Life So Full of Promise: further biographies of Australia’s lost generation

By Ross McMullin

Acclaimed historian and biographer Ross McMullin has again combined prodigious research and narrative flair in this sequel to Farewell, Dear People, the winner of multiple awards including the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History.

Life So Full of Promise, his second multi-biography about Australia’s lost generation of World War I, features a collection of interwoven stories set in that defining era.

The rich cast includes a talented barrister whose outstanding leadership enabled a momentous victory in France; an eminent newspaper editor who kept his community informed about the war while his sons were in the trenches; an energetic soldiers’ mother who became a political activist and a Red Cross dynamo; an admired farmer whose unit was rushed to the rescue in the climax of the conflict; the close sisters from Melbourne who found their lives transformed; a popular doctor who was more fervently mourned than any other Australian casualty; and a bohemian Scandinavian blonde who disrupted one of Sydney’s best-known families.

A feature of the book is its coverage of cricket and cricketers of the era. It reveals the untold story of a keen all-rounder who was chosen in an Australian team to tour England, but surprisingly did not go. There is also a superb biography of a brilliant yet practically unknown cricketer whose stunning feat has never been matched. Other prominent characters include the most versatile top-level sportsman Australia has ever known, and a Test prospect whose violent postwar death shocked the nation.

The storytelling is superlative, illuminating and profoundly moving.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scribe Publications
• Release date: Apr 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781761385049

Ross McMullin

Ross McMullin is an award-winning historian, biographer, and storyteller. Life So Full of Promise is his sequel to Farewell, Dear People: biographies of Australia’s lost generation, which won national awards, including the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History. His biographies include Pompey Elliott, which also won multiple awards, and Will Dyson: Australia’s radical genius, and he assembled Elliott’s extraordinary letters in Pompey Elliott at War: in his own words. His political histories comprise The Light on the Hill and So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the world’s first national labour government. During the 1970s he played first-grade district cricket in Melbourne.

Book preview

Life So Full of Promise

Ross McMullin is an award-winning historian, biographer, and storyteller. Life So Full of Promise is his sequel to Farewell, Dear People: biographies of Australia’s lost generation, which won national awards, including the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History. His biographies include Pompey Elliott, which also won multiple awards, and Will Dyson: Australia’s radical genius, and he assembled Elliott’s extraordinary letters in Pompey Elliott at War: in his own words. His political histories comprise The Light on the Hill and So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the world’s first national labour government. During the 1970s he played first-grade District cricket in Melbourne.

Scribe Publications

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Published by Scribe 2023

Copyright © Ross McMullin 2023

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

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978 1 922585 82 0 (paperback edition)

978 1 761385 04 9 (ebook)

Catalogue records for this book are available from the National Library of Australia.

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Contents

Formations in the military hierarchy

Imperial-to-metric conversions

Preface

PART I Brian Pockley

ONE School

TWO Medicine

THREE Bitapaka

FOUR Reaction

FIVE Brother

SIX Afterwards

PART II Norman Callaway

SEVEN Heritage

EIGHT Upbringing

NINE Potential

TEN Paddington

ELEVEN Waverley

TWELVE First-Class

THIRTEEN Pressure

FOURTEEN AIF

FIFTEEN Ordeal

SIXTEEN Aftermath

PART III Murdoch Mackay

SEVENTEEN Patriarch

EIGHTEEN All-Rounder

NINETEEN Family

TWENTY University

TWENTY-ONE Barrister

TWENTY-TWO Deciding

TWENTY-THREE Preparing

TWENTY-FOUR Gallipoli

TWENTY-FIVE Egypt

TWENTY-SIX France

TWENTY-SEVEN Heartstrings

TWENTY-EIGHT Postwar

Bibliography

Abbreviations in notes

Notes

Acknowledgements

FORMATIONS IN THE MILITARY HIERARCHY

Formations, in descending order, are as follows:

army

corps

division

brigade

battalion

company

platoon

section

IMPERIAL-TO-METRIC CONVERSIONS

1 mile = 1.6 kilometres

I yard = 0.91 metres

1 inch = 2.54 centimetres

1 acre = 0.4 hectares

100° Fahrenheit = 37.8° Celsius

Preface

This book is my second multi-biography about Australia’s lost generation of World War I, following Farewell Dear People, which was published in 2012. The aims and approach of the two books have been similar. They both contain a collection of interwoven family stories highlighting some of the exceptional individuals who did not survive the conflict. Each story establishes the outstanding prewar potential of one of the main characters, describes what happened to him during the conflict, and underlines the profound sense of loss for his nation as well as for his family in the aftermath.

The extraordinary Australians in Life So Full of Promise are unknown today. Their names and their achievements, as well as their radiant but unfulfilled promise, are unfamiliar to later generations. The deeply researched and revelatory stories in these pages seek to rectify this unawareness, while also illuminating what the war was like for Australians at home and at the sharp end, as the families and friends of the main characters are also conspicuous in the narratives.

A feature of the book is its coverage of cricket and cricketers of the era. One of the main characters is a cricketer who accomplished a stunning feat that became a unique record. Also prominent is a popular doctor, whose fate was mourned more fervently by his nation than any other Australian casualty in the whole war; two of his closest friends were on the verge of playing cricket for Australia. Moreover, in researching another of the family stories, which is mainly about a brilliant graduate who was such a remarkable and inspiring leader that the AIF historian Charles Bean predicted that someone might one day write a novel about him, I unexpectedly came across an unknown tale of a relative of his who was chosen in an Australian Test side to tour England — but did not go, and for an intriguing reason. As a result, this book not only emulates Farewell, Dear People in providing insights into the experiences of Australians in the period before, during and after the war — whether they were combatants or civilians, or soldiers’ wives or parents — but is also revealing about high-level cricket in that era.

The extensive stories in Life So Full of Promise are the product of immense research. As explained in Farewell, Dear People, each of the main characters has been depicted ‘in depth, to make it clear why he was special and why his death was a grievous loss to his nation. Retrieving these elusive stories, amending posterity’s neglect, has been an exacting task. But such extraordinary and inspiring Australians of rare potential should not be forgotten.’

PART I

Brian Pockley

CHAPTER ONE

School

Brian Pockley became a household name throughout Australia in World War I, well before Australians became familiar with Gallipoli. In fact, the war had been underway for less than six weeks. Pockley’s sudden fame had much to do with his family background.

His ancestors had been prominent in Australia for more than a century. Brian’s great-grandfather Henry Colden Antill, a major in the British army, came to New South Wales in 1809 with his commander and friend, Governor Lachlan Macquarie. Major Antill became Macquarie’s aide-de-camp, toured the settled districts with him, and accompanied him to Van Diemen’s Land. Antill was part of the vice-regal party that officially opened the road to Bathurst in 1815, and held various significant positions in the colony. He eventually settled at Jarvisfield, a notable estate near Picton.

Antill’s youngest daughter, Selina, was 16 when she married a renowned ship captain, 31-year-old Robert Francis Pockley. This union in 1854 confirmed a prediction the bridegroom had reputedly made. Having told young Selina that he could show her the girl he was going to marry, he produced a mirror and held it in front of her. ‘There she is!’ he declared.

Robert Pockley had followed his father into seafaring, and started young. He was a cabin-boy on sailing ships in the southern oceans by the age of ten, and had already become a qualified shipmaster when he decided at 19 to base himself in Sydney in 1842. An accomplished captain widely known as ‘Kid Gloves’ (from his habit of donning a distinctive pair of white gloves as his ships entered a port), he became the largest shipowner in the colony. Kid Gloves retired from active seafaring around 1857, but maintained his strong connection with the world of the sea — he kept noting the direction and strength of the prevailing wind in his diary several times each day. Having become a marine surveyor, Kid Gloves was appointed Harbour Master for the whole of New South Wales and also superintendent of Lights, Pilots and Navigation in the colony. When 122 passengers and crew aboard the Dunbar died after the ship shattered in wild seas and weather, a disaster that profoundly affected the people of Sydney, Kid Gloves was in charge of retrieving the broken vessel and dismembered bodies. His considerable absences over the years did not prevent his family life from flourishing — he and Selina had 15 children. Their eldest surviving child, Francis Antill Pockley, was to become Brian Pockley’s father.

Francis, who was known as Frank, benefited from the educational advantages that Kid Gloves provided. He attended Sydney Grammar School, where he served in the cadets, and was engaged by the Commercial Bank after his schooldays ended. But what Frank really wanted was to become a doctor; he was working at the bank as a stepping-stone, to accumulate savings to pay for his medical studies. The best university medical training in the British Empire was then in Scotland, and Frank began his course at Edinburgh in 1880.

Purposeful and decisive, Frank became engaged in November 1879 to 19-year-old Ellie Hooke, a bank manager’s daughter. His departure for Edinburgh two months later perturbed his father. Kid Gloves was all too aware of a ship’s lonely vulnerability amid towering seas. He arranged for his family to have lunch together on Frank’s ship, La Hague, before it sailed. ‘May the Almighty graciously bless and preserve my dear, good, much-admired boy’, Kid Gloves wrote in his diary:

At half past 2am I bid my dear son a last adieu and with aching heart reached home at 3am. The La Hague was to leave at daybreak, but as the wind had freshened at 7am I had the wagonette got ready and hurriedly drove wife, Ella, Harry, Florey, Ethel, Norman and Mabel to Georges Head and reached there before the La Hague passed, which she did at 8am, close enough for us to see Frank on the poop and exchange cooeys and signals with him. [For a while] the last wave of Frank’s handkerchief was shut from view behind the land, but [his ship] reappeared again opposite the Gap [and] with my good telescope I could discern people on the poop, but she gradually became more and more indistinct, and finally at 11.30am faded from view in the distance and haze. We then left on our return home, fervently praying to the great God to guard, guide and prosper my dear son and his fellow voyagers.

Frank arrived safely, but his first year at Edinburgh was ‘a hard grind’. As well as the standard medical curriculum — botany, zoology and chemistry (systematic and practical) — he had to pass French, Euclid, algebra, logic, metaphysics, natural philosophy and Greek (and he ‘did not know even the alphabet of the latter’ when he began). No wonder he ‘had not much time for anything but work’. Besides, in his view ‘social life in the University was conspicuous by its absence’, apart from the thriving Australian Club, which had a smoke concert every Saturday night and a wide range of Australian newspapers and magazines for over 100 members. Frank’s capacity was matched by his drive and dedication, and he overcame all the hurdles the course placed in his path.

In 1883, having successfully completed third year, Frank returned to Sydney on the Garonne for a brief sojourn. He was homesick, and had not seen Ellie for far too long. Attending to delicate matters of the heart from the other side of the world was excruciating; with mail conveyed by ship, after posting a letter he had to wait three months before he could start hoping for a reply. Frank was keen to reaffirm his ardour and prospects in person. To his delight and relief, Ellie, now 23, confirmed that she was still prepared to wait. They would marry (and become Brian Pockley’s parents) following the completion of Frank’s degree.

After a hectic fortnight Frank caught the express to Melbourne to rejoin the Garonne heading back to Edinburgh. With his matrimonial future reconfirmed, Frank felt galvanised with renewed purpose. He completed his course brilliantly, graduating with first-class honours, a prize and a scholarship. Having undertaken five months of postgraduate study at Vienna, he was appointed surgeon–superintendent on an emigrant ship to Sydney, a lucrative position that came his way as a result of Kid Gloves’ friendship with the premier of New South Wales.

Ellie was the eldest daughter of Alfred and Eliza Hooke. Alfred had been born in England, and emigrated to New South Wales during the early 1850s. Sydney-born Eliza was the eldest daughter of Charles Bath, a publican and retailer of wine and spirits in central Sydney. Eliza and Alfred married on the last day of 1857; according to the official certificate, she was 20 and he was a 25-year-old banker’s clerk. Alfred continued his diligent service at the Bank of New South Wales headquarters in George Street. His salary rose in regular increments while his family grew at regular intervals. The Hookes lived at Balmain, where Ellie and three other children were born.

Banking suited Alfred’s moral and methodical temperament. Brian Pockley’s grandfather was strong-willed, scrupulous and a stickler for propriety, someone who treated his responsibilities seriously at home and at work. He and Eliza sought to instil a domestic ambience of cultural enrichment that valued books and music.

In mid-1865, when Ellie was five, her family’s circumstances were transformed. The bank authorised a promotion for Alfred, with a further increase in his salary — now £400, it had doubled in ten years — but this involved a transfer to Wagga Wagga, where he was to become branch manager. Wagga Wagga was a growing town some 300 miles south-west of Sydney with a population approaching 1,000. The branch had opened just a few months earlier, but its newly arrived accountant jumped into a ‘blazing lime kiln’; his retrieved body resembled ‘a charred log’. After this shocking incident Head Office arranged for a fresh start with new staff, and Alfred became the manager. The replacement accountant created trouble of a different kind when he embezzled bank funds. Alfred notified Head Office, he testified in court, and the culprit was jailed.

The phenomenal gold discoveries ushered in a highly profitable era for the Bank of New South Wales. Not the least of Alfred’s challenges at its Wagga Wagga outpost was his responsibility to deliver gold bullion to the metropolis while gangs of bushrangers flourished ominously. Nevertheless Alfred came to like Wagga Wagga, so much so that his time there was probably the most fulfilling phase of his life. The branch premises, including the manager’s home, were located at a central corner of town with the mighty Murrumbidgee flowing nearby. Alfred supplemented the bank’s pivotal role in the district by becoming a notable community identity.

He was particularly prominent in charitable and cultural activities. Alfred was active on the hospital committee, and treasurer of the flood-relief fund. He served on the Mechanics’ Institute’s library and entertainment committees, and was keen to fix up the cemetery’s Church of England section. When a visitor to Wagga Wagga delivered a lecture on India, Alfred provided ‘selections of instrumental music’ on the harmonium. Head Office proposed a transfer to Camden in 1868, but Alfred replied that he preferred to stay where he was. Relocating his young family again did not appeal. Eliza gave birth at Wagga Wagga to two more daughters, Edith and Florence, who would become fond aunts of Brian Pockley.

Alfred was a Freemasonry enthusiast, and became Worshipful Master of the Wagga Wagga Lodge of Harmony. He laid the foundation stone of its future masonic hall in 1870 at a memorable ceremony ‘marked by great festivity’ with the town ‘bedecked with flags’. But the most dramatic event at Wagga Wagga that year was a catastrophic flood. Three years earlier, when a flood had been anticipated, Alfred had sent Eliza and the children away before the rising Murrumbidgee inundated both his bank and residence to knee-level. The magnitude of the deluge in 1870, though, was unexpected and disastrous. It was also terrifyingly rapid in the darkness of night. ‘Nothing more startlingly sudden could be imagined’ than this ‘roar’ and ‘rush’ of ‘seething, surging water’, the Wagga Wagga Advertiser reported.

The whole town was submerged. Alfred’s bank was six feet under water, with ‘books, papers, bank furniture, everything one indistinguishable, uncleansable mass of mud’. Amid scenes of chaos and distress, the bank’s verandah roof became a brief resting place for a brave rescuer swimming down the main street. The Hookes survived the ordeal, but Alfred had to move his family into the Royal Hotel and re-establish the bank at other premises.

Disruption intervened from another quarter the following year. Alfred contracted rheumatic fever, and it affected his heart. He was only 38, but had been working hard during a stressful time. On medical advice, Head Office granted him three months’ leave on half-pay. He was cleared to resume as Wagga Wagga manager in mid-1871, but he was still unwell. The bank transferred him to a less demanding position at Burrowa, where the citizenry were delighted with ‘the civility of his management’. They were less pleased when his ‘continued illness’ left the bank’s Burrowa business ‘seriously in arrears’. Alfred was recalled to Sydney, where a job was arranged for him at Head Office. He tried to keep going — he was the breadwinner, now responsible for a wife and six children with the birth of Bessie at St Leonards in 1872 — but to his dismay he was too ill to work. Acknowledging the inevitable later that year, Brian Pockley’s grandfather resigned from the bank he had served assiduously for 18 years.

Relinquishing work made little difference, and Alfred’s rheumatic heart disease consolidated its grip. The doctors could not alleviate his symptoms, and his prospects were bleak. These were distressing months for Ellie and all the Hookes. Alfred, in growing despair, resorted to a desperate gamble: he decided to travel to Hawaii to see if a different climate would help. He managed to get some work there as a music teacher, but not the recovery he was seeking. According to a Honolulu newspaper, he arrived ‘an invalid, in search of health. Modest and retiring in his habits, he made few acquaintances, and so remained a stranger in a strange land’. But not to the local Masons, who ‘tenderly cared for’ Alfred in his final days. He died at Honolulu on 17 November 1874, aged 41. Brian Pockley never knew his maternal grandfather.

Ellie’s elder brother, Francis, became ill a year later. It was a severe fever. Again the doctors were powerless. He died in February 1876, aged 17. The only compensation amid the family’s grief was that Alfred had been spared this ordeal. Ellie was now Eliza’s eldest surviving child, and had endured searing confirmation about the precariousness of health. Might this have influenced her responsiveness to Frank Pockley, her confident and ambitious suitor who aspired to become one of the finest doctors in the colony?

Frank’s medical mettle was tested during his voyage home to marry Ellie. The surgeon–superintendent role arranged for him, thanks to Kid Gloves’ connections, proved no sinecure. With ‘over 1,000 souls on board’ the emigrant ship, its newly graduated doctor faced numerous challenges. Frank recalled the experience with characteristic self-assurance:

I had nearly every possible disease to contend with, including measles, scarlatina, diphtheria (before the days of antitoxin), typhoid, varicella, mumps, broncho-pneumonias, whooping cough and infantile diarrhoeas galore, [yet] I arrived with five more than I had left with, having had six births — one an 8 months’ baby, weighing under 3 lbs (which survived), by a woman in the 3rd week of enteric, born unknown to mother (who was unconscious) or nurse (who was asleep), and being found by me in the morning in a pool of blood in the bed with the placenta attached.

On his first night ashore, asleep in his parents’ house, Frank was woken by a stranger with a lantern and a desperate query. ‘Are you the doctor?’ he implored. His child was dying of diphtheria. Frank ‘had to do a tracheotomy in an orchardist’s cottage by the light of a candle in a bottle’. Not long afterwards, on 1 July 1885, he married Ellie at St Thomas’s Anglican church in North Sydney. He was 28, and she was almost 25.

The newlyweds moved into a house alongside St Thomas’s in West Street, and Frank started in general practice on the North Shore. At that time, he later recalled, there were ‘only four other doctors for the whole of the Northern suburbs, extending from the harbour to the Hawkesbury, and from Lane Cove River to Manly’. His goal was to become an ophthalmologist — there were only two other eye specialists in New South Wales — but he continued for years as a GP while his ‘eye work’ gradually increased. He did not begrudge this, holding ‘the view very strongly that every specialist should do some years of general practice’.

Accomplished as well as opinionated, Frank proceeded to become one of Sydney’s most eminent specialists. He dispensed his expertise to grateful patients for decades from his prestigiously located rooms at 227 Macquarie Street. Frank was the lecturer on ophthalmic medicine and surgery at Sydney University for 35 years. Specialist journals published his papers ‘On the Prescribing and Wearing of Spectacles’ and ‘Case of Optic Nerve Tumour Removed by Kronlein’s Operation’. He initiated the use of cocaine as an anaesthetic in Australia. Also a pioneer motorist, he was driving himself around in his ‘trusty two-cylinder De Dion’ when there were only about 20 cars in New South Wales. The sight of this contraption alarmed horses and their riders, and when he arrived at a country town ‘the children were let out of school to see the wonderful thing’. Frank fulfilled his ambition to become a renowned identity in his chosen field. An ‘outstanding exponent’, he became ‘the doyen of ophthalmic practice in Australia’. His stature in his profession ensured that his children grew up in privileged affluence.

* * *

Frank and Ellie became parents in April 1886 when she gave birth to Phyllis. A son, Guy, followed ten months later in February 1887. Their third child, Brian Colden Antill Pockley, who was to become famous throughout Australia in the first weeks of World War I, was born on 4 June 1890. Another son, John (usually known as Jack), arrived in August 1891. When the youngest, Nell, appeared in May 1895, Ellie had given birth to five children in nine years.

Phyllis retained a fond memory of Brian as a toddler trotting about in blue overalls with a sailor hat on the back of his head. His initial attempts to pronounce her name were earnest but unsuccessful. Phyllis ended up with the enduring family nickname of ‘Tid’. Brian’s third birthday triggered a fond effusion from Frank:

Brian is a fat, chubby, rosy faced little darling. Very solid and solemn and deliberate in all his doings … He is rather shy with strangers at first, but not so bad as he used to be. He has a happy contented disposition, is easily amused and very affectionate. Everyone loves him. He has a fine open face with large earnest blue eyes. His hair, which has been scanty, is beginning to grow long and curly.

Frank also enthused about Brian’s siblings. Phyllis was ‘a remarkably clever, quick child … very restless and busy, and very trying to Ellie’ if insufficiently occupied. ‘She teases her brothers a good deal, but is a sweet affectionate child under it all.’ Guy, who was ‘growing fast’ and ‘easily tired’, had a ‘sweet disposition’ and a ‘beautiful face’. Jack was ‘remarkably sharp, quick and intelligent’, very active, and a ‘great mimic’ who ‘repeats every remark he hears’ and ‘snores loud as a man all night’. An involved father despite his busy professional life, Frank enjoyed having a playful ‘romp’ with his children.

He was also keen to engage them in the outside world. Frank loved sport, especially cricket. If an inter-colonial match was underway and he had no patients or university commitments to detain him, the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) was an irresistible magnet. Frank also enjoyed tennis. He played frequently, including in a suburban competition run by the Lawn Tennis Association. Rugby football was another favourite. Long ago, before he went to Edinburgh, Frank had captained St Leonards; in the 1890s he attended representative matches and was an inaugural vice-president of the North Sydney Football Club. As well, he liked fishing, photography, cycling and reading. He read Robinson Crusoe to Phyllis and Guy in 1893 (and earlier that year Frank and Ellie were reading David Copperfield together). In these activities he encouraged and welcomed his children’s participation.

None of Ellie’s siblings became a parent. Her sisters, Edith, Florence and Bessie, all younger than Ellie, did not marry. Their only surviving brother after Francis’s death was Fred, a draughtsman in the Public Works department. On 10 November 1887 he fell out of his third-floor office window head-first onto the pavement of busy Philip Street, and died in hospital five hours later of shocking injuries. He was 23. Frank Pockley identified the body, testified at the inquest and was unimpressed to find himself named in a newspaper as ‘Dr Pottey’. Some witnesses’ testimony suggested suicide, but the jury concluded that ‘the evidence adduced did not enable them to say whether the fall was accidental or otherwise’. The family’s death notice claimed that he had been ‘accidentally killed’.

Ellie’s sisters pursued impressive independent careers in education after the untimely deaths of their father and brothers. Edith founded her own school for girls, Woodstock, when she was only 20. It was located at North Sydney, close to the residence where Ellie and Frank were adjusting to parenthood after their marriage at nearby St Thomas’s. Brian and his siblings were the closest equivalents that their Hooke aunts had to offspring of their own. Ellie’s sisters remained a loving and supportive presence as her children grew up.

Edith was intent on providing her students with a genuine education, in contrast to certain other girls’ schools that were scholastically superficial and essentially marriage factories. Alfred Hooke would have been exceedingly proud of his daughter. She was an outstanding teacher. Languages, science, mathematics and music were all priorities at Woodstock. So was sport, which included tennis, cricket, hockey, basketball and swimming. Edith’s school consolidated and progressed. Florrie and Bessie, a talented singer and music teacher, joined her at Woodstock.

The students came to include Brian Pockley’s sister Phyllis and a number of her cousins. Edith told Frank in 1893 that seven-year-old Phyllis was ‘the master mind’ among her peers: ‘Takes the lead in everything and has them all running after and admiring her.’ Phyllis was a keen reader, musically talented and ‘the cleverest child she has ever had at the school’. Long afterwards the school magazine recalled Phyllis fondly: she ‘was for many years the chief originator of all games, plays and new ideas at Woodstock’. Phyllis was ‘so precocious’, concurred Ethel Turner, whose sister was to marry Frank Pockley’s brother Harold.

The Hookes had been settled in North Sydney for years, but the North Shore had been the Pockleys’ habitat for decades. Kid Gloves and Selina had based themselves there since the 1850s. They had resided initially at a St Leonards property that was, he noted, ‘all wild bush when my hands felled the first tree on it to make room for the house’. When he later acquired a farm at what was to become the suburb of Killara but was then ‘primeval bush’, friends told Kid Gloves he was mad to move his family there, and predicted ‘they would be eaten by the blacks’. Undeterred, he supervised the erection of an expansive residence, ‘Lorne’, which took years to build.

Frank had a similar plan in mind for his growing family. He and Ellie had left West Street, but were still residing in North Sydney at nearby St Leonards House in Miller Street, where Brian was born. Frank decided on a much bigger move to a locality taking shape further north, Wahroonga. The advent of the North Shore railway in 1890 had accelerated its development. Wahroonga had its own station from the outset, and Frank and Ellie attended the ceremonial opening of the extension to Milsons Point on 29 April 1893. To get to central Sydney they would still have to catch a ferry across the harbour, but the railway made commuting to the city feasible. At a time when congested Sydney was tainted with infectious diseases, the clean air of the leafy, lofty Upper North Shore was an attractive contrast. Wahroonga was an oasis for its residents, who developed a fond attachment to the area. The Upper North Shore was one of Sydney’s fastest-growing areas during the 1890s, and the Pockleys became part of the influx.

Having evaluated various options in the area, Frank and Ellie chose a property. It was a large acreage located between Burns Road and Water Street, which were to become two of Wahroonga’s most prestigious avenues. Frank wanted to erect a grand residence, but building delays were frustrating. He had a prominent supervisory role (tantamount to an owner-builder), and often stayed overnight at a ‘humpy’ on the property. Tennis had been a stranger to him for years, although cricket kept luring him to the SCG.

Frank decided to install the family at Wahroonga in 1898, even though much construction remained to be done, including the main roof. They would occupy a few of the more completed rooms, and cook and eat in the humpy. On 7 April, after meeting at Milsons Point — Phyllis came from Woodstock, where she had been boarding, while Brian and the other children came from Mittagong, where they had been staying — they all proceeded to Wahroonga, and slept in the new house for the first time. Seven-year-old Brian began at the nearby Wahroonga Grammar School with Guy and Jack. However, moving the family’s possessions proved a logistical nightmare, and Frank became stricken with lumbago. He then had to contend with the most severe storm for a decade:

It poured and blew a terrible gale all night. It is just the same ill luck that has pursued me ever since I bought the land here. Whenever I have wanted wet there has been a prolonged drought. Whenever I have wanted it fine for just a few days it has been a deluge. They were just stacking the slating and the house was thoroughly dry.

Ellie gave Frank a ‘handsome umbrella’ a few days later as a present for his 41st birthday. Construction continued around them for the rest of the year, and Ellie found the delays fatiguing and upsetting. Some tradesmen were cavalier about arrangements, the children were often sick, and the family’s living conditions remained far from ideal. Progress, despite Frank’s endeavours, was painfully slow. Frank hired a foreman, but he fell shortly afterwards while working at the house and ruptured his urethra; he did not return for months. Then Frank was stung by a bee, and the symptoms were so drastic he thought he was dying. Eventually, though, seven months after they moved in, Frank and Ellie slept in their bedroom for the first time.

The home taking shape around them, ‘Greystanes’, became renowned as one of Wahroonga’s most majestic residences. It was an imposing two-storey villa wrapped in a striking exterior of Scottish sandstone (stanes being the Scottish word for stones). Besides numerous bedrooms, its features included stylish arches, soaring chimneys, bay windows and wide verandahs on both levels. It was designed by Howard Joseland, an English-born architect who created many of the substantial homes being erected around the Upper North Shore, particularly at Wahroonga, including his own residence just four houses away from Greystanes.

In between, next door to Greystanes, another Joseland creation was erected, ‘Eldinhope’, for Ellie’s sister Florrie Hooke, who established her own private school there. Eldinhope opened in October 1900, with five-year-old Nell among the pupils. Edith stayed on at Woodstock, as did Phyllis, who was thriving there; a newspaper had published her fantasy story ‘The Fairy Fishes’. Bessie provided specialist music tuition at both her sisters’ schools. Their mother, Eliza — Brian called her ‘Gran’ — took up residence at Eldinhope. The Pockleys had paved the way by moving from North Sydney to Wahroonga. The Hookes (Edith aside) followed them there.

Ellie was delighted that her children would be able to maintain the close contact with their Hooke relatives that they had enjoyed in North Sydney. The nurturing and educational benefits were obvious; Florrie and Bessie were highly capable teachers. Eldinhope, like Woodstock, was a school for girls, but Brian’s aunts supplemented the tuition he and his brothers were absorbing at their school. And for Ellie, with five lively children to look after, it was a blessing to have their adoring grandmother and a doting aunt or two on hand next door.

Brian was now attending a different school. He had done well scholastically at Wahroonga Grammar; when Frank was invited to be the local dignitary handing out the prizes, no student received more than Brian’s four. But Frank and Ellie were appalled by a deplorable incident at the school — an assailant bashed Brian with a lump of wood, knocking a tooth out and loosening two others. When a schoolteacher from North Sydney expressed interest in opening another school for boys at Wahroonga, Frank encouraged him to do so; and as soon as the newcomer confirmed that he would, Frank gave notice immediately that his boys would be leaving Wahroonga Grammar. The new school did not prosper, though, lasting less than six months. Another schoolteacher from Sydney, Walter Treleaven, then emerged. With Frank’s encouragement he swiftly decided to open his Wahroonga Preparatory School for Boys near Greystanes, and Brian began there with his brothers on 29 January 1901.

Earlier that month Brian had witnessed the elaborate festivities that marked the inauguration of Australia as a nation. Frank, a political conservative, had voted against the 1898 federation referendum because New South Wales, in his view, would ‘lose too much and gain too little’. However, with federation now a fait accompli, he joined in the ‘great enthusiasm and rejoicing’ that marked the historic ceremony. He ensured that his whole family had a fine view of the stately procession from the verandah of his rooms at Macquarie Street. ‘It was an imposing sight’, Frank confirmed, with every branch of the British army represented. Two days later he accompanied Brian to a review of the British and local troops in Centennial Park in the morning, and also to ‘a most beautiful display by 10,000 public school children’ at the SCG in the afternoon. With celebrations continuing on 7 January, Frank took Brian and Jack to a military sports program at the Showgrounds and then to the cricket at the SCG, where New South Wales was in the process of amassing a score of 918, which was — and remained for decades — the record for a team’s innings at first-class level anywhere.

Frank was an enthusiast in military affairs. He had visited the Showgrounds before the ceremony to watch the troops practising for it. As well, he followed developments in South Africa intently as the war against the Boers continued, even more so after his brother Harry joined a bushmen’s contingent. Frank lobbied a former premier to help Harry get a commission, and took Guy, Brian and Jack to Randwick to see the volunteers train. He also arranged for his sons to see departing contingents march along Macquarie Street. Frank was intermittently frustrated by British military incompetence — he concluded simply from reading the papers that they had been slow learners tactically — but was, as an ardent British loyalist, jubilant when Mafeking was relieved (and deeply saddened by the death of Queen Victoria, who had reigned throughout Frank’s life).

Family heritage was a priority for Frank. On the ninth anniversary of his father’s death, when an urgent hospital predicament prevented him from taking his children to the grave at St Thomas’s cemetery, he was pleased when Phyllis agreed to take her brothers instead. Frank also ensured that his offspring retained a strong sense of connection to his mother’s family, the Antills; his customary signature was ‘F. Antill Pockley’. Brian’s tenth birthday was overshadowed by the death of his great uncle, 78-year-old John Macquarie Antill, whose father had accompanied Governor Macquarie to Australia in 1809. Frank revered his Uncle John, and took Guy, Brian and Jack to the funeral at Jarvisfield. The deceased’s son of the same name, an officer in the Mounted Rifles, fought in South Africa with two contingents from New South Wales, and married on his return; Frank, Ellie and their children attended the wedding and the lavish reception at the Australia Hotel.

As they grew up, the Pockley offspring absorbed an unequivocal perception that military participation was admirable, especially for a clan with a century of distinguished heritage in Australia. Brian was particularly aware of this. He not only had Antill as his third given name, which Frank had ensured all his children had; as Brian Colden Antill Pockley he had an explicit connection to Governor Macquarie’s valued friend and assistant, who was Major Henry Colden Antill.

On 21 May 1901, a fortnight before Brian’s 11th birthday, 20 Wahroonga citizens met to inaugurate an Anglican church east of the railway. Frank Pockley attended, along with Joseland the architect and other influential residents such as Charles Wade, a leading barrister and neighbour at 45 Burns Road, and John Elliott Slade, a draughtsman who lived in nearby Cleveland Street and was prominent in numerous community activities. When they reassembled, at Florence Hooke’s school, Joseland showed them a design for a hall that could later become part of a church. This building was opened in November 1904 at the western end of Water Street, close to Greystanes, after three trustees had acquired the property earlier that year on behalf of the church. Frank Pockley and Charles Wade were two of the trustees.

The Pockleys were regular parishioners at the church, which was named St Andrew’s. Brian and his siblings attended the Sunday school, and his parents and aunts continued to support the church in various ways. In May 1903, when meetings were arranged to establish a Wahroonga branch of the Anglican Mothers’ Union, they were held at Greystanes, and Ellie was elected branch secretary.

Their fourth meeting was at another grand residence in Water Street, ‘Rippon Grange’. Its owner was Frederick Sargood, son of the recently deceased merchant of the same name who had been an inaugural senator in federal parliament and had a famous mansion in Melbourne, ‘Rippon Lea’. The Wahroonga Sargoods of Rippon Grange — Frederick, his wife Agnes and their children Marian, Nancy and Fred junior — were close to the Pockleys, and the families often socialised together.

Brian befriended the Slades and the Wades, the Joselands and the Sargoods. Wahroonga was his home turf, with its distinctive ambience of fine homes amid tracts of thick bush — the ‘towering gums and wattles, and the songs and flittings of birds’. He grew up contentedly there as the middle child in his family with his aunts next door. His bedroom opened onto the wide upstairs balcony at Greystanes and a tranquil view across the grounds, which Frank, a diligent and proficient gardener, was transforming with judicious planting of trees and flowers. When he decided to allocate some domestic tasks to his sons, ten-year-old Brian became responsible for looking after the chickens.

Frank, capable and practical, continued to find plenty to occupy him at home after Greystanes was completed. As well as gardening assiduously, he was often to be found in his workshop immersed in carpentry, creating a chicken house and other such structures. He made and fixed gates and fences, created a trellis for passionfruit vines, and sketched a design for stables and a coach house that he submitted to Joseland. The brick guttering in the driveway proved a protracted project. When the Wades had a malfunctioning tap, Frank fixed the problem.

Despite his purposeful activity at home and his busy professional life, Frank remained an engaged and nurturing father. When young Jack was sick and distressed, it was Frank who slept all night beside him. When Phyllis began boarding at Woodstock, it was Frank who called in frequently to see her. When Nell turned six, it was Frank who gave her a pony, and rode around Wahroonga with her regularly before breakfast. When Guy, in contrast to his siblings, ‘did very badly all round’ in his school exams and developed a keen interest in art, Frank gave him a book on figure drawing for his birthday, and enrolled him as a student at the Art Society of New South Wales under the well-known illustrator Frank Mahony.

Brian also benefited from his father’s fond guidance. Frank, discerning interest and aptitude, gave Brian a football for his 11th birthday and a desk that year for Christmas. (Guy received bicycle tyres, and Jack acquired a tool kit.) While Guy was pursuing his fascination with art, Frank took Brian and Jack to the SCG, where the emerging virtuoso Victor Trumper gave a ‘pretty exhibition’ before unluckily playing on for 31. When Brian had to see the family dentist (his uncle Norman), Frank took him to the Art Gallery of New South Wales afterwards. Frank’s long walks with his children continued to be a feature of Brian’s family life. Brian enjoyed the various family holidays Frank arranged, including to Shellharbour, where Frank took his boys surfing before breakfast. After Frank’s gardening and supervision of tradesmen resulted in the creation of a croquet lawn and tennis court at Greystanes, Brian derived pleasure from both. Tennis was first played on the new court on Christmas Day 1901, with Brian, Phyllis, Jack and Frank the initial quartet.

Ellie lacked Frank’s drive and energy. She often felt tired and seedy, and she was concerned about her heart, understandably after her father’s death at 41. Her health became a recurring problem, aggravated by her susceptibility to anxiety. At a card party at the Wades she had an ‘attack of palpitation’, and had to leave. Two similar episodes — conceivably panic attacks — followed in mid-1901. Though a devoted wife and mother, Ellie often felt compelled to retire to bed, detaching herself from the household routine and leaving its management to Frank and the domestic help.

Brian admired his father’s ability and stature in his profession. When politicians concluded that the poor quality of the Parliament House lighting was harming their eyesight, Frank was the expert that the state government asked for advice. He was a leader and achiever, tallish and commanding, a father to revere and follow. His familiarity with the benefits of medical science reinforced his responsiveness to technological advances. As well as being a pioneer motorist in Sydney who enjoyed participating in driving competitions, Frank installed at Greystanes one of the earliest telephones in the district; both his car and phone, which visitors sometimes called in to use, were numbered 22. He was also a camera enthusiast, and belonged to the Photographic Society of New South Wales; he had the expertise and self-assurance to deliver a presentation to it. Frank headed off to Wahroonga station with his Sydney Morning Herald confident that he would meet the day’s challenges and provide the best possible care of his patients’ eyes. When torrential rain one April afternoon sentenced him to a drenching trudge home after alighting from his steam train, he was touched to find nine-year-old Brian waiting for him at the station with his raincoat.

Brian had the same kind of agile mind as his father, but his temperament was different. Frank was intelligent, and so was Brian; but Brian was unassuming, and Frank was not. Friends and peers liked Brian and gravitated to him not because of any follow-me tendencies, but because he was amiable and obliging, considerate and unselfish. He also had something of Alfred Hooke’s moral compass: he was ethical, upright, diligent and prepared to apply himself to make the most of his talents. Brian’s conspicuous athletic abilities reinforced his popularity. He could run faster than anyone.

His scholastic results continued to be excellent. When the Wahroonga Preparatory School held its annual speech day on 11 December 1902, Brian was awarded first prize in English, French, Latin and geometry. In 1903, after he sat for a special examination, the Sydney Church of England Grammar School granted him a scholarship. Later that year, at his farewell Wahroonga Prep function, he was given prizes for English, French, algebra and arithmetic. The dignitary who presented them to Brian was his family’s close friend and neighbour, the newly elected MP for Willoughby, Charles Wade.

* * *

The Sydney Church of England Grammar School had been founded in 1889 with an Anglican affiliation. It came to be widely known as Shore because of its North Shore position, and also because the obvious abbreviation ‘Grammar’ was already associated with its older rival, Sydney Grammar School. Frank had attended Grammar, but Shore was more convenient — no need to cross the harbour. In fact, Frank’s younger brothers Harold and Eric had been among the initial intake at Shore in 1889 (and its location happened to be remarkably close to Brian’s birthplace).

Brian’s adjustment to secondary school was eased by his family circumstances. As the middle child of five siblings whose births spanned nine years, with only the eldest and youngest being girls, Brian was close to his brothers in age and in childhood experiences. He and Jack (who was a year younger) began at Shore together in 1904, making the transition easier for both. As well, Guy, two years older than Brian, had paved the way in 1902 (and was doing better at his studies). Other Wahroonga boys Brian knew, such as Charles Wade’s son Burton, were also attending Shore. Its enrolment was growing, from 126 in 1901 to 332 four years later.

It was a year of adjustment not only for Brian. The advent of the world’s first national labour government in April 1904 was a startling development. Led by Australia’s third prime minister, Sydney compositor Chris Watson, the cabinet of novices included miners, a practically blind ex-labourer, a fervent Irish nationalist and a borrowed lawyer from another party. Also jaw-dropping was Japan’s devastating success in its war against Russia, a triumph that transformed Australia’s defence planning during the ensuing decade. Brian heard conversation and consternation about these concerns, but they were matters for adults. He focused on his own transition.

School was no longer a short leisurely stroll away. Brian had to walk half a mile to Wahroonga station and catch a train south to Bay Road, and from there he had another similar walk up the slope to Shore. Walking was no hardship, but he did have to get himself going much earlier to catch his train. It was the North Shore railway that made it feasible to attend his new school while residing at Greystanes.

Proceedings at Shore began with assembly at 8.40am, and tuition occurred in one-hour lessons. There were two from 9.00am, then a break at 11.00 before another class from 11.30. Lunch was at 12.30. Two afternoon classes ensued from 1.30, and lessons ended at 3.30. Sport and other activities followed.

Frank was not content with sending his boys to Shore. He wanted to support the school more overtly. In 1904, Brian’s first year, Frank endowed new annual awards: ‘We have to thank Dr F. Antill Pockley for his generosity in offering two valuable prizes — one for the Upper and the other for the Lower School — to be awarded for character and athletic merit as well as efficiency in work.’

Brian’s efficiency in work was soon evident. He was among the prize-winners in his first year. His temperament soon attracted admirers: he was genial and genuine, engaging and companionable, helpful and obliging. Brian’s capacity to get on naturally with others was a noticeable attribute — perhaps more likely, according to some analysts, among middle children like him — and he was good at finding common ground in collective situations. Unassertive and unpretentious, he was a high achiever without being driven. Self-reliance, unostentatious charm and an understated air of noble idealism were also features of his endearing personality.

Charles Hodges, Brian’s esteemed headmaster at Shore, highlighted the significance of sport. It had ‘played a great part in creating the British Empire’, he declared, and was ‘of extreme importance in the formation of the character of our boys’:

Opportunities for the practice of those virtues which stamp the real man — courage, vigor, chivalry, straightforwardness — are found perhaps more frequently in the playing field than [in the classroom]. There is developed that self-denying devotion to a common cause … and they who cultivate this spirit in their school days are not likely to be found wanting to the State in later life, when they play their part as citizens.

Cricket, the national game, was prominent at Brian’s school. Shore fielded nine teams in 1904, and recorded their results in the school magazine, The Torch Bearer. A notable fixture for Brian during his first term was an ‘Under Age Match’ against the school he had just left. Shore’s score more than doubled Wahroonga Prep’s tally, and the highest accumulators for Brian’s new school besides his brother Jack were a 13-year-old pair, Jack Massie and Claude Tozer, who were to become closely associated with the Pockleys while developing into two of the finest cricketers in New South Wales.

Brian liked cricket, but his running talent drew him to other sports that had also attracted Frank as a student. At Brian’s first Shore athletics meeting he won a heat in the 220 yards and almost won his heat in the 100. As well, contesting the 440 for those over 14 — though he had just reached this age himself — he proceeded to win his heat. In the final, before a sizeable crowd at the famous SCG, Brian finished a creditable third against bigger and stronger rivals. His stamina matched his dash. Grizzled observers nodded sagely that the slender newcomer was full of promise. Guy Pockley also did well. He won the hurdles, and was placed in several other events.

Football (rugby union) was a priority for Guy, as it was for his brothers. Guy was a regular in Shore’s first fifteen in 1904. A hard-working forward, he was praised for his adroit ‘footwork, both in and out of the scrum’. The following year, when Guy sometimes captained the side, he was joined by 15-year-old Brian, who gravitated to a different role because of his eye-catching pace. He was a winger, or ‘three-quarter’ as his position was then called, an outside player whose main role was to carry the ball swiftly forward. The Torch Bearer analyst praised Brian’s rapid, evasive running, but felt his indecisiveness without the ball was a handicap: ‘Tackles fairly, but waits too long instead of going at the man. Fair kick. Uncertain at handling. Rather lazy and inclined to dream on the field.’

Brian’s manner could be deceptive. He was sometimes languid, but hardly lazy, as his scholastic results continued to show. At the 1906 junior matriculation exams he starred with straight As in English, French, Latin, arithmetic, algebra, geometry (second in the state) and physics. No Shore student had ever performed so brilliantly, headmaster Hodges proudly proclaimed. Not far behind Brian were his classmates Claude Tozer and Dudley Williams. They had encouraged and spurred each other.

Moreover, Brian had been purposefully engaged in organisational activities. The General Sports Committee, which administered games at Shore, included students, and Brian and Tozer were elected as members in March 1906. There were also specialist committees for individual sports, and later that year Brian was elected onto the swimming committee. Keen to involve himself in rowing, he joined that committee as well. Furthermore, when headmaster Hodges advocated the creation of a Shore debating society, Brian became an inaugural committee member and participated enthusiastically in its debates. When the topic was whether maths or classics were more important, he ‘stunned his hearers with the picture he painted of what the world would be like without Mathematics: no roads, bridges or even houses’.

Brian had an outstanding year at Shore in 1907. He was awarded a senior scholarship after his superb exam results, along with Claude Tozer. They were also appointed as prefects, and so was Dudley Williams. Prefects assisted the teachers by providing leadership to the younger boys and maintaining discipline outside the classroom (including beyond the school grounds). Brian was engaged at Shore in other ways outside the classroom, being still on the General Sports Committee and on the individual committees relating to football, rowing, swimming, athletics and debating.

He was just as purposeful on the sporting field. Now 11 stone, bigger and stronger, and displaying discerning judgement as well as arresting pace, he scored a series of brilliant tries for the Shore first fifteen (which now included his brother Jack at fullback). With his instinct for an opening, and his rapid acceleration and deceptive swerve, Brian was ‘extremely difficult to stop’. Furthermore, he proceeded to dominate the 1907 Shore athletics meeting in unprecedented fashion. Brian had almost accomplished the rare feat of winning the coveted senior championship as a 16-year-old in 1906. His performance 12 months later was phenomenal.

As usual there was a sizeable attendance at the SCG, although the gusty, dusty conditions did not suit spectators or athletes. A ‘gale’ was blowing the hurdles ‘over time after time’, The Australian Star reported. Nevertheless Brian proceeded to win all open-age races apart from the mile — the 100, 220, 440, 880 (in record time) and the 120 yards hurdles — together with the high jump and the long jump. He secured the trophy for champion athlete with a record points tally. Underneath The Torch Bearer’s chronicle of this extraordinary triumph was a comprehensive financial statement about the event, covering the cost of the band, expenses on stamps and stationery, and such other details as ‘cartage, material and sundries’. It was ratified by ‘B.C.A. Pockley, Hon. Treasurer’.

He was certainly busy. His days at Shore were long and full. An admirer had claimed that Brian was equipped to row in Shore’s crew if only he could find the time to practise. He somehow did manage to find some time in 1907, attending the rowing camp at Gladesville and the gruelling training thereafter. But the main objective of it all, the Great Public Schools (GPS) regatta on 24 April, proved a distinct anti-climax. The stroke in Brian’s boat ‘crabbed badly’ just after the start, and Shore finished well behind their rivals. It was acutely disappointing, even though The Referee, an authoritative sporting weekly, observed that ‘Pockley shaped particularly well’ during the futile, distant pursuit.

Brian decided not to continue with rowing. His sporting priority in 1908 was football. Shore’s team trained on Monday and Friday afternoons each week. Brian was elected captain of the side, and excelled in the role. With his unrivalled pace complemented by deceptive feints and swerves, and Jack alongside him as a fellow three-quarter, Shore’s backs attacked effectively. Observers acclaimed the quality of Brian’s leadership, his ‘dash and determined running’, and his willingness to keep playing despite being handicapped by an injured knee.

The GPS football competition generated intense interest, attracting attendances of up to 2,000 spectators. Brian’s numerous vital tries repeatedly decided close contests, such as a clash at the SCG when he broke a 0–0 deadlock in driving rain and atrociously boggy conditions with a last-minute try after receiving a pass from Jack. Shore’s first fifteen remained undefeated in 1908, and won the GPS championship for the first time. Brian was delighted to receive the trophy from its donor, the governor of New South Wales.

His inspiring leadership was recognised not only at Shore. He was appointed captain of the combined schools team for the annual fixture against University. In athletics Brian won the shield again as Shore’s champion, and his leap to win the long jump at the combined schools meeting (Jack was second) has been described as greater than any other schoolboy accomplished that year in Australia or England. Moreover, when Shore established a cadet corps in 1908, Brian involved himself purposefully in its activities. He and Claude Tozer were the first students chosen as officers. Also contributing to this memorable year for Brian was the celebrated arrival of the United States Navy’s ‘Great White Fleet’, which generated the largest crowd that had ever assembled in Sydney.

All these pursuits did not prevent Brian from attaining exceptional results at the senior matriculation examinations. After ‘studying hard with green eyeshade’, he and Tozer again stood out. Brian gained first-class honours in Latin, but was behind Tozer, who topped the state. In English it was Dudley Williams who finished fourth, while Brian and Tozer were equal fifth. Such exploits were all the more admirable considering Shore’s overall results. Less than 2 per cent of the students who left the school between 1906 and 1910 did so with their junior and senior matriculation certificates.

The culmination of Brian’s years at Shore came when he was adjudged a fitting recipient of the prestigious prize that his father had inaugurated four years earlier. Frank had long admired Brian’s progress and accomplishments, but this was the cream on the crumble for both donor and recipient. All the Pockleys, and the Hookes, were thrilled and proud. Frank had established his Pockley Prize with equivalent criteria to the Rhodes Scholarship — character and leadership together with athletic and scholastic excellence. The school regarded it as by ‘far the most valuable one that we have to offer’. Standards were high. The prize had not been presented since 1905.

In 1908, however, headmaster Hodges and his staff unanimously decided that a dual award was appropriate. The Pockley Prize was given jointly to Brian Pockley and Claude Tozer. It was an understandable verdict, as their achievements had been strikingly similar. Just as Brian had led Shore’s first fifteen superbly to unprecedented success, Tozer had been Shore’s cricket captain and most redoubtable batsman (highlighted by his 261 v St Joseph’s). Tozer had once again demonstrated his capacity to concentrate for long periods, whether batting or studying.

Hodges certainly rated Brian highly:

[He was] as near to my ideal schoolboy as any boy in my experience. In work and games alike he displayed a splendid keenness and an admirable temper, and won high honours for the school and for himself, and the unconscious influence which he exercised was in the direction of an upright manliness. As a prefect he helped me more than he was aware of by loyalty, by respect to duty, and by charm of manner.

CHAPTER TWO

Medicine

Phyllis Pockley, Brian’s sister, cherished his successes. Her energetic leadership had been a feature of his upbringing. She was thrilled by his prizes and sporting accomplishments, and revelled in his company. This was again evident during a family holiday at Manly in 1908. Phyllis, now 21, had become a woman of leisure. Slim, stylish and articulate, a skilled dressmaker with impeccable taste, she was an avid reader and fluent writer who liked the piano, dancing and skating as well as cricket, billiards and tennis. She also enjoyed walking, especially with Brian. ‘We walk miles sometimes’ in perfect harmony, she enthused. At Manly the siblings headed off together to ‘the far end of the ocean beach’, and sat there ‘exclusively and happily for an hour or two’, Phyllis told Bessie Hooke. ‘He is a dear old sort to go with’, she added.

University was the predictable destination for Brian after his scholastic results. Some students from families who had never been to university could find the notion of tertiary education challenging and the campus environment alien, but it was the opposite for Brian. The University of Sydney, which was to remain the city’s only such institution for another four decades, was not unfamiliar territory at all. His brother Guy was a student there, his father Frank lectured there, and his uncle Eric had graduated there.

Brian decided to follow all three into medicine. He admired his father’s stature in the profession, which was almost becoming the family business. But there was more to Brian’s decision than that. He was well aware that he had been immensely privileged to live in a grand home, attend an elite school, and benefit from such