GN winter 2019

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PHILANTHROPY

Family legacy endures A family’s great sorrow at the loss of their son on the Western Front has grown into a positive living legacy at Brisbane Grammar School. The Norman Waraker Memorial Cup is awarded each year to the School’s 400m champion and is named in honour of Old Boy Lieutenant Waraker, who was killed in action near Ypres in 1917. At BGS, Norman Waraker (1909) was the 440 yards champion and played for the First XV and First XI. His mother Jesse first donated 50 pounds in 1918 to establish the Norman Waraker Prize in memory of her ‘gallant son’. The prize later became the Memorial Cup, and the 440 yards became

the 400m. Over the years Norman’s sister Doris Townsend continued to sponsor the Cup, sending an annual cheque from 1956 until her death in 1995. As a BGGS student, Townsend was also athletic and a keen tennis player. She later became a theatre critic and poet. She wrote of her grief at Norman’s death in her poetry collection Songs of Sun and Shadow, published in 1928. When Townsend died she left a generous bequest of $100,000 to be divided equally between BGS and BGGS. The BGS scholarship was to go to a promising student and champion athlete at his primary

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school, in honour of her brother Norman’s love of athletics. BGS Old Boy Michael Hogan ’01 was the Norman Waraker Scholarship’s first recipient in 1997, 80 years after Norman’s tragic death. Hogan made the most of his opportunities at BGS, becoming School Captain in 2001. A member of the Open First VIII that won the Head of River that year, he was also a member of the Queensland Schoolboy Rowing team, the Senior A Debating team, and the Basketball First V. On Speech Day he was presented with the Otto Nothling Memorial Prize, the J M “Jack” Kortlang Best Oarsman Award, the NS Robertson Cup, a General Merit,


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