Mrs Callow’s Gift
Sophie Quick
Nell Callow was a quiet, unassuming woman, whose modest regular donations to Ormond College have supported more than 200 students … and counting.
Sunday 1 December 2024 • 4 minute read
Dr Kaye Scott didn’t know much about Mrs Nell Callow when she turned up for her interview at his radiology practice on Collins Street, in 1947. She was ‘nervous and jumpy’, he observed at the time, a woman in her late forties, but she came with excellent references from a Sydney secretarial school and a shorthand speed of 130 words per minute. Dr Scott hired her as his secretary and she presented impeccable work to him the next day and every day after that.Mrs Callow continued to work for Dr Kaye Scott for 35 years – first at his office at Collins Street, then at William Street. She provided crucial clerical support in Scott’s work with Peter MacCallum to establish the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. Mrs Callow assisted Dr Scott in administration of matters in his personal life, too, including his significant involvement with Ormond College. Mrs Callow and Scott retired at the same time in 1979.Dr Scott’s daughters, Janet Hubbard and Barbara Herbert, remember Mrs Callow with great affection.‘Her relationship with Dad was very respectful, quite formal, but with a lot of trust,’ says Janet. ‘They always referred to each other as Mrs Callow and Doctor Scott. She was very self-effacing, a very gentle person – and she excelled at her work.’‘She was a bit like an auntie to us,’ Barbara says. ‘And Dad’s patients loved her to bits. She was always kind to them.’Mrs Callow worked long hours at Dr Scott’s practice and declined to take holidays, or accept payment for overtime. She lived a quiet – almost reclusive – existence. Before coming to work for Dr Scott, she’d lived in Sydney, and she had no family in Melbourne.The course of her life had been greatly, and tragically, affected by the two World Wars. Mrs Callow’s husband suffered from serious mental illness, partly caused by the traumatic experience of serving in World War One. He couldn’t work and she moved to Melbourne because they couldn’t live together.Their only child – a son, Peter – was a flight sergeant in World War II. In 1944, when he was 20 years old, Peter’s plane was gunned down over Stuttgart. He was posted as missing and for a time Mrs Callow did not know if her son was dead or alive. Eventually, authorities concluded that he had been unable to bale out of his plane. Mrs Callow received confirmation that her son was dead.‘It’s a very sad story, and it all must have been very fresh – still – when she first came to work for Dad,’ Barbara says.Dr Scott was a keen investor, his daughters say, and liked to keep an eye on the stock exchange. In the days before compulsory superannuation, he gave Mrs Callow some shrewdly chosen shares each year.‘She lived very frugally and quietly,’ says Janet. ‘She made her own clothes, she didn’t go out much. The money must have added up over the years.’In 1953, Ormond College received a donation of 80 pounds from a new and surprising benefactor. It was from a person who had never attended Ormond College, and who had never even visited the campus in person: medical secretary Mrs Nell Callow. The donation came with a suggestion for a new scholarship and a letter.I would prefer that this scholarship be awarded if possible to a medical student and to one who without this assistance would not be able to afford the benefits of residence and tutorial assistance at Ormond. I offer this in memory of my son Peter whose university career was interrupted by the war...The Peter Callow Scholarship Fund was born. Mrs Callow continued to send contributions until her death in 1980. Her donations were modest, but – as Janet says – they added up. Over time, Dr Kaye Scott was inspired to contribute to the fund himself and so were some of his patients.From her initial gift of £80, the College now has a fund of over $7 million which has supported more than 200 students to attend Ormond.Mrs Callow passed away when she was 81. She made a final, significant donation to the Peter Callow Scholarship in her will and her funeral, held at Ormond, was attended by many recipients of her scholarships. More than 40 years since her death, still more students have been through the College thanks to Mrs Callow’s generosity. In 2024 alone, 28 students have received varying levels of financial support from her scholarship.For Mrs Callow’s friends, it’s hard to imagine what she’d make of this continued – rather staggering – impact, if she were alive today.‘She was a very private person. She would have been embarrassed by any kind of public recognition, I think,’ says Janet. ‘But I know Mrs Callow would have been pleased that so many people benefited from the scholarship in Peter’s memory. First Published in New & Old Magazine | Issue No. 104 December 2024
From her initial gift of £80, the College now has a Scholarship Fund of over $7 million.
