A HISTORY of the former Kerang College was launched at the Sir John Gorton Library in Kerang recently.
The publication, A Spirit of Excellence, was written by Tresco resident John Jobson, whose mother and two aunts attended the school.
“The college began when a determined lady arrived at Kerang in 1889 and began her private school in the Mechanics’ Institute,” Mr Jobson writes in his forward.
At the time, the Kerang State School offered the only education in town, which only went to elementary levels and the state’s education department didn’t yet exist.
The determined lady was Miss Mary Ella McColough, who hailed from Kangaroo Flat and had been well loved in Balranald, where she conducted a small private school.
In Kerang she would become well loved as well.
According to Mr Jobson, she created a school “unique in the academic past of northern Victoria”.
The college, which relocated after a few years to a house she bought at 48 Fitzroy Street, offered an extensive curriculum.
In addition to academic classes to matriculation level, it taught Latin, French, art, singing, piano, violin, ballroom dancing and calisthenics, with help from Melbourne University students acting as assistant teachers.
Religious education was provided through the Anglican Church.
The school took in boarders in an atmosphere of serviettes and starched tableclothes.
It was much cheaper than Melbourne private schools and the principal was “quite generous when parents had difficulty paying school fees,” Mr Jobson writes.
Kerang College continued for more than 50 years.
It is believed it ceased academic education at the time of the depression, although Miss McColough and two nieces continued to enrol students for music, singing and dancing until 1938.
Miss McColough died in Kerang in 1948, aged 91.
The lifelong spinster was remembered by former students as “a very fine lady” with “remarkable talents”.
Mr Jobson said he was inspired to research her story after Pat Gillingham from the Kerang Historical Society lent him material about it.
“This book was probably sitting there waiting to be written,” he said at the launch.
“But it always seems you have to have one foot in the grave before you take an interest in history.”
A Spirit of Excellence is available from the Kerang Historical Society.
