Sydney Grammar School
Sydney Grammar School is an independent, non-denominational day school for boys, located in Sydney, Australia.
Incorporated in 1854 by an Act of Parliament and opened in 1857, the school claims to offer "classical" or "grammar" school education thought of as liberal, humane, pre-vocational pedagogy.
As of 2006, Sydney Grammar School had an enrolment of approximately 1,841 students from kindergarten to Year 12, over three campuses. The two preparatory schools, are located at Edgecliff in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, and St Ives, on the Upper North Shore. The College Street campus caters for students from Forms I to VI, and is located in Darlinghurst.
The school is affiliated with the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia, Junior School Heads Association of Australia, Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, and is a founding member of the Athletic Association of the Great Public Schools of New South Wales.
As of 2025, Sydney Grammar School had an average annual school fee of per student.
History
Foundation
The Sydney Public Free Grammar School was opened in 1825 by Laurence Hynes Halloran, born County Meath, Ireland. Previously, Halloran had operated a private school in Exeter, England, however fled in 1796 due to debts, after being accused of immorality. It subsequently emerged that his degrees were self-awarded. He eventually returned to Britain but was arrested for forgery and transported to the penal colony of New South Wales, arriving there in 1819. He was immediately granted a ticket-of-leave.In 1854, Sydney Grammar School was incorporated by an Act of Parliament and acquired the land and building in College Street which had been temporarily occupied by the newly founded University of Sydney in 1852. It was opened on 3 August 1857, specifically as a feeder school for the university.
The preamble of the Sydney Grammar School Act 1854 states:
It is deemed expedient for the better advancement of religion and morality and the promotion of useful knowledge to establish in Sydney a public school for conferring on all classes and denominations of Her Majesty’s subjects resident in the Colony of New South Wales without any distinction whatsoever the advantages of a regular and liberal course of education.
The act provides that the trustees of the school shall consist of twelve persons, of whom six shall be persons holding the following offices respectively:
- The Honourable the Attorney-General of New South Wales
- The Honourable the President of the New South Wales Legislative Council
- The Honourable the Speaker of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
- The Chancellor of the University of Sydney
- The Principal Professor of Classics of the University of Sydney
- The Senior Professor of Mathematics of the University of Sydney
Site history
Sydney Grammar School is the oldest school still in use in the City of Sydney, and is historically the site on which the University of Sydney began. The school buildings also contain examples of early building materials and techniques in pre-Federation Australia.The site was founded as The Sydney College in 1830, and the following year began operations in a new building in Hyde Park designed by Edward Hallen. It consisted of a single large room with basement rooms beneath. Sydney College continued despite financial difficulties until 1853, when it was taken over by the fledgling University of Sydney until such time as the present Grose Farm site was ready for occupation. The site was then sold in 1856 to the trustees of the newly incorporated Sydney Grammar School, which had been established and endowed with a building fund by Act of Parliament. Edmund Blacket was commissioned to design extensions to the south and north of the Hallen building, which were completed in 1856 and 1857 respectively. The "Big School" building became central to the Colonial Architect, James Barnet's vision for the cultural focus of Sydney Town.
The War Memorial wing, named for its position behind Big School's monument to the Great War, was built at the northern end of Big School in 1953 by the Scott brothers, at the cost of its double staircase. In 1876, the main building was extended to the east by Mansfield Brothers, and this extension was itself extended to the north and south in 1899 by John W Manson. The Science classrooms on Stanley Street were built in 1889–90. Other early buildings on the site, now demolished, included the Sergeant's Lodge, an ablutions block on Stanley Street, and a former postal sorting office on Yurong Street.
Today
Sydney Grammar is a private school. Each year up to 26 full scholarships are offered to students who show academic promise and who perform well in the scholarship examination. It is also regarded for its academic results: for example, in national government testing, it is one of the best performing private school nationwide, and a high performer in the New South Wales Higher School Certificate with over 50% of graduates receiving a 95 ATAR or higher between 2009 and 2023.Sydney Grammar is near the Sydney central business district. The campus consists of multi-storey buildings in a concrete landscape setting. The school is on the eastern side of Hyde Park, Sydney, next to the Australian Museum, and extends from College Street to Yurong Street. The designs of the school's buildings illustrate many different architectural eras: "Big School", the Blacket buildings, the original Science building, the Science laboratory block, the Palladium building, the Stanley Street building and Alastair Mackerras Theatre, and the A. B. 'Banjo' Paterson Library.
Weigall, the school's sportsground, is located at Rushcutters Bay next to the Edgecliff Preparatory School and includes tennis courts, cricket nets and three fields for cricket, rugby and football. It is routinely used for Saturday sports matches, physical education and as a recreational area for Grammar's Edgecliff Preparatory School next door. There is also a gymnasium at College Street and rowing facilities at the school's boatshed at Gladesville.
In May 2005, Headmaster J. T. Vallance announced that the school would lead a consortium to purchase 30 Alma Street Paddington, known as White City, from Tennis New South Wales, thus extending the Weigall grounds substantially. In 2006, development applications to subdivide the White City tennis courts were lodged with Woollahra Council to develop the site to accommodate more tennis and basketball courts; these were passed.
In 2009, the school began the construction of a new, underground multi-purpose hall featuring a seating capacity of over 1,500 seats, now called the John Vallance Hall. The hall was officially opened by the headmaster on 18 August 2011 with a celebratory concert featuring performances from a large number of Grammar boys past and present.
Headmasters
The current acting headmaster of Sydney Grammar School is Philip Barr, who was appointed after the departure of Richard Malpass in August 2025. He will be replaced by the thirteenth headmaster Stuart McPherson in January 2026.| Years | Sydney College |
| 1825–1827 | Laurence Hynes Halloran |
| 1835–1841 | William Timothy Cape |
| 1841–1846 | Thomas Henry Braim, MA |
| 1847–1849 | David Patterson |
| 1850 | Charles Woodward, LLB |
| Years | Sydney Grammar School |
| 1857–1866 | William John Stephens, MA |
| 1867–1912 | Albert Bythesea Weigall, CMG, MA |
| 1913–1920 | Henry Newman Penrose Sloman, MC, MA |
| 1920–1923 | Arthur Henry Shakespeare Lucas, MA, BSc |
| 1923–1939 | Herbert Stanley Dettmann, MA, BCL |
| 1940–1950 | Frederick George Phillips, MA |
| 1951–1964 | Colin Oswald Healey, OBE, TD, MA |
| 1965–1968 | Samuel Peter Truman Houldsworth, MA, DipEd |
| 1969–1989 | Alastair MacLaurin Mackerras, AO, MA |
| 1989–1999 | Dr Ralph Douglas Townsend, MA, D.Phil. |
| 1999–2017 | Dr John Taber Vallance, MA, PhD |
| 2017– June 2025 | Dr Richard B Malpass, BA, DipEd, PhD |
| June 2025 – 2026 | Philip G Barr, BA, DipEd |
| 2026 – | Stuart McPherson, MA |
Co-curriculum
Music
SGS has won the AMEB Music Shield 23 times in the past 25 years. Two-thirds of pupils in the school play a musical instrument or are involved with music in some way. SGS has scores of musical groups in mostly classical, chamber and jazz styles. The School Orchestra engages in both national and international tours. In 2025, a combined schools orchestra will be performing in independent schools in Hong Kong. Grammar's choir program involves hundreds of students, old boys, and parents, participating in its many annual concerts. The school's senior a cappella group is known as The Grammarphones and is composed of the best tenors, basses and baritones in the senior years. The school's senior jazz orchestra, the Sydney Grammar School Jazz Orchestra, is a regular feature at the Manly Jazz Festival.SGS embarked on a five-year program entitled "Bach: 2010", in which all the known choral cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach were performed in a series of concerts between 2005 and 2010. Sydney Grammar is one of the few institutions in the world that has engaged in such an exercise and was aided by the Mander organ in the Big School. A performance has been held every year since by head of practical music studies, Robert Wagner, on the Bach's birthday.
Under the current Head Master, an organic rock-&-roll movement has emerged and is currently thriving. The end of 2004 saw the consummation of years of practice in the first Grammarpalooza rock concert, which included the musical style of Old Boy band, Dappled Cities Fly.