The Hutchins School Magazine first appeared under Headmaster H H Anderson in , with ‘some half-dozen quarterly numbers’i produced before it became defunct. The Magazine was revived by Headmaster L H Lindon in — under the editorship of Queen’s College recruit Max Dollery — with a view to ‘providing a record of our school life, and forming a bond of union between present and past pupils’.
At that time it was published once a term — in March, June, September and December — at a cost of 6d per copy. Owing to the small circulation in involving management in ‘considerable financial loss’, the Board decided to make subscription to the Magazine compulsory for all boys in the School; the sum of two shillings per annum was payable in advance, with postage an extra 4d. At the end of that year Lindon expressed the hope that the reconstituted Magazine would ‘continue without interruption to perform all the functions of a school paper, recording all that deserves to be remembered in our school life, linking together the past and present boys in a common interest, and stimulating the literary activities of the school.’ii
Four editions appeared each year until , when publication was reduced to biannual edition, until further reduced to an annual publication in .iii Reappearing in biannual form in the Magazine continued in this vein until , when the straitened financial circumstances, combined with the student unrest to which the publication was giving utterance, resulted in the production of only one edition. Reproduction of photographs with the text reduced the overall quality of this production, leading to an announcement from the Board in that, owing to rising costs of production, the Magazine would again become an annual publication. By the end of that year the decision had been reversed, with the Board reverting to the production of biannual edition, published in June and December.
By the Magazine was locked into an annual publication cycle, with The Hutchins Newsletter, Magenta and Black and The Ivied Tower eventually taking over the dissemination of smaller news items aimed at specific groups with the Hutchins community. Twenty years later the Hutchins School Magazine underwent a major transformation in style and appearance, including a change of name. As well as being a priceless historical aid as the primary chronicle of school events, Virtus is regarding by Old Boys, parents, carers and friends as an ‘indication of the cultural standards of the School.’iv
Note
This was first published in Character Unbound by Margaret Mason-Cox , page 109. To read all editions of the School Magazine/Virtus from to present, please visit www.hutchins.tas.edu.au/virtus, including a special edition from .
References
- i School Magazine, December 1960, p. 3.
- ii School Magazine, July 1963, p. 3.
- iii School Magazine, July 1965, p. 4.
- iv School Magazine, December 1968, p. 9.
