Bulkeley House History

Significant growth in enrolments during Michael Aikman’s time as Headmaster at The Scots School Bathurst (now Senior School Campus at Scots All Saints College) saw several changes to the boarding houses at The Scots School beginning in 1967.  That year saw the opening of extensions to Cooerwull House. Almost immediately, work began on the construction of another boarding house that was opened on 21 July 1968 by Senator R. C. Cotton, who represented the Minister for Science and Education, the Honourable Malcolm Fraser MHR.

The initial name for the new boarding house was McPhillamy House.  When stage two was completed in 1971, the name had changed to New House. During 1971 the death occurred of John Bulkeley, a veteran member of the staff of The Scots School, who joined the staff only a few weeks after the school as founded in 1946.  The School Council took the decision to name Bulkeley House after him. 

There was little change to the house for nearly a quarter of a century. Gas heating was installed in the dormitories during 1992. By the late 1990s, Year 12 boarders were accommodated in their own single rooms, and in 1996-97 there were modifications to some of the larger dormitories to turn them into single rooms for Year 12. Some tricky design work was needed to ensure that each room had a window. The Headmaster at the time, Graeme Renney, managed to work out a way that this could be done, and the dormitory that will be the new recreation room after the latest renovation was informally known as The Renney Wing.  Some of the large open plan dormitories were also renovated and became smaller with cubicle partitions.  A series of Parents and Friends working bees assisted in the timely completion of the renovations.

By 2005, Bulkeley was looking tired, with the dormitories still having the same cupboards and drawers that had been installed in 1968 and 1971.  The Headmaster at the time, Eric Bernard, organised a refurbishment that saw new cupboards installed, a large prep room created out of a downstairs dormitory, and remodelled recreation areas. By 2005, the house had entered the computer age and a number of computers and monitors were installed in the prep room for the boys to use with a wireless connection to the school network.  The renovations were opened early in 2005 by Barry Nott who was a boarder in Bulkeley House when it first opened and whose sons James and Hugh later lived in Bulkeley House as well. Hugh was Senior Boarding Prefect in 2008.  The Housemaster at the time, Duane Bailey, organised some redecorating of the house to make it lighter and brighter, doing much of the work on this in his holiday time. 

It was to be more than a decade before further work was done on Bulkeley.  During 2019, the Headmaster of the newly integrated Scots All Saints College, John Weeks, conducted a major review of boarding. The outcome of this was that at the end of the year Bulkeley House was closed.  As boarding numbers have continued to grow for Scots All Saints and especially the demand for a junior boys’ boarding, the considerable amount of refurbishment work needed to bring the building up to a modern standard has been undertaken. 

Housemasters through the years

The foundation Housemaster of Bulkeley was Mr R. M. Clinch. For two years, John Hunter was Housemaster until he was appointed as Headmaster.  The Housemaster’s flat was built over the boiler room and the pump that circulated hot water to the central heating system.  After many years in the Royal Navy, John found the noise of the pump a comforting reminder of the working engine room of one of his ships.  Laurie Lynch took over for a year, before George Falconer commenced his long period as Housemaster (1975-1988).  He was followed by Steven Lazar (1989-1992), Colin Dudley (1993-1996), Geoffrey Wilbow (1997-1999) who had previously served as Housemaster of Cooerwull (1987-1992). With Galloway having become the girls’ boarding house in 1999 after Scots became co-educational two years earlier, Brian Mair who had been foundation Housemaster of Galloway (1990), moved to Bulkeley in 1999. Another long housemastership followed with Duane Bailey being Housemaster 2005-2017.  John Day headed the house during 2018, and after integration with All Saints, Spencer Goddard moved from Watson House at All Saints to Bulkeley House prior to it closing.

To learn more about the 2024 refurbishment of Bulkeley House, click here. 

Author: Mr Andrew Maher