A right royal life lived to full Teacher and mentor to a Prince
MICHAEL Collins Persse was a legendary schoolmaster.
Like James Hilton’s fictional teacher, Mr Chips, Michael served his school for 63 years.
For nearly 40 years, he taught history at Geelong Grammar School, and from 1994, he remained on the campus at Corio as curator and archivist until his death.
He became an embodiment of the school – no school function was properly attended unless Michael was there, no school publication was complete without a contribution from Michael.
He took to writing to every boy and girl in the school for their birthday, every letter handwritten in fountain pen and at least 100 words long.
As he said, even some parents forget their children’s birthday. But not Michael.
A prodigious correspondent – he was estimated to write 3000 letters a year.
One of his correspondents was the Queen herself.
Michael was history tutor to the Prince of Wales during his two terms at Geelong 1966.
This led to a long, close and lasting friendship with the Prince – his mother and grandmother in too.
The Prince’s time in Australia 50 years ago was said to have “made a man of him”. Prince Charles called Michael “a National Treasure” and in 2015 he was made a Member of the Royal Victorian Order in recognition of his services to the Prince.
Last year he was honoured with an OAM for service to secondary education, and to history.
Michael Dudley De Burgh Persse (he later added Collins by deed poll in homage to his mother’s family) was born in Toowoomba to Dudley Persse, a grazier from Eskdale West near Toogoolawah, and Janette (nee Collins) from the famed Nindooinbah, near Beaudesert. The AngloIrish Collins and Persse families had been pioneers in the district since the mid-1800s with properties from the Channel country to the Burnett and Beaudesert, where they built fine homesteads, and at Mundoolun, a family church.
Michael grew up at Eskdale West with his brother Jonathan and sister Jane and enjoyed an idyllic bush childhood.
From 1941, he spent five years at Toowoomba Prep under its renowned headmaster Norman Connal, who was the first of three great educators to influence him.
He was Dux at Prep and even given a class to teach in his final year there.
From 1946, he shone at The King’s School, Parramatta, under the outstanding headmaster Denys Hake, his second mentor.
From 1950 to 1955, Michael read history and theology at the hallowed Balliol College Oxford, where his mother had studied.
And in November 1955, Michael’s legendary career at Geelong began under his third and greatest mentor Sir James Darling.
Michael would visit his grandparents, Charles and Violet Persse, at Burnage in East Toowoomba, where they had retired in 1948, and five decades later his sister, Jane Robinson, on her farm just out of town.
From the 1960s, “home” was Shady Tree, the Buderim house and beautiful garden he inherited from his parents.
Although he lived most of his life outside the state, Michael remained a proud Queenslander – and proved to be a great one.
Photo: contributed