Scotch College Adelaide Through the Camera Lens

“A picture is worth a thousand words,” an expression credited to advertising executive Fred Barnard from the 1920s, underscores the power of visual imagery. If there is merit in this expression, then this book contains in excess of two million words!

Scotch College Adelaide has been fortunate to have benefited from a community with the desire and foresight to capture, collect, store, and curate many photos of the College grounds, buildings, activities, events, and people. My objective when commencing this book was to share as many of these photos as possible with the broader Scotch community, thereby indirectly telling its story.

The written history of Scotch, along with descriptions of people and events from the College’s first 100 years, can be found in several publications. Notable works include Ken Preiss and Pamela Oborn’s The Torrens Park Estate, Peter Read and Alex Pouw-Bray’s Ninety Years at Torrens Park, the unpublished document by Nicole Desjardins Moschakis on the College’s Management Structure and Infrastructure (1919-2019), the Scotch College Magazines, Cluaran, and Scotch Reports.

The written introductions and text accompanying each chapter are designed to provide context and summaries. They were largely sourced from the aforementioned documents.

The images have been selected primarily for their effectiveness in telling the Scotch story, some gaps exist and not every era is showcased equally. The photos are generally laid out in chronological order. In certain sections however, they have been displayed randomly to give the reader an opportunity to observe how much the College has either changed – or remained the same – over its 100 years. Unless otherwise specified, names of people in the photos are listed from left to right.

I am grateful for the support I have received from the College in producing this book, particularly Warren King and Natalie Felkl from the Development Office. Jarren Gallway from openbook howden deserves significant recognition for the design and layout of the images and text. I also extend my thanks to Evan Hiscock (’64), Rod Dyson, Ken Webb, Suzanne Farrington, Rebecca Healy, Murray Camens (’71), Phil Camens (’76), Margaret Howard (’74) (nee Camens), Sandra Paterson, Sarah Freeman (’87) and Mark Kelly for their invaluable advice and support on the content, structure and proof reading of this publication. Many current and former staff members, as well as Old Collegians, have also contributed additional photographs, content, names and captions.

I hope this book offers a meaningful insight into life at Scotch over its first 100 years and rekindles fond memories of the community’s connection with the College. May it celebrate the friendships and experiences that have shaped and continue to influence the lives of “Scotchies”.