National History Challenge success

The outstanding research, analytical and writing skills of Melbourne Grammar School students have been recognised in the National History Challenge once again this year.

Year 10 student, Oliver McDonald, was awarded the Young Historian Gold Medal for his entry in the History of Sport category. He also won the Young Historian Silver Medal in the Year 10 category.

Hudson Skinner, Year 11, was also in the Using Primary Sources category. Hudson and Oliver, together with Year 10 student, Daschle Bennett, and Year 9 students Daniel Cash, Henry Feeney and Jack Lowman, all achieved an overall 2020 Young Historian Bronze Medal in this prestigious event. The National History Challenge is an annual research-based competition which asks students to respond to a designated theme through a 2000-word essay. The 2020 theme was ‘contested histories’.

For Oliver, the role of Indigenous people in the formation of AFL football captured his interest. Using newly available material, he successfully demonstrated how oral histories can effectively supplement more traditional forms of historical evidence while building a awarded a Young Historian Silver Medal

cogent view on the shaping of the game.

Hudson made great use of the recently released ‘Palace letters’ – correspondence between Australia’s governor-general and the Queen written during the period of the Whitlam dismissal – to carefully reconsider aspects of the constitutional crisis of 1975 and ultimately create a highly sophisticated piece of writing. Abstract: Indigenous influence on the development of Australian football by Oliver McDonald Since the first recorded football match between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College on 7 August 1858, the sport’s origins have been strongly contested. While everyone acknowledges the role of Thomas Wills in promoting Australian football as a way to keep cricketers fit during the winter months, the origin of the games’ ethos and rules remains in dispute. Some believe that the sport was developed solely by European settlers, but more recently there has been growing support for the view that the sport was inspired by Indigenous football games. On one side of the debate are those who say that documentary evidence proves that Thomas Wills was inspired by his boyhood experiences at Rugby School in England. On the other hand, there is growing evidence that Wills was exposed to the Indigenous game of Marngrook as a child in the Grampians region, and oral history passed down by Indigenous elders about Marngrook being played prior to European settlement testifies to this. My research suggests that this oral testimony is very persuasive, and needs to be given more weight. In commenting on this student success, Headmaster, Mr Philip Grutzner, said: “We are blessed with so many talented students in our School and so many great staff who unlock their potential.”

The six Melbourne Grammar entrants presented an excerpt from their essays to an online audience of students and staff

An abstract of Oliver’s submission is provided below, with the full transcripts of Oliver’s and Hudson’s presentations available at

during a period of off-campus learning.