Arthur Ashworth ASPINALL

ASPINALL, ARTHUR ASHWORTH (b. Southeram, Yorkshire, England, 23 June 1846; d. Sydney, 9 June 1929). Presbyterian minister and college principal.

Born the son of stonemason John Aspinall and his wife Sarah, a seamstress, Aspinall arrived in Sydney on the Mary Ann on 19 Mar 1857 along with his parents, three brothers and three sisters. Although his father was Church of England and his mother Wesleyan, Aspinall's education in Sydney was a mixture of Presbyterian and Congregationalist influences. After attending the private school of the Rev Miles Moss, his tutors became the Presbyterian, the Rev Robert Boag, a former co-pastor of J D Lang's (q.v.) Scots Church, who had begun an English classical and commercial school in Sydney in l855, and the Englishman Barzillai Quaife (q.v.) who was originally ordained a Congregationalist minister but who became first acting minister at Scots Church and then opened a school training students for the Congregationalist ministry before transferring in 1864 to the newly founded Camden College.

Aspinall attended Sydney Mechanics School of Arts, entered Sydney University in 1870 but withdrew because of illness, then completed a course in divinity at Camden College, and eventually graduated BA (1889) and MA (1912) from the university. Ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1874, his first ministry was at Forbes 1874-89, and then Redfern 1889-93. In 1877, J D Lang, for whom Aspinall retained life-long admiration, presided at his wedding to Helen Strahorn of Ohley. They had four sons and a daughter, all of whom became medical practitioners. In 1893 he became the first principal of The Scots College, Sydney, a boys secondary school, where he remained until his retirement in 1915.

Aspinall's faith was closely related to his commitment to formal education. In part this was due to his own education and the example of both his tutors and Lang. In the Forbes district, he became first president of the local YMCA. For Aspinall, moral and intellectual education could counter colonial larrikinism and the growth of materialism. He became particularly enamoured of the ideals of Thomas Arnold the former headmaster of Rugby. At The Scots College, Aspinall constantly emphasised the importance of character building and specifically Arnold's educational aims of religious and moral principle, gentlemanly conduct and intellectual ability. His major influence was among the elite of the colony. At Forbes he came to know the local property owners. His wife was the daughter of a pastoralist and her family's money helped finance the establishment of The Scots College which remained virtually Aspinall's private school until acquired by the Presbyterian Assembly in 1907.

Aspinall was a founding member of the Australian Historical Society in 1901 and President in 1904. Attracted to the Elizabethan age, his master's thesis was on the 'metaphysical significance of the Renaissance'. In 1914-15 he visited Britain where his wife died, while his youngest son was killed in Belgium in 1917. His last years were spent at Turramurra on Sydney's North Shore surrounded by his books and garden.

ADB 7; B Bridges, Ministers, Licentiates and Catechists of the Presbyterian Churches in NSW 1823-1865 (Melbourne, 1989); M Munro, In Old Aspinall's Day (Sydney, 1961)

GEOFFREY SHERINGTON