Helen E Downs

From: tasha (n.davies@rggs.qld.edu.au)
Story type: Ghost
Location: Rockhampton girls grammar school
Source: Form Submission
Date submitted: Mon Nov 10 05:19:01 2008

Rockhampton Girls' Grammar School has a long and distinguished history. Founded in 1892 to provide a superior education for the daughters of wealthy pastoralists and the city's leading citizens, the school prospered. This was due largely to the first headmistress, an English spinster named Helen E. Downs. Miss Downs was a character, a free thinker with progressive ideas on female education, women's emancipation and most other subjects. At a speech day in 1898 she reminded parents that ‘the senior classes in her school were for training cultured women who would exert an uplifting influence in social matters- and not waste their time on prettiness.'

‘Prettiness' was one of Miss Downs' chief dislikes. She was not pretty herself and may have been slightly lame. She refused to allow staff or students to restrict their bodies with corsets or ‘paint' their faces. Sensible clothes, sensible diet, fresh air, exercise and lots of soap and water were her recipe for building sturdy bodies and sound minds.

Helen Downs' unconventional ideas probably shocked and upset many people, but the scholastic achievements of her students reached such heights that she was tolerated by her critics and encouraged by the liberal minded. The impression one gets reading about her 100 years later is of boundless energy, a brilliant mind and total dedication to her vocation.

It is not surprising that such a strong and controversial character should still exert a powerful influence over the school she founded more than a century ago, but the form that influence takes is quite unexpected. According to school legend Miss Downs' ghost lives in the school bell tower and comes down from her eyrie once a year, at 11 pm on 11 November. The ghost makes its way through the girls' dormitories, selects the girl with the longest blonde hair, produces a pair of spectral scissors and hacks off the victim's tresses.

If you don't believe this story ask the girls of Year Nine. They will tell you that they believe in the ghost of Miss Downs, and watch the mixture of excitement, embarrassment, pride and fear on their faces as they recount their experiences.

“We had our mattresses in the middle of E dorm, on the night of 11 November 1995. Another girl who lives in H dorm, and had the longest, blondest hair came in to our room- she was really scared that the ghost was going to chop off her beloved hair. At 11 p.m. we heard a noise in the roof. We all screamed. A mistress came in and quietened us. She said there was no such thing as ghosts and that it was probably a bandicoot in the roof. A bandicoot in the roof? I'm sure it was Miss Downs.

Miss Downs comes drifting down from her hideout and scares the living daylights out of new and old boarders. If the girl she selects puts up a fight the ghost will drag her up and down the stairs till her hair falls out- but wait, there's more. We have three student ghosts as well. One is a girl who died of scarlet fever and another is Miss Downs' first victim. She wanders up and down the stairs trying to warn us.

thanks for reading
tasha