Lost Schools

Alexander Gillespie, who had been running the Hofwyl School at 188 Barkly Street, purchased Dashwood House, 168-174 Barkly Street, near the corner of Carlisle Street. In July that year the school was advertised as St Kilda Scotch College. 1902 was the last year it was mentioned in directories. After the school's closure, Gillespie continued to live in the house with his family.

Gillespie died on Saturday 30 November, 1924. He was survived by his widow, four sons and four daughters. His widow Margaret died on 27 March 1936 in her 92nd year. The house was demolished later that year and sold as a development site on 9 December 1936.

Edward Littlejohn Backhouse began holding classes at Lansmere in August 1875. A year later it was trading under the title Alma Road Grammar School. In 1880 Edward decided to join his brother at Mornington Grammar and the school was taken over by H B de la Poer Wall until the end of 1885. Gordon Robinson took over as principal the following year. Then in November of 1886 Lansmere was put up for sale by the landlord. Miss Hatchell Brown purchased the freehold and established The Priory Girls School in February 1887.

Argus July 1876

The school was opened in a house on the corner of Robe and Acland Street in 1862 by James Bonwick (1817-1906), a "tirelessly entrepreneurial figure: teacher, author, historian and anthropologist", who named the school after a famous boys' school in Berne, Switzerland. He then relocated to a Gothic Revival building designed by architects Crouch & Wilson in Barkly Street for the school year of 1866 (or possibly at first to a house built in the grounds, then the grander building in 1867). The plot was a very large one, with the school located at the southern end. 

Bonwick met Alexander Gillespie on a return voyage to Australia in 1871 and offered him a job. Gillespie taught from March to October 1871, then purchased the school's goodwill and furniture, and leased the building, which continued to trade as Hofwyl School/House until July 1878. (During this period there was another school established in Hawthorn using the same name). Bonwick went on to various roles both in Australia and England. Gillespie moved on to open his own school virtually next door, by purchasing Dashwood House at 178 Barkly Street, and opening St Kilda Scotch College.

Robert S Bradely then started a new school, Queens College, in the Hofwyl building, which seems to have closed in the 1920s.

By 1924 flats at Queen's Court were being advertised. When it was sold in Dec 1937, it was a a block of eight flats known as Carmel Court, and probably the next year it was obscured by an new Art Deco block of flats and shops occupying the front yard. The house, minus the vernadahs, remains surprisingly intact. 

References :

A Place of Sensuous Resort, entry 44 Carmel Court (formerly Hofwyl House Academy) https://www.skhs.org.au/SKHSbuildings/44.htm

Reference: Melbourne Mansions Database entry no. 911

Contempory newspaper reports. 

The Priory boarding house

Miss Hatchell Brown purchased Alma Road Grammar School (the house Lansmere), and the adjacent Sherwood Cottage on the corner of Odessa Street, in late 1886 (Argus 13.11.1886 p12) and established The Priory Girls School in 1887. In 1890 she replaced Sherwood Cottage with a Romenesque style building to serve as boarding accomodation, still extant as a house. 

Miss Brown was a teacher who had previously been one of the senior staff at the private girls school at Oberwyl in St Kilda. In 1886 Miss Brown purchased two adjoining houses in Alma Road, ‘Lansmere’ and ‘Sherwood Cottage’ where she established The Priory Girls School. ‘Lansmere’ had been used as the home of Alma Road Grammar since 1875. ‘Sherwood Cottage’ was demolished to make way for this building, which was used as the headmistress’s residence and also for boarders (SKHS). Enrolments at The Priory Ladies’ School plummeted from 66 to just 27 in 1893 and the school eventually closed in December 1913 (Peel 1999:36, SKHS). Lansmere was later demolished.