Melbourne Grammar
schoolindependent,Anglican
| Melbourne Grammar () Website | |
|---|---|
| File:Melbournegrammarcrest.jpg | |
| Formation | 7 April 1858 |
| Headquarters | Melbourne,Victoria,Australia |
| Type | independent,Anglican |
| Melbourne establishment school with influential old boys network that "opens up pathways." | |
Melbourne Grammar School is an Australian independent Anglican day and boarding school. It comprises a co-educational preparatory school from Prep to Year 6 and a middle school and senior school for boys from Years 7 to 12.
Old Melburnians
The school states that its "18,000-member alumni network is an important part of the Melbourne Grammar School community."[1]
Melbourne Grammar has produced four premiers and three prime ministers – Alfred Deakin, Stanley Bruce and Malcolm Fraser. Its main establishment rival, Scotch College, claims five Victorian premiers including Sir Harry Lawson, William Shiels and John MacPherson.[2]
At the 2010 state election both Labor Premier John Brumby and opposition leader Ted Baillieu were Old Melburnians (from Melbourne Grammar) or OMs. In parliament, Premier Jeff Kennett once niggled Brumby and his deputy, John Thwaites as “the two girls from Melbourne Grammar”.[2]
Graeme Samuel AC is both an insider and outsider in Melbourne’s corporate and political worlds. An old Wesley boy, he was an important player in the city’s legal and business scene in the 1980s and 90s, and says there’s “no doubt” Melbourne had a culture of powerful men-only clubs and school ties when it was the “centre of Australian corporate activity”. [2]
The former Liberal MP and Howard-era minister John Ridley also tells of an insider atmosphere. “I was constantly amazed at how often I was asked what school I went to...You would be invited to someone’s house for dinner and you would meet people and they would invariably ask.”[2]
When Ridley started a legal career he was surprised by repeated references to Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College in particular. “It was clear that going to either opened up pathways. There were law firms that exclusively employed graduates from Melbourne Grammar and Scotch,” says Ridley, who was to become chief of staff to then foreign minister Andrew Peacock, a Scotch Old Boy, and, some time later, the Victorian Liberal Party director when another Scotch graduate, Jeff Kennett, led the party.[2]