Records of the early days of The Scots School are a bit patchy, although some donations of material from John McLucas, whose father was Headmaster from 1949-1952, have boosted the collection from that period. The situation improved considerably in 1957 when Alan McLucas’ successor, Alan Mitchell, decided that The Scots School needed what was then called a school magazine to record the events of each year. It was called “The Lion”. This review of the history of Scots has been prompted by the work of our Assistant Archivist Gordon Thompson. Gordon has scanned and digitised the editions of “The Bathurstian”, the magazine of All Saints’ College. It has an even longer history than “The Lion”.
The cover of the magazine featured a wrap-around photograph of “Karralee”, with some up-to-date 1950s cars parked in the driveway. This cover was subsequently used for the 1958-1962 editions. From 1963 to 1965, the cover was blue with a gold rampant lion in a shield emblem. From 1966 to 1976, it was a simple white cover with a large rampant lion and blue lettering. There was an exception in 1975 when the cover featured a photo of the entrance to the school as viewed from the old alignment of O’Connell Road. From 1977, the covers were quite varied. For 1991-1993, there was a black glossy cover with a gold school crest and lettering. In 1993-1995, the cover featured a scene of somewhere in the school painted by one of the senior Visual Art students. Adrian Lamrock’s time saw covers that featured several photos of varied aspects of the life of the school and the diversity of people within it. This theme has continued up to the present day.
Editorship of the magazine has varied over the years. The Headmaster appears to have been responsible for most of the compilation of the magazine in the Mitchell and Aikman years. Bruce Holmes and Stuart Partis carried it through the 1970s and early 1980s. Stephen Rowland produced a few issues, as did Nerida Henschell. Mr Maher was in charge of it from the 1990 issue up until 2017. From the 2004 issue, Eric Bernard employed a graphic designer to design the magazine. For issues 2004-2009, Kelta WEB Concepts in Lithgow had the task. From 2010 until 2017, Thirdegree from Windsor was responsible.
With the integration of Scots and All Saints’ in 2019, the initial plan was to come up with a new name for the yearbook for the new school, but after consideration, it remained as “The Lion”, with that particular beast being included in the branding of all Presbyterian schools. Since the 2018 edition, the yearbook has been the responsibility of Mrs Cherylene Anderson, who designs all of the College’s publications.
Going back through “The Lion” in its 68-year history, it is interesting to note the early editions were small, printed on A5 pages and text heavy with few photographs. Contrast that with the 1991 issue, by which time there were 150 pages, with eight in colour which, for ease of layout, had to be in the centre of the magazine. Heavy budget cuts in 1996 saw the magazine reduced to 100 pages. With the 2010 issue, the number of colour pages began to increase, and with new scanning technology coming in the 2010s, black and white pages are now the exception. The quality of photos is also vastly improved since the days when a photo had to be screened into a series of dots.
The cover of “The Lion” from its first edition in 1957 featured this photo on its cover. It was replaced in 1963 with a blue cover with gold lettering.
Mr Andrew Maher
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