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08
MUSEUM REPORT
This has been the year of the shockingly sudden, unjus ed loss of our Southland Museum & Art Gallery. The signi cance of this for our School Museum is that the Southland Boys’ High School Museum is now Invercargill’s
only Heritage Museum. This is an unreasonable and unnecessary burden to be placed on a school museum and it is hoped the situa on will not last too long. Many concerned ci zens, including your archivist, have tried very hard to secure a reversal of this ill-judged decision. In the mean me con nue to visit and use our facility, which is your own.
The School Museum has enjoyed another busy year although the main concern is s ll a lack of display and storage space. But this doesn’t reduce the enjoyment and o en surprise of all those who visit and whose expecta ons of a Museum in a tractor shed are not high! Those of you who know the Museum well will no ce the following recent changes;
An increase of the number of photographs of rst day and early pupils on the picket fence in Bay 1.
An aisle display of Indian clubs, which
were sourced from St Johns Girls’ School. These signi cantly have carved into one
of them the ini als and name of the rst President of the Southland Girls’ High School. Obviously this was done when
she was at school and the relevance to
our school is that both Boys’ and Girls’
High Schools shared the same Conon Street building un l 1907 when the girls moved to a new building in Forth Street.
It was not un l 1948 that they moved to the present wooden building in Tweed Street. Sharing the same aisle wall as the ‘Indian’ clubs is a memoir from former Southland Boys’ High School teacher Arthur Deaker, who observed the girls arriving back at Southland Boys’ High School for gymnas cs, which involved the swinging
of these clubs as follows; ‘ . . . In those
days the Girls’ High School was only two blocks away and droves of the li le angels i ed round one corner. They also came
as classes to our Gym, where they climbed, vaulted and swung clubs in prepara on for matrimony ...’
Reloca on of portraits of the rst 4 Rectors to a posi on on the le aisle opposite Rectors 5 to 11. Our present Rector is the twel h since 1881.
Installa on of the original 1926 door handles beneath the early Rector portraits. The doors themselves can be seen in Bay 4.
A second lectern has been installed in Bay 3 on which are displayed two albums of our Fallen from World War II. Over several years, with coopera on from the Army, Navy and Air Force we have succeeded in securing photos of most of these former pupils of our school, lost to the 1939-1945 con ict. Where a photo remains stubbornly unobtainable a photo of his grave/ship/ aircra has been subs tuted. This makes our ANZAC commemora ons even more meaningful for the 25 seniors who every year commemorate 25 Fallen and can now keep a photo of the young man they are honouring.
Old Boy Brian Roberts, who had donated the mortar bombs ‘stolen’ from the Armoury a few years ago, presented us with a valuable miniature cricket bat purchased by him in London and signed by the en re NZ team who were victors at Lords in 1958. Former Rector Jack Alabaster’s name was among the signatures and a visit was made to him in re rement in Alexandra to have him sign the reverse. This valuable artefact is now displayed in a special case on the aisle at the entrance to the sports sec on.