since we're on the topic of james ruse agricultural high school, here's a FUN FACT!
underline –– idk if i learnt this right, will fact check soon
did you know james ruse agricultural high school was actually named after an english prisoner? here's the story.
he grew up in england during the industrial revolution times, when towns were heading for poverty (as more people were moving to cities), this affected james ruse aswell. so what did he do to overcome the horrible ancient-day poverty lifestyle? he became a thief. he broke into someone's house and stole many valuables, most notable ones were two silver watches. when james was caught, he was originally given a guillotine sentence (death penalty),
but then it was changed for him to stay on a floating prison (anchored/useless ships used for makeshift prisons) for around 7 years. but partway throughout his sentence, he was sent on one of the first fleet ships
, to britain's new convict colony to what we now know as australia. james ruse arrived to australia in 1788, where his prison sentence ended in 1789. after his sentencing, he chose to settle in australia.
now here is where we get to the equilibrium of "james ruse" and "agriculture", and why it's called james ruse agricultural high school.
james ruse wanted to pursue a farming career, so he requested the governor for some land. the governor at the time
(governor arthur phillip [wait that's who arthur phillip high school is named after!? what's with all these parramatta schools being named after people from the precambrian eon 
]) did a little experiment on james. the governor let him stay in a government-owned land to observe a convict's capability to independently grow a farm. and so ruse did his thing, farming and all that. a year later, governor came to visit james and noticed he was able to successfully grow a wheat harvest! wowza! and because of that, in 1791, james ruse was the first person in NSW to be granted land, the land in question is 30 acres, which he used for farming. ruse spent the rest of his life farming and getting more land grants before he passed away. as for the 30 acres of land, he sold that land in 1793 which that purchased land was used to build a cottage, which has now been turned into some sort of a house museum?? you can check it out for yourself it's called Experiment Farm Cottage, located in Harris Park.
so the moral of the story is, you can always turn your life around with a criminal record. just because you get mugged at blacktown station where they get caught, doesn't mean the mugger is going to live a sad criminal life for the rest of their life, they could turn into a revolutionary agriculturalist. and who knows? maybe the next top selective agricultural high school will be named after them.
btw what skl did u put cause some already came out...
