From the Archives

From student to ‘the boss’ of Fort Street

We continue our series of looking back at some of our principals from the past. In this edition we’ll look at Bruce Mitchell’s research of Fort Street’s Headmaster during a time of great change.

Alexander James Kilgour (1861-1944), born in Edinburgh he accompanied his parents and sister to Sydney about 1868 and was educated at Fort Street Model School, becoming a pupil-teacher. His first teaching appointment was in 1882 at Brombin Public School on the north coast. Later Kilgour attended evening classes at the University of Sydney (B.A., 1894; LL.B., 1904) and in 1900 achieved the top teaching classification. He was headmaster of Neutral Bay in 1901-03 and of Chatswood in 1904.
Early next year Kilgour was chosen against strong competition to succeed J. W. Turner as headmaster of Fort Street. Although in charge of the primary and both boys’ and girls’ secondary schools, with little time for teaching, he concentrated on the senior boys’ classes preparing for the public examinations. He was ‘fundamentally a Latinist’, and ‘his teaching was excellent, though his standards were inflexible’ — he had ‘no tolerance for slackers and dullards’. Professor A. R. Chisholm described him in his mid-forties: ‘He wore spectacles whose lenses were sliced horizontally along the middle; and, being moderately tall, he looked down over these with a quiet dignified authority that made any resort to corporal punishment inconceivable. His dark hair, like his beard and moustache, was closely cropped; his forehead rather receding and his head rather small for a man with such good brains’. With Peter Board’s reorganization, he became headmaster in 1911 of Fort Street Boys’ High School, and in 1916 supervised its move to a new building on Parramatta Road at Petersham.

Kilgour became a legend in his lifetime for the scholastic excellence of Fort Street and for his dedication to discipline and hard work. He was able to build and hold a staff of outstanding men including Walter Selle, George Mackaness, C. B. Newling and Samuel Lasker. Closely interested in all his pupils, he urged the ablest into law and medicine and for others found places in commerce. Those who testified to his inspiration and influence include Professor John Hunter, H. V. Evatt, Sir Garfield Barwick, Sir Percy Spender and Chisholm.
On retiring from Fort Street in 1926, Kilgour was headmaster of Strathfield Grammar and Preparatory School for Boys for five years. When it amalgamated with Trinity Grammar School he became classics master. He visited Britain in 1936. On his eightieth birthday his portrait by Norman Carter was unveiled at Fort Street. He died in hospital at Newcastle on 26 December 1944.