From the Archives

Who is Meleager?

Quietly supervising Fort Street High School students and staff as they journey through the Fountain Quad is the sculpture of Meleager.
Meleager is a hero from Greek mythology who famously led an expedition to kill the Calydonian boar which was terrorizing the kingdom of Oeneus in Aetolia in central-western Greece. Appearing in Homer’s Iliad and the later epics the Ehoiai and Minyas, the story was a popular subject in Greek and later art from pottery decoration to sculpted sarcophagi.

The sculpture of Meleager at Fort Street High School is in white Carrara marble with a boar’s head and a hunting hound. It was one of twelve modern statues created by sculptor Charles F. Summers modelled on an ancient Roman interpretation of the Greek original statue (attributed to Skopas) in The Vatican Museum.

The collection of statues were said to have been created for the Garden Palace of the great Sydney International Exhibition in 1879. When the Garden Palace was damaged by a great fire in 1882 the group of sculptures were moved to line the walk from Shakespeare Place down to the lower Garden areas of the Royal Botanic Gardens.

When Japan entered the war, the statues were moved for safety reasons in 1941 and stored in the Mitchell Library. No account is to be found in the archival correspondence held at the State’s national herbarium to inform how the statue of Meleager was ‘spirited’ away at the war’s end. Apparently there was a card index that states on Meleager’s card – “Removed to Fort Street Boys High School, 1945.”
The school is currently liaising with other government agencies to investigate conservation options for Meleager.

Iain Wallace – School Archivist