AOSA CENTENARY HISTORY 1841 - 1941
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Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Appendix
In 1847 the Committee further defined and extended the superintendent’s activities. On him devolved ‘the general oversight of the Institution both in and out of School, the whole of the Ledger entries and other accounts, the whole of the correspondence insuperably connected with this establishment - etc., etc., etc.’ - they concluded, dismayed at the vista of possible duties.
At first George Dixon did all the boys’ teaching himself and eked out his resources by commandeering the older boys to instruct the younger. This method could hardly remain permanent, so the committee considered ‘the propriety of looking towards a succession of Teachers and House and Farm servants from amongst the scholars of this Institution ‘and began the apprentice system.
For this work and responsibility, both unremitting, for holidays did not exist, the Committee at first paid their superintendent £40 a year, allowed the keep of himself, his wife and their three children, and the children’s education. When the strain of family and school life overcame Alice Dixon, whose ‘precarious health having induced her to take full possession of the cottage, late Dewey’s,’ it appeared ‘desirable to relieve her of the necessity of coming to this house for meals or drawing upon this establishment for domestic aid,’ then, to meet rising expenses, George Dixon’s salary was raised to £70 a year and the Committee agreed to provide the cottage with ‘coals, rent and taxes already stipulated together with milk, potatoes and other vegetables.’ As a further supplement in kind to the cash value of his salary the committee ‘left George Dixon at liberty to invite his wife at any time to join the family at their meals.’
Such a cumbrous plan soon proved unworkable and in a short time, George Dixon was living permanently in Dewey’s Cottage, across the boys’ playground, where now stands Rawdon House. The cottage was really two cottages in one; they had originally been built for weavers and were included in the school property. In this ivy-covered cottage they lived until they were followed by Ralph and Elizabeth Dixon.
The next increase of salary arose out of George Dixon’s resignation. On the 17th of the seventh month 1845 he told the committee he intended ‘to resign in 5th month next’ and Friends were ‘desired to make enquiries for a suitable person to succeed him.’ But by January of the next year, George Dixon had changed his mind and ‘was desirous of remaining in his present situation,’ so, ‘after various conferences with him in reference to the past and future ‘the committee accepted his withdrawal and re-appointed him at ‘a Salary of One Hundred and Twenty Pounds per annum.’ The new arrangement worked satisfactorily, for three years later the committee ‘being well satisfied with the faithful discharge of his varied duties concludes to add the sum of £20 per annum to his Salary, which Salary will be thus raised to £140 a year.’
The position of superintendent, however, did not appeal to George Dixon merely as a means of earning a living by the competent execution of a task. In teaching he found his vocation. Work came unsought in the School, in the garden, in the farm. But he did not confine himself to this triple duty. He interested himself and the children in the study of nature. He and they had already studied the stars sufficiently to identify the various constellations before the three brothers Gail of Stokesley introduced them to new wonders. John Gail was a chemist, Thomas an artist, Richard a geologist. These were their recreations, plumbing their trade. So they went further than fitting the new steam cooking apparatus and introduced the boys and their master to science and to art. John put up for them an electrical machine, a chemical furnace, and got them such chemicals as they needed and instructed them in their use. Thomas helped them to draw. Richard supplied them with fossils of the district and helped to arrange them in the museum that had been started.
The School explored a new area when Eliza Gowland, the first governess, arrived. She had studied plants and flowers and their classification in the Linnean system, and her precise knowledge stimulated a natural interest in flowers. From their walks the boys returned ‘loaded with wild flowers. To keep them from withering we put each specimen in an 8 oz. bottle filled with water which gave time for discovering its name. These bottles were put on the mantel - or some other shelf and their names became familiar. The next business was to press and dry them. When the specimens were dry they were attached to sheets of paper and placed in a portfolio.’ Long after George Dixon had left, the method he thus described continued, and children of the late nineties remember seeing, if not noting, the rows of labelled bottles at the back of the school room.
George Dixon also encouraged the more scientific study of botany. The big girls noted when flowers first appeared; they kept lists of flowers and plants in the district. After more or less complete combing of the neighbourhood ‘we offered a prize to the discoverer of a new plant. To our great surprise and the boys’ great delight, one was found, swine’s cress (seneberia coronopus), growing between the paving stones of the farm yard.’
As to shells, J. W. Watson, the apprentice,
and Ralph Dixon, drew up and published a manual describing and dealing
generally with the local species. They made the plates themselves and ‘as
they were mostly drawn from nature and transferred to the stone, they
bore many fine markings which might have escaped the eye of the lithographer.’ But
nothing came amiss to the eager activity that stirred in the school.
Beetles and moths, mosses, lichens and fungi, seaweeds and fossils,
shells and flowers were alike sought, collected, classified.
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