In this Sesquicentenary year, the College’s Prize Giving ceremonies will represent the 151st prize giving. The first took place on 16 December 1863, just five months after the opening of the school.

We know practically nothing of this event. Indeed we only know about it at all thanks to a photograph that appeared in the ‘Jubilee Newingtonian’ of 1913, showing the first medal given by the College. The medal was presented to Benjamin Beckett Hebblewhite, from Randwick, one of the initial sixteen boys who entered the College on 16 July. Rev John Manton was described as the ‘Principal’ on the medal. Sadly the whereabouts of the medal today is unknown.

Benjamin’s brothers William and Samuel followed him to Newington in 1865 and 1866 respectively.

Benjamin Hebblewhite died in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) in 1877, aged just thirty. He left a widow, Ann, and a young son, John, who attended Newington College from 1884 to 1887. It was probably through this connection that Ann Hebblewhite met Richard ‘Dickie’ Baker, the College’s Science and Drawing Master, Sportsmaster and Cadet Corps commander during the 1880s. They married in 1890.

 Mr David Roberts
College Archivist