John Waterhouse (3 March 1852 – 19 March 1940) was an Australian principal who was headmaster of two of

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

first public boys high schools.

Early life

Waterhouse was born in

Campbell Town, Tasmania Campbell Town is a town in Tasmania, Australia, on the Midland Highway. At the 2021 census, the town had a population of 823. History Traditional owners of the Campbell Town area The traditional custodians of the Campbell Town area were t ...

, the second son of the

Wesleyan Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan– Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charles W ...

minister Jabez Bunting Waterhouse. With his father's ministry taking the family around Australia, his early education was varied. Waterhouse started school in a small country town in South Australia before attending

St Peter's College, Adelaide , other_name = The Collegiate School of St Peter , seal_image = St Peter's College, Adelaide Logo.svg , seal_size = 150 , image = SPSC chapel and memorial hall.jpg , image_size ...

in 1860. When the family moved to

Maitland, New South Wales Maitland () is a city in the Lower Hunter Valley of New South Wales, Australia and the seat of Maitland City Council, situated on the Hunter River approximately by road north of Sydney and north-west of Newcastle. It is on the New England Hi ...

he attended Dr Frazer's Grammar School for a short period before being enrolled as a boarding student at

Newington College , motto_translation = To Faith Add Knowledge , location = Inner West and Lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales , country = Australia , coordinates = , pushpin_map = A ...

in 1865. At Newington he later became a pupil-teacher, before graduating MA from the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

in 1876. In July 1880 when Newington moved from

Silverwater Silverwater is a suburb in western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Silverwater is located 15 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district on the southern bank of the Parramatta River within the local governme ...

Stanmore Stanmore is part of the London Borough of Harrow in London. It is centred northwest of Charing Cross, lies on the outskirts of the London urban area and includes Stanmore Hill, one of the highest points of London, at high. The district, which ...

Waterhouse was the one assistant master supporting President

Joseph Horner Fletcher Joseph Horner Fletcher (1 October 1823 – 30 June 1890) was a West Indies-born Methodist minister of English descent and was the founding Principal of Wesley College, Auckland and the second President of Newington College, Sydney. He was elect ...

and Headmaster Joseph Coates. The John Waterhouse Society at Newington College, is a co-curricular activity in which a group of students meet to discuss philosophical ideas and issues and is named in honour of Waterhouse.

Educationalist

In September 1883 Joseph Coates successfully applied for the headmastership of the soon to be established Sydney Boys' High School and Waterhouse as head of Maitland High School. Sydney High opened in October 1883 and as Coates could not leave Newington until the end of the year, John Waterhouse was appointed to open the school. His letter of appointment clearly names him "Headmaster" and so he is rightly regarded as the founder of Sydney High. At the beginning of 1884 he opened Maitland. In 1889, he was appointed Inspector of Schools in the Dungog region. While in Dungog tragedy struck on 29 October 1894 when Waterhouse's wife and daughter drowned in the wreck of SS Wairarapa on Great Barrier Island. He was left as a widower with five children under 11 years of age. (He married his sister in law in 1901.) In January 1896, Waterhouse transferred to the Lithgow district, but this position was to be short-lived. In July 1896, he was appointed headmaster of Sydney Boys' High School and became a resident of Chatswood. He took on a school that had suffered as a result of the 1890s economic crisis and the degenerative illness of its first Headmaster, Joseph Coates. Over the next nineteen years, Waterhouse was to lead the revitalisation of Sydney High School. The enrolment increased from just over 100 in 1896 to 350 in 1906 and 422 in 1915. Academic results at the public examinations during his term were outstanding and the school was admitted to the

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

in 1906. Waterhouse retired as Headmaster of Sydney High in 1915 on medical advice. His doctors had given him only two years to live. He lived to spend 25 years in retirement.

Scientific interests

One of his retirement hobbies was

fossils A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...

and his name is perpetuated in the Nuculana Waterhousei which he discovered. Waterhouse was also interested in

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...

and

ornithology Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...

. During his appointment in Maitland he was associated with Professor Sir

Edgeworth David Sir Tannatt William Edgeworth David (28 January 1858 – 28 August 1934) was a Welsh Australian geologist and Antarctic explorer. A household name in his lifetime, David's most significant achievements were discovering the major Hunter ...

and his work on the Greta

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

seam.Australian Academy of Science
Retrieved 2.10.2007

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Watrehouse, John Staff of Newington College People educated at Newington College 1940 deaths 1852 births

Early life

Educationalist

Scientific interests

See also

References