May 6 Speaker report – Carolyn Stok, Archivist, The Geelong College
Shaping Memory: How Archives Reveal the Story of Change
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Our guest speaker last night was Carolyn Stok, Archivist at The Geelong College, who also had worked in a similar capacity with the Geelong Football Club and whose early experiences were served at the Geelong Heritage Centre. Carolyn described her role not just as an archivist, but as a facilitator of storytelling: someone who helps institutions understand how their past is remembered, framed, and sometimes quietly edited.
The Geelong College, she reminded us, is a long‑established private school, founded in 1861, now a coeducational school with three campuses in Geelong. At its physical and symbolic centre stands the familiar ivy‑clad building, a reminder of its long history as a boys’ school under early leaders such as George Morrison.
The focus of Carolyn’s talk was the introduction of co‑education to what had long been a boys‑only institution. The idea of admitting girls gained momentum under Principal Peter Thwaites, who opened the conversation about co‑education in the early 1970s. Initially, the College explored the possibility of joining with Morongo, the girls’ school, but when that proposal was rebuffed, The Geelong College proceeded independently.
The context was the educational thinking of the time: schools, it was argued, should prepare young people for life in a mixed society. Figures such as Robert Ingpen spoke about changing educational needs, while others, including Stewart McArthur, worried that such a fundamental change might ‘break’ the character of the school.
On 7 February 1974, the first four girls commenced at Campbell House, the College’s junior school campus, with two more joining shortly after. By 1975, there were 58 girls enrolled across the year levels. The ratio of boys to girls was far from equal, and this imbalance brought its own complications. Officially, the 1975 Year Book recorded that co‑education had been introduced ‘without complications’, and the Head Prefect’s report struck a confident tone. Privately, however, some boys wrote that the girls ‘lacked school spirit’; a revealing comment about expectations and culture, rather than the girls themselves.
Carolyn explained that her recent work has involved ‘deep dives’ into the archives to avoid glossing over these tensions. The official records provided a framework, but they were often silent on the most important questions, especially the experiences of the early girls and the staff who taught them. Her project has therefore included interviews with former students and teachers to recover those missing voices and add new material to the archive for future researchers.
Some of the women who were among the first girls at the College spoke candidly about the difficulties they faced. They recalled being welcomed, but always as ‘different’. Later generations of girls, looking back, expressed admiration for those pioneers who had to navigate a culture not yet ready for them.
Marking 50 years of co‑education, Carolyn described a ‘narrative tug‑of‑war’: in the 1980s, stories of institutional change and leadership sometimes overshadowed the actual achievements of the girls themselves. Social media has since become an unexpected ally, prompting former students to share memories and highlight milestones that never made it into official publications.
Carolyn posed an important question: is this marketing or history? Her answer was that history and heritage are indeed used to celebrate, but they must also be honest. Archiving, she stressed, is not a passive act of storage; it actively shapes institutional memory. Archivists must advocate for complexity, not just nostalgia. They are interpreters who look for gaps in the record and ask whose stories are missing.
She also touched on the later Morongo influx, when girls from the recently closed Morongo Presbyterian Girls’ College entered Geelong College during the principalship of Paul Sheahan. These students arrived with a strong sense of identity and a deep loyalty to their former school, and their transition brought a fresh dynamic to the College’s co‑educational journey.
Their presence highlighted how two distinct school cultures, one long established, the other abruptly displaced, interacted, blended, and sometimes rubbed against each other. Carolyn noted that this moment remains under‑examined and represents a rich seam for future historical work.
She then connected this to a more recent milestone: the appointment of Dr Pauline Turner, the College’s first female Principal and the first woman to lead any school in the Associated Public Schools (APS). This appointment marked a profound shift in the leadership culture of the College and symbolised the long arc of change that began with the first six girls in 1974.
Carolyn suggested that both the Morongo transition and Dr Turner’s appointment are pivotal chapters in the broader story of gender, identity, and institutional evolution at The Geelong College. These themes, she said, will form a significant focus of future archival and oral‑history research, offering deeper insight into how co‑education continued to reshape the College well beyond its initial introduction.
In closing, Carolyn reminded us that the human side of history; the lived experience, discomfort, resistance, and change, is as important as the official record. Her work at The Geelong College shows how a school can both celebrate its milestones and honestly confront the complexities that came with opening its doors to girls.
Carolyn stayed for supper and engaged warmly with our members and guests. The Society is most appreciative for her giving us her time and for offering us such an informative talk.
