Percy Fritz Rowland: A Brief Biography

Abstract

PERCY FRITZ ROWLAND (1870-1945), headmaster of Townsville Grammar School from 1905 to 1938, was by any measure a remarkable man. Earning his way by scholarships and bursaries, rare in his day, he took Final Honours in Classics (Literae Humaniores) at Oxford in 1893. Undecided whether to enter journalism or education, he preferred the former but fell into the latter. After pursuing his calling as a schoolmaster in Ireland, England, New Zealand, and New South Wales—where he wrote one of the earliest books on the federation of the Australian colonies—he came to Queensland as Second Master at the Rockhampton Grammar School.