The school’s motto is ‘Nil Sine Labor’e, Latin for “Nothing Without Labour”. It was adopted from the Brisbane Grammar School, which in turn borrowed it from Horace’s Second Book of Satires.

Impact on Brisbane Society

Brisbane Girls Grammar School was founded in March 1875, six years before women were admitted to universities in Sydney and Melbourne. Its first Principal was Janet O’Connor, who started the School with fifty female students in premises on George Street. The School moved to a Wickham Terrace premise within six months. In 1884, the Main Building at Gregory Terrace, was opened to one hundred students.

Citations

“A Brief History” [https://www.bggs.qld.edu.au/about/history/]. School Profile. Brisbane Girls Grammar School. Retrieved 2017-01-04.

Fitzgerald, Ross; Megarrity, Lyndon; Symons, David. Made in Queensland : a New History, Special Q150 commemorative edition, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld, 2009.

Hancock, Judith A. The Emergence of Secondary Education for Girls in Queensland: the Case of the Girls’ Grammar School, Brisbane, 1875-1882, University of Southern Queensland, 1995.

McWilliam, Erica. Educating Girls [Brisbane Girls Grammar School], University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld, 2013.

Prideaux, Peter. Brisbane Girls’ Grammar School: the First Sixty Years 1875-1935, Boolarong Publications, Brisbane Qld, 1985.

Image Citations

Main Building, c1910. [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BrisbaneGGS1910.jpg#/media/File:BrisbaneGGS1910.jpg]