andGreek classics,mathematics, the various branches of liberalEnglish education and, when circumstances permitted, teaching of theGerman andFrench languages. Student numbers fluctuated during the initial years, but settled between 70 and 80 in the 1870s.
By the start of the 20th century, 36 students had graduated from IGS to various universities around Australia. In this time, a number of other Queensland grammar schools had opened, some under the auspices of the Grammar Schools Act – in the immediate region, these includedBrisbane Grammar School in 1868,Gregory Terrace in 1875,Toowoomba Grammar School in 1877 andNudgee College in 1891.
When competition with Brisbane Grammar commenced,Australian rules football was the chosen code. The first competitive match between the two schools was played in 1870 under these rules – the outcome was a draw. These early games were exceptionally long – the match between IGS and Brisbane Grammar in 1876 commenced at 10.30am and ended at 2.30pm, at which time IGS had scored 6 goals to Brisbane Grammar's nil.
Incidentally,rugby union was adopted as the official code in 1887, only to be replaced byrugby league when theQueensland Great Public Schools (GPS) system commenced in 1918. In 1928, the code was again changed to rugby union, where it has since stayed, although due to popular demand, Aussie Rules was reintroduced in 1995 as part of the Independent Schools Australian Rules Football Competition.
Competitions between the Grammar Schools in these years became more frequent. In 1878, the first Inter-Grammar School sports held for Athletics were held, with IGS prevailing over Brisbane Grammar School and Toowoomba Grammar School. IGS won two successive grammar schoolrowing regattas in 1891 and 1892, but floods in Ipswich destroyed the School's rowing shed and equipment and IGS has not competed in rowing competition since.
The firsttennis match between IGS and Brisbane Grammar was played in 1893, with IGS emerging victorious. IGS also claimed victory in the firstcricket match between the two schools – but the actual scores have been lost to time.
By the time of thesilver jubilee of IGS in 1913, attended bySir William MacGregor, Governor of Queensland, the School had erected an Honour Board, new boarding facilities and a Science Block, leading to the teaching ofphysics andchemistry in alaboratory. The Chelmsford Cup series (the precursor to the GPS system, named after then Governor of Queensland,The Lord Chelmsford) was established in 1907 for competition between the existing Grammar Schools, and the inauguration of theOld Boys Association followed the next year. TheUniversity of Queensland was opened in Brisbane in 1909, improving student attendance.
The Chelmsford Cup series existed alongside the new Great Public Schools, or GPS, system from 1918 to 1938, at which time it was discontinued in favour of GPS. In 1925, the first sports ground at IGS was opened. The first game to be played on this field was a football match between past and present students – the result was a 3-all draw. IGS addedswimming and tennis facilities and a second sports ground in the 1930s.
IGS produced threeRhodes scholars between 1922 and 1924, and had produced five prior toWorld War II. The connection of electricity and addition of four new classroom blocks in the 1920s meant that by 1930, student numbers had risen to around 200.
IGS grew notably followingWorld War II – additional boarding facilities, in the form of the Murray Hancock Memorial Block, were created in 1946; the War Memorial Library was opened in 1947; andPreparatory School buildings were added in 1955. The large central classroom block, which was constructed at a cost of over £100,000, was opened in 1961 – and is still used prominently today.
More growth was to follow, with the Manual Training facilities and an on-campus hospital added in 1967, biology block opened in 1970, the R.G. Edmondson Memorial Open Air Theatre and the Gilmore Wilson Memorial School of Music opened and dedicated in 1977 and thePhysical Education and Sports Complex opened in 1980.
During the 1980s, the school constructed manual arts and science facilities, automated its library and other resources, purchased the 250-acre (1.0 km2) historic Woodlands estate in the nearby suburb ofMarburg and signed a cooperation agreement with itssister school inJapan, Gifu Daiichi High School. The decade was to end in sadness, however, as Headmaster Alan Ladley died suddenly on the final school day of 1989.
The 1990s saw IGS adopt a number of commercial activities – a common theme through a number of the GPS Schools. The Grammar Park Housing Estate was started in 1991 in a nearby suburb of Ipswich, and later the Grammar Park Sports Fields and a hospitality complex were added. IGS expanded its teaching into year 7 (traditionally aprimary school year level in Queensland) in 1994. Years 4 to 6 were added later, and in 2006 the school began operating services forpre-school to year 3.
In 2020, a newSTEM building was added to facilitate the schools growing population of students inengineering,biology,physics and more. Costing around $10 million and consisting of three storeys, the building include alecture theatre, multiple science and engineering laboraties and other learning spaces, designated "study areas", and a balcony providing panoramic views of Ipswich and Western Brisbane. More recently, the school constructed a Precinct of the Arts, developing the structure of the school's former Science Building.
| Period | Details |
|---|---|
| 1863–1868 | Stuart Hawthorne[16] (School House) |
| 1869–1875 | John McCrae[17] |
| 1875–1900 | Donald Cameron[18] (School House) |
| 1901–1907 | Charles A. Flint[19] |
| 1907–1915 | Bertram G. Lawrance[20] (School House) |
| 1915–1945 | Richard A. Kerr[21] (School House) |
| 1946–1951 | William G. Henderson (School House) |
| 1952–1953 | R.J. (Jim) Diamond |
| 1953–1958 | Charles E. Olsen[22] |
| 1958 | Walter M. Douglas |
| 1959–1968 | Basil V. Heath[23] |
| 1969–1989 | Alan M. Ladley (School House) |
| 1990–2001 | Igor Lapa |
| 2001–2010 | Denis Fredericksen[24] |
| 2011–2015 | Robert Henderson[25] |
| 2016–2024 | Richard Morrison[26] |
| 2024- | Dr Adam Forsyth[27] |
The original school buildings from the 1860s sit on the crown of Grammar School Hill, with the central structure now known as the 'Great Hall'. These buildings are listed by theNational Trust of Australia. The school grounds have undergone significant transformation in recent years, most notably the introduction of the Igor Lapa Junior School. Now included within the Igor Lapa Junior School is a full indoor sandvolleyball pit,basketball hoops, andcricket pitches. Further extensions have been made to the junior school due to the new attendance of prep to grade three. Recently[when?], the Board of Trustees approved expansion of the Prep buildings, and refurbishment of the remaining Tennis Court at Ipswich Grammar's main campus.
Due to this expansion of the Prep building over the Tennis courts, additional Courts were built at the school's Brassall sporst complex. This land is usually used for cross country, cricket, rugby, and soccer. Eight new tennis courts were constructed at the Brassall grounds during the 2008 Christmas break for GPS competition and training for the students.
IGS is a founding member of theGreat Public Schools Association of Queensland, better known as the GPS Association, which was established in 1918. Today, nine schools participate in the GPS Association. These are Ipswich Grammar,Nudgee College,Gregory Terrace,Brisbane Grammar School,Toowoomba Grammar School,Anglican Church Grammar School,Brisbane State High School,The Southport School andBrisbane Boys' College. The schools engage in 13 formal GPS activities, with a premiership awarded annually for each activity.
Ipswich Grammar's GPS sporting success belies its status as among the smallest of the GPS schools. Known especially for the strength of its athletics program, IGS has claimed more GPS Track & Field premierships than any other school. Since 1984, the school has won 24 T&F premierships, most recently in 2024. From 1998 to 2012, the school won 13 premierships, earning the label as the "invincibles", losing only two premierships during this period, both by thin margins (two points in 2006 and seven points in 2010). In 2020, the school earned a "three-peat", having won in 2018 and 2019.[28] IGS regularly ranks among the strongest athletics schools in Australia. In 2024, it ranked first in the "intermediate" age category and third in the "junior" category, among all Australian schools at the Australian All-Schools Athletics Championships.[29] In addition to representing Australia in athletics in Commonwealth Games and Olympic Games, IGS students and alumni have represented national teams in virtually every sport, most prominently in basketball, cricket, rugby union, rugby league, soccer, swimming, and water polo.
As with many Australian independent schools, Ipswich Grammar School utilises ahouse system, whereby students are members of one of multiple houses that compete within one another at intra-school sporting events. Ipswich Grammar has six houses named after its longest serving Headmasters. These are Hawthorne (yellow), Cameron (sky blue), Lawrence (red), Kerr (green), Henderson (black), and Ladley (royal blue). Incoming students are allocated to a house and generally remain in that house during their time at the school. Senior year students assistteachers in managing the students during inter-house events.
Alumni of Ipswich Grammar School are known as 'Old Boys'
Ipswich Grammar School has a Museum and Archive, established to preserve the history of the school, students and faculty. The Museum operates onsite in The Great Hall and is open to the public during school terms.[30]
