Time for some Newman Nostalgia!

This week we thought we’d take a look at the story behind the James Stephen McNulty Prize for Mathematics, which is awarded annually.

James Stephen ‘Jimmy’ McNulty was born in 1960, the son of Dr Jim McNulty AO and his wife Betty nee Aylward, who married in Dublin, Ireland, in late 1956. They then came to Australia on the SS Orion which arrived in Fremantle on 28 February 1957.

Initially Jim and Betty lived in Kalgoorlie where Jim worked as the Mines' Medical Officer, and at Kalgoorlie Hospital. (In 1958 he went up to Wittenoom, where he diagnosed the first case of mesothelioma in a Wittenoom worker. In 1975 he became Western Australia's Director of Public Health and was finally able to do something about it. An amazing man.)

In those first years are when Jim and Betty's first four children were born: Mary, Margaret, Jimmy and Patrick.

In 1963 the family went to England where Jim undertook a Post Graduate Diploma in Industrial Health at London University. Returning to Perth in 1964, they bought 18 Kenmore Crescent, Floreat Park, and became some of the suburb's earliest residents. There, their two youngest children were born: Anne and Michael.

In time, all six McNulty children went to Our Lady of Victories (Brigidine) Primary School in Wembley; the girls to Year 7, and the boys to Year 3 before going on to Marist Junior College in Subiaco from Year 4. Mary and Margaret then went on to Brigidine College, Floreat, from which they graduated, with the younger ones finishing their schooling in the first years of the newly-amalgamated Newman College, Churchlands.

(It’s actually quite easy to pick most of the McNultys out in yearbooks as they were all blessed with beautiful thick hair, just like Jimmy’s! Many McNulty family members have subsequently come through Newman College, with the most recent graduates in 2018. Yearbook photographs confirm they all seem to have that amazing McNulty hair!)

As to Jimmy, he is described by his family as being a very funny, quiet young man who had some really wonderful friends, and enjoyed spending time with them. He was also extraordinarily clever with a particular love of, and gift for Mathematics.

In 1976, in Year 11, he received the Parents & Friends Prizes for Maths II and Maths III, and in 1977 he was in the first group of newly-amalgamated Newman College Year 12 Leavers (see pic). At the end of that year, he again received the prize for Maths II and Maths III, and his name was also inscribed on The Monsignor Kennedy Cup for Dux of College. (Monsignor Edmund Kennedy was the parish priest of St Joseph’s, Subiaco, from 1947-1976, during which time St Joseph’s [later Marist Junior] College was opened in 1954. The Award was inaugurated in 1958 and awarded to [now Father] Geoffrey Aldous.)

After school Jimmy went on to the University of Western Australia to study Medicine, and it was while he was pursuing these studies he was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

Sadly, he died on 29 June 1984, aged just 24. You’re not alone if your heart sank in reading that. All that promise; what a bright future he had...

Of course the family’s grief would never disappear, but by 2002 it had abated enough to consider how best to commemorate Jimmy. His sister Margaret Galati (McNulty 1976) was then on Newman College Council with four children of her own at the School. She helped her parents organise, with the School, the self-regenerating funding of the James Stephen McNulty Prize for Mathematics, which was to be awarded to the highest achieving Mathematics student in Year 11; the same prize Jimmy had won when he was in Year 11.

2002 was the first year the James Stephen McNulty Prize for Mathematics was awarded - to Daniel Boland.

Subsequent recipients are:

2003 Matthew Agnew

2004 Benjamin Janssen

2005 Dongyan (Lisa) Wang

2006 Christopher Murphy

2007 Alexander Mazur

2008 Rachit Shah

2009 Michael Martis

2010 Juhi Sanghavi

2011 James Rushbrooke

2012 Nathan Ho

2013 Conrad Hogg

2014 Elizabeth Loreck

2015 Kayne Joy

2015 Thomas Matthews

2016 Samuel Loughnan

2017 Jasper Patterson

2018 Isabelle Pang

2018 Alexandra Cavanagh

2019 Jack Towie

2020 Sarena Kriletich

2020 Keenan Botteon

2021 Jackson Kallawk

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