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Building a Tradition
Our updated edition of Building a Tradition should be available early in 2024. We have been fortunate to have the original author, now Emeritus Professor Jenny Gregory AM, spend considerable time over the last 18 months updating the history and including five new chapters; focused on the end of the Dickinson era, the Syme era and finally the O’Connell era. Professor Gregory has utilised extensive oral histories, interviewed dozens of staff, students, Council members and parents to capture the history of the school, the changes in the community and the education being delivered and the heart and soul of the College. The new book will round out with a chapter focused on pandemics and the impact of these events on the College. Interestingly, when the original book was published, very little information was available in the Scotch archives on the impact of the pneumonic influenza of 1918–1919 which killed more people than World War One.
The original book is officially out of print and finding the original files, in a format that could be used, was a journey. For this reason, it was decided not to publish a history of the last 25 years but rather an updated edition that will include 125 years of Scotch College’s history. This has enabled Professor Gregory to continue her themes and research in the style which has been so well valued since the first edition was released in 1997, when it won the WA History Foundation’s Award for best first book in the field of Western Australian History.
As Professor Gregory has said, the changes in the last 25 years have been “immense” and in a similar vein to the original, we are sure the new edition will become a valued and often cited piece of work, both by the Scotch community and for education in Western Australia.
