OSCA’s Annual Dinner is the biggest (and one of the few surviving) alumni dinners in the APS – and probably exceeds most others in the country.
Why is it so?
That Scotch is no longer the largest school in the APS cannot explain why OSCA’s Annual Dinner remains so popular.
Some things are impossible to quantify, but the Scotch spirit and the bond that connects Scotchies to the school and to each other is renowned. Many who are sent to Scotch come to it as much for the education as for the enduring connection through OSCA, and in no place is that as obvious as at the Annual Dinner. Where else can you find hundreds of disparate blokes gathered together – aged from 18 to 109 – with one thing in common: a love of Scotch.
Even before the first formal Old Boys’ group – the Old Scotch Collegians’ Society (1879-85) – Old Boys were gathering together. On 30 November 1868 three Scotch boys attended the “Old Collegians’ Supper” at the Criterion Hotel, with diarist William Hamilton Skene (SC 1863-68) noting that “they were an awful rowdy set”. Some things never change….
The short-lived Society had its first Annual Dinner on 5 November 1879 with numerous toasts and responses, and whiskey and cigars. After its failure, the Old Scotch Collegians’ Club formed in 1895 – but only for those 21 and over, as it had licensed club rooms, and that was then the legal drinking age. It too had many hearty dinners, but excluding the youngest Old Boys limited its appeal and broke the continuity with the school. In 1913 the Old Scotch Collegians’ Association was founded for Old Boys aged over 16. More inclusive, it flourished, and although the OSCC continued in parallel, it ceased in 1935.
OSCA’ s inaugural Annual Dinner was held in 1914, but the next was not held until 1920 due to World War 1. For the same reason, there was no dinner from 1939 to 1945. For different reasons, no dinner was held in 1921 and 1929, with COVID preventing the dinners of 2020 and 2021 – the latter was all set to be held the following day.
Venues have included the Melbourne and St Kilda Town Halls, the original (1926-71) boarders’ dining hall, The Wattle, Melbourne University’s Union Hall, Chaucers, the Caulfield Racecourse and Melbourne Park.
Special anniversaries have generated enormous attendances. The 2001 sesquicentenary of Scotch saw a record 1205 attend the dinner at the Exhibition Buildings and 860 celebrated OSCA’s 2013 centenary. Several other years have exceeded 900.
From 1976 to 1989 and since 2006 except for 2013 and 2014, the dinner has been held at Leonda. Guest speakers have included former Prime Ministers Robert Menzies (1938 and 1968), John Howard (2010) and Prime Minister Tony Abbott (2015). Then-Melbourne Grammar School Principal Paul Sheahan faced up to more than a thousand Scotchies in 2001. Sir John Monash addressed his brethren in 1926 and in 1994 Ita Buttrose was the first of several female speakers.
Regardless of venue, speaker or special anniversary, Old Boys continue to make OSCA’s Annual Dinner its flagship and most enjoyable event. It celebrates all that they love about Scotch, and keep them coming back for more.
