Famous ex-students from Bathurst high schools: All Saints' College

We'll be looking at graduates from Bathurst High, Kelso High, St Stanislaus' College, MacKillop College, All Saints' College and The Scots School and picking out four or five students from each.

These lists aren't comprehensive but a small selection of ex-students. Do you think there's an ex-student worth mentioning? Email bradley.jurd@westernadvocate.com.au.

This week we're looking at All Saints' College, which merged with The Scots School to form Scots All Saints College in 2019.

A FORMER Middle Eastern studies academic, Kyle Moore-Gilbert gained international attention when she was imprisoned in Iran for over two years.

Detained from September 2018 to November 2020 on charges of alleged espionage, no evidence of her alleged crimes was ever made public.

Moore-Gilbert denies the charges.

She was released in a prisoner swap, in exchange for three Iranian convicted terrorists in Thailand.

Graduating from All Saints' College in 2005, Moore-Gilbert went on to study Asian and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Cambridge.

In 2017, she obtained a PhD from the University of Melbourne and was subsequently appointed an academic fellow and lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Asia Institute of the same university.

Now living in Melbourne, she's now a mother and an activist.

HE'S one of Australia's richest businessmen, but there was a time Gerry Harvey did his schooling in Bathurst.

The co-founder of multinational retailer Harvey Norman, Harvey never actually graduated from high school, but spent several years at All Saints' College, before he quit school at 17.

Harvey and business partner Ian Norman opened their first store in 1961, specialising in electrical goods and appliances.

In 1982, Harvey and Norman purchased a new shopping centre in Auburn and opened the very first Harvey Norman store.

Now aged 84, Harvey remains the executive chairman of Harvey Norman.

In 2023, the Financial Review Rich List estimated Harvey's wealth at $2.91 billion.

AFTER living in Nepal as a volunteer teacher, All Saints' College graduate Rebecca Ordish and her husband Adam founded the Mitrataa Foundation.

The organisation educates more than 200 girls as well as running numerous other literacy and aid projects, including a hostel for girls with no families.

Ordish, the daughter of Lee and Richard Steele, moved to Nepal in 2011 to run Mitrataa full-time and now splits her time between Australia and Nepal, with her three adopted daughters Nimu, Saraswoti and Nirmala.

The purpose of Mitrataa, according to its website, is to "inspire Nepali people to empower themselves and to take responsibility for their own futures" by offering education, skills, training, networks and belief in themselves to "achieve their dreams".

To make a donation to Mitrataa, visit its website.

USUALLY identified as C. E. W. Bean, Charles Bean was a historian and one of Australia's official war correspondents in the First World War.

Born in Bathurst in 1879, Bean was the first of three sons of the Reverend Edwin Bean, who was the then headmaster of All Saints' College.

That's where his formal education began, but at the age of nine, the family moved to England, for his father's work.

Bean didn't return to Australia until 1904, where he became an assistant master at Sydney Grammar School.

He was admitted into the NSW Bar in 1905, where he commenced a legal career as a barrister and judge's associate, but took up journalism with the Sydney Morning Herald three years later.

At the outbreak of World War One in 1914, he became the nation's official war correspondent.

He travelled to Egypt, landed with the original Anzacs at Gallipoli and moved back and fourth along the Western Front.

Upon returning to Australia, he became a historian and became an advocate for establishing the Australia War Memorial, which was established in 1925, before officially opening in Canberra in 1941.

He died on August 30, 1968, at the age of 88.