House Names

As part of a restructure of the House system, we are planning to introduce a fifth House to the school next year.

We would like to take this opportunity to re-consider the names of the current houses, and to invite submissions from students to help decide the names of all five School Houses.

Students may submit individual House names or a complete set of five complementary names. Students are free to suggest that we keep some, all or none of the current names. For each name suggested, students should include a brief paragraph (no more than 100 words) on why each name would be suitable. Proposed names should reflect some aspect of the school’s history, geography, culture or values.

Proposals should be submitted to fortstreet-h.school@det.nsw.edu.au by 3:00pm Friday 12 November. Prizes will be awarded to the best submissions. The school’s executive will be responsible for deciding the final House names, with input from students, staff and the Fort Street community.

As a starting point, you might like to consider or draw inspiration from the list of 20 Notable Fortians, prepared by School Archivist Mr Iain Wallace.

20 FORTIANS WHO SHAPED THE NATION

The Innovators

Pioneers who have influenced future generations

• John Yu
• Hermann Black
• Nalini Joshi
• Margaret Preston

The Resilient

Those who have survived despite adversity

• Douglas Mawson
• Clarice Kennedy
• Ian Cohen

The Spirited

Those who reveal a typically ‘Australian’ quality

• Norman Hetherington
• D. Hope
• Jan Stephenson
• Harry Hopman
• Charlie Macartney
• Rob Porter

The Curious

Inquisitive individuals who have challenged the staus quo

• Mary Kostakidis
• Elaine Henry
• Margaret Burgess
• Michael Kirby

The Revolutionaries

Those who have caused a dramatic change in history

• Edmund Barton
• John Kerr
• Dr HV Evatt

A Brief History of Fort Street Houses

House systems were introduced to both the Boys and Girls schools in 1945. The Sports Master at the Boys school wrote this in the 1945 Fortian Magazine:

The House System divides the school into four smaller High Schools which compete with each other… Each House has its own Captain and a vice-captain in charge of each sport, also its own house recorder at the Athletics and Swimming Carnivals. At the last Athletic carnival, House “War-cries,” cheer-leaders and coaches were very prominent…

There shall be four Houses – Chrismas, Kilgour, Mearns and Williams [former Principals of the school], comprising respectively all the boys in the School Rolls classified according to surnames… The Rose Cup is awarded to the champion House in all sport.

In the same year, 5^th Form Student Jill Jefferson wrote about the formation of Houses at the Girls school:

The idea of having School Houses had long been simmering in the minds of every new group of Fifth Year girls, and this year definite action was taken.

The Fifths were expected to suggest the names of the Houses, and for days there were hot discussions about them. Some suggested the names of Australian explorers, others wanted aboriginal names; then the names of the streets adjacent to the School were suggested, as were the names of certain Royal houses.

Finally a compromise was made between the last two suggestions and the names of the houses were settled… blue for Bradfield, green for Gloucester, scarlet for Kent and gold for York.

In 1975, the year the Boys and Girls schools were united on the current site, the Fortian records the Houses as Casanova, Maralinga, Fonzie, Newcombe and Elswick, but in 1980 the school felt the need to re-design the School Houses again.

This year saw the reintroduction of the house system which had not been used since 1975 when the two schools amalgamated. At an assembly, Mr. Horan announced a “moment that would go down in history” and proceeded to read out names of past Fortians to be allocated to the six houses previously referred to as A, B, C, D, E, F.

The six houses were Bannon (purple), Barton (green), Hunter (orange), Mackness (blue), Mawson (yellow) and Preston (red). Those House names were still in use in 1991, but by 1993 the six Houses had been reduced to four and were known simply by their colours. The current House names date from 1998 when Barton (blue), Mawson (red) and Preston (yellow) were resurrected and Kennedy (green) was introduced for the first time.

Rumours of a secretive fifth house, Hetherington (black) have never been substantiated.