Rumour, not scandal

Press, 19 April 1980, Page 2

Rumour, not scandal

A long-squashed rumour about Amberley Girls’ College in 1938 was inadvertently described in an article in “The Press” on March 31, as a “scandal.” The school, now the property of Amberley House tree nursery, closed in 1942 after many of the 44 pupils were taken away to help on their parents’ farms during World War 11. A former member of the college’s board of governors recallsthat parents were uneasy because fear of a invasion was high, land the school was close to (the North Canterbury coast.

Word of scandal spread] when two of the girls were-! taken to hospital with scarlet fever. The story, attributing much more discreditable reasons for their absence, spread widely in Christchurch and the chairman of the board of governors, the late Mr E. A. Flower, publicly warned that legal proceedings would .be taken against anyone known to have repeated the “lying statements.” On June 29, 1938, the board and parents met in Christchurch and unanimously expressed confidence in the college’s staff and management.

The scandal-mongers were (then rebuked by the weekly newspaper, ‘‘Truth/’ which declared that “there is not, nor ever has there been, any truth in the malicious, wicked scandal that has been accepted as truth by so many people that should have known better.” The closing of the school four years later was not, however, the result of the rumour-mongering; nor was there any court case concerning the school, as our story wrongly mentioned. The school closed for the want of sufficient pupils. The error in our article is regretted,