Melbourne High School

Melbourne High School is a government-funded single-sex academically selective secondary day school in the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra, Victoria, Australia. The school caters for boys from Year 9 to Year 12.

Brains, not money, should be the passport to the higher realms of knowledge.

In 1905, Frank Tate, the first Director of Education, established Victoria's first state secondary school, the Melbourne Continuation School in the building in Spring Street that had housed the Model School. Until the opening of the Melbourne Continuation School, secondary education in Victoria was provided by non-government schools. The term "Continuation" was used to indicate the school would continue the education provided by government primary schools and to bypass legal blockages of government secondary education. Criticisms of the school were that it was to be secular, and it would not be single-sex.

The school was renamed Melbourne High School in 1912. In 1913, it reached capacity and senior students moved into a building in Victoria Street. By 1919 the Spring Street building was in poor condition and the Department of Education decided to split the school into separate single-sex schools. On the 3rd of October 1927, the boys moved to a new building in South Yarra which was named Melbourne Boys' High School. The girls remained in the building at Spring Street which was renamed Melbourne Girls' High School.

In 1930 the girls moved to the vacant Government House and in 1930 to State School No. 1689 in King Street. In 1934 they moved to a new building on Kings Way, Albert Park which, in recognition of a donation from Sir Macpherson Robertson, was named the Mac.Robertson Girls' High School.

In 1949, Melbourne Boys' High School was renamed Melbourne High School.

Joseph Hocking, an inspector of schools, was appointed as the first principal. Hocking's temporary assistant was Margery Fraser Robertson. In 1907 she became senior mistress and in 1909, the headmistress.

In 1910, the first sporting exchange with Adelaide High School occurred. This was later followed by an exchange with North Sydney Boys' High School. In 1914, the school's growth and development was disrupted by World War I, in which over 500 Melbourne High students served. The school has since developed a special association with Anzac Cove and has sent cadets and students to participate in ANZAC Day ceremonies.