Brief History
Mr. CE Ham set up a private school for boys, the Prospect House Academy. In 1858 it was taken over by the state as the Queenstown District School. That year is taken as the foundation date for Queen's College. Today, all that remains of Mr. Ham's original school is the lectern on the stage of the Memorial Hall (the present school hall). It was made out of a yellow wood beam salvaged from the old school building when it was demolished in 1949.
In 1867 Frederick Beswick opened a private school in the town and then the principal of a conglomerate of schools called Queenstown Boys' Public School, whose headmaster he remained for 32 years. He really set education on a sound footing in Queenstown. His son, Alan, became the first Old Queenian to play rugby for South Africa. In 1910 the school was officially named Queen's College.
The school continued to grow in size and stature and under Mr. A Parry Davies, who was headmaster from 1930 to 1940, Queen's began to develop a distinctive character and spirit. The school's prowess in the academic, sporting and cultural spheres became known far and wide and it began to attract pupils from all over South Africa and as far afield as Zimbabwe.
The core of the old stone school buildings (dating back to 1897) was retained when a new purpose designed modern school complex was built in 1973. Many valuable reminders of the school's debt to the past are housed in the Queen's College Museum in the "Old School", which was itself declared a historical monument in 1980.
Read more about this topic: Queen's College (South Africa)
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