By Cheryl Griffin
Below is a list of the old boys of Coburg High School who served in World War One. Most of them were in the first intake of pupils into the school in 1912, just a few years before hostilities began. The rest (Bowen, Buzaglo, Groves, Head, Jarvie, Scott, Sherlock, Tait, Templeton and Walker) began at the school in 1913. Some, like Buzaglo, Dailey, Fedderson, Finchett, Groves, Jarvie and Smith had been old boys of Coburg State School and feature in the Coburg State School Soldiers Book.
The Victorian Education Department only became a provider of secondary education in the early years of the twentieth century and not many children continued their education after they finished Grade 8 at their local primary school. The fact that parents had to pay £6 a year to send their children to secondary school was a factor and many children had to go to work to help the family. So these boys were part of an educational elite and not long after they had completed their education some made the long journey to Egypt and then the Dardanelles and others followed a year later to the battlefields of the Western Front. Some died. Others returned and lived long and outwardly successful lives. We will never know what how they felt about that ‘war to end all wars’ but they are remembered still and although the school they attended no longer stands, the Honour Board made in their memory is now housed in a new Coburg High School, just a little further east along Bell Street.