Scotch College

HMAS Sydney

The recent discovery of HMAS Sydney raises several threads of interest.

One Scotch Collegian perished with the ship, Charles McGregor Mitchell (1936) who died aged 20.

We know dismayingly little about him. There is no photo of him, but his naval record gives a physical description: hair dark, eyes brown, complexion fresh, scar on index finger of left hand.

He gained his Intermediate certificate in 1936 and after leaving Scotch became a bank officer. In the war, he joined the navy and was promoted to Paymaster Sub-Lieutenant RANR on 15 October 1941 and joined HMAS Sydney on 9 November 1941, only 10 days before it sank. In another 10 days his naval record was marked Missing presumed dead.

Another death was Petty Officer Richard Curtis, father of Frederick Bryan Curtis (1946) who would enter Scotch in 1945.

Lieutenant Ian Purvis RAN (1929) had served there a year earlier, when he sent thanks to OSCA (on the stationery illustrated here) ‘for sending me a copy of The Scotch Collegian and two other magazines all of which were greatly appreciated. There are no other Old Boys in this ship to whom I can pass on the Collegian, but I have handed over the magazines to the sailors (having read them myself first!) who are always looking for something to read. It is an excellent scheme, this sending of reading matter to the chaps serving abroad.’

The national shock at Sydney’s loss led to a public campaign to raise money for a replacement cruiser. Scotch donated £500 (equivalent to 13 times the annual fees) from the School Patriotic Fund. In 1945, once the war was won, it no longer seemed unpatriotic to ask what had been done with the money!

The School Council’s finance committee, in its frugal Presbyterian way, noted that it did not seem likely the money would be spent on a new warship. So it asked what would become of the funds donated for that specific purpose. (The implication being that the money might be returned.) The government acknowledged receipt of the enquiry and promised a further reply …

Scotch has had further contact with later ships of the same name. In 1951, the school’s centenary was celebrated by Old Boys’ dinners around the world. One dinner was attended by two Old Boys only, Lieutenants David Robertson (1939) and Peter Cooper (1940) on board HMAS Sydney on active service off the coast of Korea.
GS