Trinity Grammar feud gets even weirder

The New Daily
Mar 21, 2018, updated Mar 21, 2018

A truck with a billboard criticising headmaster Michael Davies was driven outside the school. Photo: ABC

The feud at Melbourne’s Trinity Grammar private school has escalated after a truck carrying protest billboards circled the school grounds for hours on Wednesday.

Students and parents are angry that popular deputy principal Rohan Brown was sacked two weeks ago for cutting a boy’s hair.

The protest truck carried a sign saying “It’s time to go”, directed at headmaster Michael Davies, who is blamed for Mr Brown’s firing.

“Our school community is far too progressive and inclusive for your 18th century values,” the billboard read.

To illustrate Mr Davies’ alleged views, the billboard included a purported quote from the headmaster: “A Trinity Education should heed the opening words of Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice: ‘It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife’.”

Mr Brown was fired for this haircut, which he allegedly performed to keep a student’s hair within the school’s strict appearance guidelines. Photo: Supplied

The quote is a reference to a famous romance novel published in the 1800s that satirised the social expectation, prevalent at that time in England, of marrying for wealth not love.

In the midst of the backlash, many of Mr Davies’ former colleagues at another Melbourne private school have come to his defence.

A letter written by St Kevin’s headmaster Stephen Russell, sent to The New Daily and other media outlets on Wednesday, praised Mr Davies as a “deeply respected and fondly remembered” former employee.

“Student and staff welfare was always uppermost in his mind and reflected in his actions,” Mr Russell wrote.

“He [Mr Davies] remains a highly esteemed colleague.”

The letter was signed by current St Kevin’s chair Peter Leahy as well as other current and former school leaders.