Studies have found that Scotch had more alumni mentioned in Who's Who in Australia (a listing of notable Australians) than any other school. It is one of the wealthiest schools in Australia.
In 2010 The Age reported that Scotch College "has educated more of Australia's most honoured and influential citizens than any other school in the nation", based on research that revealed its alumni had received more top Order of Australia honours than any other school.
The College was established in 1851 as "The Melbourne Academy", in a house in Spring Street, Melbourne, by Reverend James Forbes of the Free Presbyterian Church of Victoria. It is the oldest extant secondary school in Victoria and celebrated its sesquicentenary in 2001.
Scotch is a founding member of the Associated Public Schools of Victoria (APS), and is affiliated with the International Coalition of Boys' Schools,the Junior School Heads Association of Australia (JSHAA),the Australian Boarding Schools' Association (ABSA), the Association of Independent Schools of Victoria (AISV), and the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. The School is also a member of the G20 Schools Group and the Global Alliance of Leading-Edge Schools.
History
Scotch College is the oldest surviving secondary school in Victoria. Its foundation was due to the initiative of The Rev. James Forbes, of the Free Presbyterian Church, who arrived in 1838 as the first settled Christian minister in what became the colony of Victoria in 1851. It is 'the outcome of the old Scottish ideal of education', in which church and school were inextricably connected. The School opened on 6 October 1851, under the name of the Melbourne Academy in a small house in Spring Street, with Robert Lawson, a Scot from Edinburgh University, as the first principal. The house was soon outgrown, as was a larger one on the north-west corner of Spring and Little Collins Streets (later the Ulster Family Hotel) and the Church applied to the government for a grant of land. Two acres were reserved for the school on Eastern Hill and substantial new buildings were erected there in 1853. The cost was met partly by a government grant and partly from funds raised by the friends of the school.
Lawson resigned in 1856. Under his successor, Alexander Morrison, the school grew and prospered; it came under the oversight of the newly formed Presbyterian Church of Victoria in 1859. Morrison had been Rector of Hamilton Academy and remained at Scotch for forty six years. William Still Littlejohn, who took over the school in 1904, served for twenty nine years and his successor, Colin Macdonald Gilray, for nineteen. So, when the school became the first in Victoria to celebrate its centenary, Gilray was only the fourth principal.
Gilray was succeeded in 1953 by R Selby Smith, an Old Rugbeian who had served in the Royal Navy during the war and was at the time of his appointment Deputy Director of Education for Warwickshire. Smith resigned in 1964 to become the Foundation Dean of Education at Monash University.
C O Healey who had been Headmaster of Sydney Grammar School since 1951 succeeded Smith. Healey retired in January 1975.
In the following May, P A V Roff, formerly Headmaster of Scotch College, Adelaide, was installed as the seventh principal of the college. Roff 's tenure, though a brief seven years, was characterised by an expanding voice for staff in the day-to-day management of the school, the establishment of a Foundation Office at the School under the direction of a Development Officer and the widening of the House System to provide greater depth in pastoral care. His last few years saw the school in dispute over ownership and, for the principal and his school community, it was a time of stress. In 1980 the decision was made to incorporate the school and a new Council was appointed, with representatives from the Presbyterian Church, the Old Scotch Collegians' Association and the community at large.
F G Donaldson, a vice principal from Wallace High School (Northern Ireland), with a Doctorate of Philosophy in Atomic Physics from Queens University Belfast, succeeded Roff in 1983. Under his principalship there has been a significant building program which has created outstanding facilities for the education of boys, the development of ICT for administrative and educational purposes and enhanced pastoral care of students.
I Tom Batty, was appointed as the ninth principal of Scotch and installed into office on Monday 14 July 2008. Prior to his appointment he was Housemaster of Villiers House, Eton College in the UK. The early years of Batty’s tenure have seen the introduction of a new House-based pastoral care structure in the Upper School, which began at the start of the 2011 school year.
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