Class of 1909

Lindsay Gordon Glowrey was one of two boys in the family sent to Aquinas by their father John who leased the Palace Hotel for 20 years from 1901. It was a huge social and architectural landmark in those days and afforded its owner a certain amount of prestige.

Lindsay was a boy who thought it was important to be the best you can be but was selective in this regard. The college annual said of him: “Lindsay always aimed at the highest, and nothing less would satisfy him. As a young boy he showed no disposition for sport, nor indeed did he seem cut out by nature for strenuous physical exertion: still, no boy, except perhaps Jack Savage, forged most to the front in athletics than Lindsay. He excelled at cricket, football, rowing, gymnastics and running”. Not bad for someone not cut out for physical exertion. He was also a Prefect in his leaving year.

Lindsay was a natural leader who stood out from the crowd and encouraged others to do likewise. As a small schoolboy according to the school’s Annual Review for seven consecutive years he held “an elaborate banquet for the senior boys, the sports master and representatives for the other schools. “ He presided over these occasions which were run like a state banquet with printed name cards and menus. Lindsay himself gave the toasts of “The King”, “The College”: “with as much ease as if he were Prime Minister of the Commonwealth”. The Annual comments that these occasions indicate the sort of person he was and that they were “unique in Australian school life”.

He studied Law at UWA after leaving college and was articled to Marks Smith and Lavan when World War One claimed him for the Australian war effort. He left Perth in February 1916 with the 16th Battalion reinforcements and after serving time in Egypt he was sent to England where he was a “transport officer between England and France”. However soon after he was sent to the trenches in France tragically he was killed in action fighting in the 16th Australian Infantry Battalion.

Lindsay’s memorial details are recorded at the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial in Picardie, France.