The King's School is the oldest independent school in Australia and was founded in a very real sense at the Battle of Waterloo, where the Duke of Wellington's success in defeating Napoleon led to a popularity that swept him into office as the Prime Minister of Great Britain. There the Duke was able to exercise his preferment and despatch his protége, Archdeacon Broughton to introduce a "superior description" of education into New South Wales.

Preparatory School boys outside Old Government House Parramatta

Broughton wrote that he did not want to "foster a taste for superficial acquirements" but wished his students to "have formed an acquaintance with the best models of literary composition, and the rudiments of all the useful kinds of knowledge". Furthermore he hoped his students would find "the best security against an addiction to employment and pursuits which demoralise and degrade."

So was started in 1831 the most significant school for young gentlemen of its time in the colony. Its site at Parramatta was perhaps symbolic, for this was the site of the first real agriculture in the colony. It was the gateway to the interior. It was the head of the navigable river. To this settlement was added a school which under Robert Forrest's careful guidance, was to be the site of the first quality education in the colony, the gateway to what Broughton called "the cultivation of intellectual taste" and the head of the river of knowledge which in those days was characterised by chronology, Euclid, Virgil, Conic Sections, Spherical Trigonometry, Sophocles, and Tacitus.

The patronage of King William IV was to remind the School of its history and purpose - both of which were at risk in a Parramatta that boasted over 20 pubs, more than 1000 convicts and jail. More worrying in those very early days was the presence of scarlet fever and the absence of money.

Staff and students had to cope with lessons from 7.00am to 9.00pm. They also had to deal with bushrangers who would bail up travelling boarders, an occupation so lucrative that it was to become the chosen profession for an early King's Old Boy, Henry Antill, until a sentence of 15 years hard labour at Goulburn interrupted his cashflow.

The first Art Master was George William Evans, the first European to cross the Great Dividing Range, the discoverer of the Lachlan, Macquarie and Warragamba Rivers, the Surveyor-General of the colony.

The first intake of boys was to produce a President of the Queensland Legislative Council, a Speaker in the Lower House in Queensland, a Mayor and several other State politicians, clergymen, a police magistrate, graziers and the first Australian Methodist missionary.

The first site was a rented missionary house in George Street, Parramatta which was the earliest completed street in Australia. Later the School was to enjoy relocation to the crown land on the banks of the Parramatta River and the undoubted benefits of having a brewery on one side and an orchard on the other.

1891 School Photo

The School has provided education to princes and entertained the Royal Family on several occasions. The Royal family of Thailand also sent their Crown Prince to King's in 1970, and the elected King of Malaysia sent his three sons in 1965. The temptation might be to see King's as exclusive and privileged, however, it has also been successful in imbuing in many of its graduates something of the wonderful Christian tradition of service. In the steps of their God, King's boys have sought to follow their Saviour's example by living lives of sacrificial service as missionaries, aid workers in developing countries, and leaders in compassion and generosity within their own communities.

Something of this sacrificial service is to be seen as one stands before the Honour Boards and reads the heroic lists of those who gave their lives for their country. These lists are as obscene in their length as they are inspirational. Of the 660 Old Boys who volunteered for the First World War, 101 lost their lives. In the Second World War, 132 Old Boys lost their lives including such legendary figures as Lieutenant John Lewes, the co-founder of the Special Air Service (SAS).

In sport King's ranks as one of the leading schools in Australia. The King's School Athletics Club, founded in 1873, was one of the earliest in the world. Rugby Union was introduced into NSW by a King's Senior Master, Mr Burkitt, and the first three rugby teams in NSW were The King's School, The University of Sydney and The King's School Old Boys, who called themselves the "Wallaroos". Cricket in some form or other has been played at the School since 1832, and the first competitive game of soccer in Australia was played at King's.

The King's School also has one of the largest cadet forces in the country, and certainly the oldest. The Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, which characteristically sees many students each year being given the prestigious Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award, augments the leadership training within the School.

King's has always enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the rural sector. These close links with the country have combined with many enriching international ties and strong links with the city to result in King's being one of the largest boarding schools in Australia with some 400 students and 40 families living on site. To this number is added several hundred day students who make their way during term time to what surely must be one of the most impressive school grounds in the country. Spread over 300 acres of woodland in the geographical heart of Sydney, it represents an oasis of learning in Australia's largest city.

The King's School Chapel

The white picket fences of its main oval and the carved sandstone of its neo-gothic chapel, serve as a gracious introduction to a school that successfully relocated in the 1960s from its Parramatta site and occupation of the Old Government House to its current generous setting just a few kilometres away.

The Council of The King's School, presided over by the Archbishop of Sydney, has also taken within the orbit of its responsibility, Tudor House Preparatory School in Moss Vale, and The Blue Mountains Grammar School. The former now enjoys semi-independence and the latter complete independence, but nonetheless something of the stamp of King's is still to be found in these schools.

NOTE: all quotes and research taken from Waddy, LDS (1956) The King's School, 1831-1981. Macarthur Press Pty Ltd, Sydney.