John Waterhouse

John Waterhouse was born in Campbelltown, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), on 3 March 1852, the second son of a Wesleyan (Methodist) minister the Rev Jabez Bunting Waterhouse. His father's ministry took the young John Waterhouse around Australia in his early life. He commenced schooling in a small country school in South Australia and then enrolled in St Peter's College, Adelaide in 1860. In 1864 he enrolled for a short period in Dr Frazer's Grammar School at Maitland, but then transferred to Newington College as a boarder. He soon returned to Newington as a student teacher and studied at Sydney University at night, obtaining a BA in 1873 and MA in 1875.

He finished at Newington as assistant to the Headmaster, Joseph Coates, and, in October 1883, it was Waterhouse who stood in place of Coates as Headmaster of Sydney High School because Coates' contract with Newington would not release him until the end of 1883. In January 1884 Waterhouse went on to be Headmaster of the newly-opened Maitland Boys' High School. Maitland Boys' High opened in Saucie House, which Waterhouse had attended 20 years before when it was occupied by Dr Frazer's Grammar School. The Maitland High Schools survived the 1880s alone of all the country high schools established in 1883-1884. Numerous factors were involved but one of them was, no doubt, having John Waterhouse as Headmaster.

In 1889 he was appointed Inspector of Schools in the Dungog region. His period at Dungog was marked by tragedy for, in October 1894, his wife and one daughter (one of his six children) lost their lives in the wreck of the "Wairarapa" while visiting family in New Zealand.

In January 1896 Waterhouse transferred to the Lithgow district, but this position was to be short-lived, for in July 1896 he was appointed headmaster of Sydney High School at the age of 44. He took on a school that had suffered as a result of the 1890s economic crisis and the increasing illness of its first Headmaster, Joseph Coates. Waterhouse himself reported to the Department that he had found Joseph Coates "not only a wreck physically but [with] his mental powers impaired".

Over the next nineteen years Waterhouse was to lead a revitalised School. Academic results at the public examinations were outstanding.

The enrolment increased from just over 100 in 1896 to 350 in 1906 and 422 in 1915.

Sport was also revitalised with the formation of a sports union in 1905 (eventually merging into the School Union in 1913), admission to the AAGPS in 1906 and participation in the Combined High Schools Competition from its inception in 1913.

The school's second magazine, The Record, commenced publication in 1909 and the prefect system was established in 1910. The School Union was formed in 1913 to co-ordinate all extra-curricular activities.

The School's achievements are all the more impressive when it is considered that the School's building and location in Ultimo were far from ideal, where it was said in an official report that "the clang of the hammer is too often an accompaniment to the teacher's efforts and the student's thoughts".

On his departure from the School, the editors of The Record summed Waterhouse up: "He was cautious without being conservative, progressive without being adventurous, sound in judgment and able to take a comprehensive view of the whole situation where enthusiasts were liable to be dominated by a sectional view."

Waterhouse retired as Headmaster of Sydney High in 1915 on medical advice. His doctors had given him only two years to live. He lived to spend 25 years in retirement. One of his retirement hobbies was fossils and his name is perpetuated in the Nuculana Waterhousei which he discovered. He was also a keen gardener. One of his children was Professor Walter Lawry Waterhouse.

He died on 19 March 1940.