Australian Dictionary of Biography

Douglas Trathen, no date

courtesy of Newington College

Douglas Arthur Trathen (1916–1998), Methodist minister and headmaster, was born on 1 February 1916 at Petersham, Sydney, second of three surviving children of New South Wales-born parents James Somerset Trathen, fruit commission agent, and his wife Lilian May, neé Petrie. Educated at Canterbury Boys’ High School, Douglas came from a strongly Methodist family. In 1933 he began work as a junior clerk at the New South Wales Auditor-General’s Department. Having studied economics as an evening student, he resigned his clerkship in 1936, and the following year entered Wesley College at the University of Sydney (BEc, 1937; BA, 1940), where he was president of the Student Christian Movement.

Following his graduation, in 1940 Trathen went to Canberra as a probationary minister at the Reid Methodist Church. Ordained in 1942, he became minister there. On 23 April 1942 he was appointed a chaplain, fourth class, in the Royal Australian Air Force for part-time service at the RAAF Station, Canberra. At the Wesley College Chapel on 12 December that year he married Irven Runa Herbert. Before her marriage Irven had studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, was involved in the Sydney Repertory Theatre Society, and held roles in the Young Women’s Christian Association. In 1942 she was the director of physical education for the Canberra YWCA. Douglas began full-time duty on 4 June 1943, serving (1943–44) in No. 8 Squadron in Canberra, Queensland, and Goodenough Island, off Papua. Following several later postings in New South Wales and the Northern Territory, he was demobilised on 24 January 1946. He resumed his ministry at Wingham, New South Wales, before moving to Corrimal, Wollongong, in 1947.

In 1950 Trathen became headmaster of Wolaroi College, Orange. During his time there he greatly improved the running of the school, with good enrolments, putting him in a prime position to be selected in 1962 as the new headmaster of Sydney’s Newington College. Beginning work there in 1963, he soon demonstrated that he was committed to the school achieving academic as well as sporting success. He believed that boys should be encouraged to think, even to embrace controversial topics. This brought him into conflict with some of those wedded to an older outlook, including two long-serving masters who left the school.

Trathen became involved in the public controversy over the National Service Act, which was opposed by the Australian Council of Churches and the New South Wales Methodist Conference. At the 1969 Newington speech night, his allusion to boys being encouraged to think critically and to discuss issues raised eyebrows. In 1970, after Prime Minister (Sir) John Gorton’s cabinet reversed its decision to allow community service as an alternative to gaol for Vietnam objectors, Trathen wrote to the Sydney Morning Herald calling on young men to defy the National Service Act. ‘As an ex-Serviceman, a private citizen and a man of law and Law, I publicly encourage 20-year-olds, in good conscience and in loyalty to God rather than Caesar, to defy the National Service Act,’ he said (Trathen 1970, 2). The letter provoked outcry. ‘I hope I am not regarded as a rat-bag,’ he told the Sydney Morning Herald (Cunningham 1970, 1). An editorial in the Daily Telegraph, however, argued that Trathen should not be allowed to continue ‘one more day’ (Gapps 2012, 214) as headmaster.

On 18 June the Newington College council, of which (Sir) Talbot Duckmanton was chair, decided by a majority decision to terminate Trathen’s appointment ‘on the grounds that his public statements … were not acceptable to the council’ (Sydney Morning Herald 19 June 1970, 1). Three college councillors disagreed and resigned in protest. More than two hundred students threatened a walk out from the school, but Trathen himself dissuaded them. Trathen’s dismissal was soon reversed on advice that he could only be dismissed by the New South Wales Methodist Conference. He was told to take leave till the issue was resolved. On 2 July the college council voted 13-9 to recommend to the standing committee of the State Methodist Conference that Trathen be dismissed. The standing committee voted 41-3 not to do so, but found that the letter was ‘ill-expressed and does not take sufficient account of his responsibilities as a headmaster’ (Sydney Morning Herald 10 July 1970, 1).

After Trathen resumed duties on 13 July, some members of the college council refused to meet. He was charged with the offence of encouraging defiance of Commonwealth laws. On 15 September he resigned, saying in a statement: ‘I stand by my basic conviction, often misrepresented, but the situation now has in it some major difficulties’ (Sydney Morning Herald 16 September 1970, 1). On 7 December Magistrate V. J. C. Macmullen, finding the offence proved, put him on a twelve-month good-behaviour bond and declined to record a conviction. The 1970 Newington speech night was chaotic. Trathen’s ‘resignation and trial,’ according to Peter Edwards (1997, 280), were ‘pyrrhic victories for [his] opponents, for the sympathy they evoked was greater than the criticism of his action.’

Undertaking a master’s degree at the University of Sydney (MEd, 1974), Trathen joined the directorate of studies at the New South Wales Department of Education. He served on a number of professional committees, and became vice-president of the Institute of Educational Research. In 1974 he joined the Commonwealth Schools Commission in Canberra to assist in planning and direction. He retired due to ill health in 1978. In 1988 he accepted an invitation to attend Newington’s 125th anniversary. His portrait was painted and hung in the school’s Prescott Hall in 1996. He died on 19 September 1998 at Murwillumbah, and was cremated; his wife and their three daughters, Rosalind, Bronwyn, and Penelope, and one son, Stephen, survived him. A memorial service was held at the Uniting Church, Forrest, Canberra.