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Career Mentoring Morning

Anticipation Mounts for the Inaugural FSHS Mentoring Program Event on 27 February

The last Friday morning in February will see Fortians and Year 12 students exchanging ideas on topics such as “What are my career options?” or “How many jobs did you try until you found the career for you?” or even “What’s the best (or worst) aspect of being a …?”.

This event sees the Fortians Union working together with staff at Fort Street High School to help extend students’ perspectives on career options. Over 30 former students will give a brief overview of their career path in a small group setting, providing a mentoring perspective on their personal career journey. Similar to a “Speed Dating” event, students will chat to different mentors from various walks of life, using the opportunity to ask those potentially challenging questions.

This morning will start at 8:30 am, with formal discussions kicking off at 9:00 am. Students will then have the opportunity to ask questions in a more informal setting. There will be a morning tea afterwards (around 11:00 am) for the mentors to mingle.

There are still some spaces available for mentors, so if you would like to help the next generation and give back to the school, please email Maryse@fortians.au.

Fortians Union Memorabilia - Coming Soon

Fortian Stories

From the Classroom to the Exhibition Hall: Rosina Starkey’s Remarkable Needlework

In 1868, while enrolled at Fort Street Model School on Observatory Hill, 14-year-old Rosina Priscilla Starkey set herself an extraordinary task. Working patiently in coloured wool threads, she produced a vast framed embroidery depicting a dramatic scene from Shakespeare’s Henry VIII: Cardinals Wolsey and Campeius confronting Queen Catherine in the Queen’s Chambers, watched by her ladies-in-waiting. The finished work measured more than one and a half metres high and nearly as wide - a formidable achievement for any embroiderer, let alone a schoolgirl.

At the time, needlework formed an important part of girls’ education in Australia, reflecting expectations that young women would one day manage households and families. Berlin woolwork - a popular nineteenth-century embroidery style using pre-printed patterns transferred onto square-mesh canvas - allowed ambitious designs to be tackled in vibrant colour. Religious and historical scenes were especially fashionable, and Rosina’s Shakespearean subject placed her work firmly within that tradition.

What makes this story remarkable is what happened next.

In 1870, Rosina’s picture was entered in Sydney’s Metropolitan Intercolonial Exhibition at Prince Alfred Park - a vast public showcase inspired by London’s Crystal Palace exhibition and designed to demonstrate colonial industry, craftsmanship and artistic skill. Among displays ranging from machinery to livestock, Rosina’s embroidery hung in the decorative arts section, where it attracted admiration and earned her a bronze medal for “excellence of work for so young a girl”.

Newspaper reviewers were fulsome in their praise, marvelling at the accuracy of costume, the careful grouping of figures and the effects of light and shade achieved using nothing more than woollen threads. Fort Street’s contribution did not go unnoticed either: reports singled out Rosina’s piece as one of the school’s standout exhibits.

The picture returned to exhibition halls again and again. It appeared in subsequent agricultural and industrial shows in the early 1870s and, in 1879, was entered in the grand Sydney International Exhibition held in the Garden Palace in the Botanic Gardens. By then Rosina was married, but her work was once more singled out for distinction, receiving a First Degree of Merit for its colour and shading.

For decades the tapestry remained in family hands, hanging in the Jenkins household in Ashfield. After Rosina’s death in 1928, her daughters ensured it would be preserved and displayed publicly. It spent many years at Vaucluse House, where visitors encountered it above the drawing-room fireplace, before featuring in major exhibitions celebrating Australian decorative arts.

Today, Rosina Starkey’s woolwork resides in the collection of Sydney’s Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (the Powerhouse Museum), still in remarkable condition after more than a century and a half. From a Fort Street classroom to international exhibitions and museum galleries, the journey of this extraordinary piece speaks volumes about youthful skill, patience and ambition – and about the opportunities Fortians have long been encouraged to seize.

It is a story worth remembering: a 14-year-old Fortian, needle in hand, quietly creating a work that would travel far beyond the school gates and endure for generations.

We gratefully acknowledge Margaret Carlisle’s article “A Berlin woolwork picture” in Australiana (August 2014) as a source for this piece.