Torchbearers: a centenary history of Carey

Kelly Southworth, Editor

In early 2019, Helen Penrose was appointed Carey’s Centenary Historian and tasked with writing a robust history of Carey’s 100 years. After three years of research, writing and building connections with the Carey community, Helen is finally finished and excited to publish Torchbearers, which will be available to the community after Carey’s 100year anniversary on 13 February 2023.

In this article, we find out a bit more about Helen and her company, HistorySmiths. With 30 years’ experience in writing community histories, Helen explains what led her to taking on this colossal project and how she approached it.

Have you always had an interest in history?

Helen: I have. It largely came from my mum, but I also had some terrific history teachers at school who really ignited my passion. Once I finished my studies at the University of Melbourne, I did some research work and got a job as editor and co-ordinator of a community history of Brunswick, and I loved it. It was the lightbulb moment for me, I realised this is what I want to do: I want to make histories with communities and organisations. So, in 1994, HistorySmiths was born – and the rest really is history!

What is it about school histories in particular that you have enjoyed?

I think schools really value their heritage and their history, because they’re learning institutions. By the very nature of what they do, they’re engaged with learning in a deep and rigorous way. I have found that many independent schools have a fabulous archives and they draw on their history as part of their culture. They’re proud of their history and they want to understand it, too, which is very important.

Why is it important for organisations to understand their history?

It really is true that if we don’t know our past, we can’t plan our future. People do repeat mistakes when they don’t know what hasn’t worked in the past. I think it’s enriching to understand your cultural background, and the challenges your organisation has faced. Carey had a really rough go in those first couple of decades. It was an enormous struggle financially, but the founders had a burning passion to make it work. I think that’s very inspiring. If modern communities can find those inspiring stories, it can help them through the tough times and provide milestones to celebrate.

Carey had a really rough go in those first couple of decades. It was an enormous struggle financially, but the founders had a burning passion to make it work. I think that’s very inspiring. If modern communities can find those inspiring stories, it can help them through the tough times and provide milestones to celebrate.

When you have so many varying perspectives, how do you find the truth of an event?

Sometimes you never do, and you’re only able to present a version of the truth. When the oral histories differ from the source material, I go off and do some more research. I always try to ensure that I’ve heard all sides of a story to try and present it in a balanced, objective way. I never call a book ‘the official history’, it is ‘A centenary history of Carey Baptist Grammar School’. It’s written with authority and as carefully as possible, but I look forward to the robust discussions that might come from the book, I think that’s a healthy thing.

What was your approach to writing Carey’s history?

I set out a really detailed project plan to we make sure we send everything to the printer on time, two or three years down the track. It consists of three main stages. Stage one is research. I always start in the organisation’s archives. I scope what’s there, think about how much time to apportion to each major source, I read and research, and that helps inform the oral history interviews. Then I move to the writing stage and go through several drafts, working with the book committee, hearing their feedback, rewriting and doing all of that a couple of times, and deciding what stays and what goes. It is a big book, it’s 480 pages, 100,000 words, it’s a relatively detailed look at the School’s history. But there’s an awful lot that’s been left out too, because you have to draw the line somewhere. Stage three is production. It’s a big job handing it all over to the designer. There’s 500 pictures, so it’s a lot of work selecting them, writing captions and organising them so the designer knows where to put each picture in the text. We go through six or seven stages of the proofs to finalise the design, and then the indexing and proofreading is the last job. And then we send it off to the printer which is where it is right now.

Do you have any favourite stories from the book?

I explain this in the preface to the book, but I discovered that I’m related to one of Carey’s founders, Joseph Newnham, Newnham House’s namesake. He was the minister at the Kew Baptist church, President of the Baptist Union of Victoria and he was on the School Council. I recognised the name and I found out that one of his cousins was actually one of my cousins. I loved that I had this deeper connection to the School, and I would never have known that had I not been working on this book.

Can you please explain the meaning of the title, Torchbearers.

Torchbearers seemed to me to be the obvious title, right from the very start. Partly, it’s because of the school crest, but the imagery of the torchbearer is a powerful symbol that has rolled through the School’s history. So many of the people I interviewed spoke about this as being part of their school experience. It starts from the lead-up to opening the School in 1923 with a passionate group of Baptists who worked really hard to make sure the School would survive. And it’s the people who made the big, courageous decisions, like introducing co-education: it’s the notion that there’s a linear history, and each person experiences a moment in that time and has an impact on this history. They inherit it from people before them, and then when they leave the School, they will pass that on. Torchbearers represents those moments and the people who have contributed to the Carey we have today.

What’s your next project?

I’m already working on them: PLC in Melbourne and Brisbane Girls Grammar School, both of which will be 150 in 2025.

How do you store everything you learn about these schools in your brain?

It’s really tricky. I have a pretty good memory, but you do have to let go of some of the detail to be able to be immersed in the next projects. But I go back to all of my books to reference things that have happened or people who have been at multiple schools that I’ve written histories for. Over the years, I’ve been able to build up a general knowledge of what’s happening in Australian independent schooling, and I can draw on that for these projects as I go forward. But each institution is very different, and I think that’s what I love the most.