A TRIBUTE TO ALMA MATER: KINGSWOOD COLLEGE KANDY

BY HM Nissanka Warakaulle

The 130th anniversary of the founding of Kingswood College, Kandy, fell on 04 May. This famous school, in the hill capital of Sri Lanka, was founded by Mr. Louis Edmund Blaze on 04 May 1891. At the time the school was established, it was known as the Boys’ High School. The vast strides made by Kingswood, from its very modest beginning, during this period of over a century and a quarter, is something for all Kingswoodians, past and present, to be proud of.

Blaze, after obtaining his London Matriculation, was recruited as a teacher in Trinity College, Kandy, his alma mater. However, after teaching for some time, he left for Calcutta (Kolkata) to read for his degree. Thereafter, having graduated from the university, in Calcutta, he obtained teaching appointments in Calcutta and Lahore, where he saw a great difference in the normal teacher-student relationship, which was much more friendly than what he was used to in Ceylon. On his return to Ceylon, in January 1891, after his teaching stint in Calcutta and Lahore, Mr. Blaze had dreamed of establishing a school of his own, and a school to be different from what he had been used to as a student and a teacher in Ceylon, and to run it his own way.

Five months after his return to Ceylon, his desire to start a school of his own choice was fulfilled when the Boys’ High School was established in a small building in Pavilion Street, Kandy, with 11 pupils on the roll. Blaze wanted his school to be one in which the friendliest relations would prevail between teachers and pupils. He was very keen on this teacher-student relationship after he had learnt of the existence of the cordial relationship in the English public schools which he came to know during his stay in Lahore. He also wanted the pupils of his school to be really educated in the right atmosphere and not to be trained to merely pass examinations. He encouraged a sense of obligation of duty and loyalty among the students. A testimony to this loyalty and manliness imbibed into his pupils by Blaze was the largest number of volunteers for service overseas during the First World War being the old boys of Kingswood College.

In July 1894, Blaze handed over the management of the school to the Methodist Mission. In 1897, the school was registered by the Government as a Grant-aid school. During this period there had been a rapid growth of the school and this made it necessary to shift the school to a larger premises in Brownrigg Street which was done about the end of 1897. It was in 1898 that the Boys’ High School took the name of Kingswood College.

Blaze had learnt the game and rules of rugby football when he was teaching in India, and it did not take long for him to introduce the sport to his pupils. In 1893 Kingswood became the first school to start rugby football, and later Trinity, Royal and other schools followed suit. The first rugby match between two schools in Ceylon was between Kingswood and Trinity, Blaze’s alma mater, which was played at the Bogambara grounds on 11th August 1906, and quite appropriately it ended in a six-all draw, with each team scoring two tries (a try was three points at that time). The Kingswood team was captained by HS Perera and the captain of the Trinity team was PW Van Langenberg. However, Kingswood gave up the sport after a few years and in 1965 rugby was re-introduced to Kingswood and since 1980 Kingswood has been doing well in rugby.

In the field of sports, Kingswood assisted another school to play the first soccer match between two schools. This school was St. Anthony’s College, Katugastota, which was the first school to introduce soccer to schools. In addition, the Kingswood-Dharmarajah big match is the oldest big match in Kandy. Kingswood College had the distinction of producing the second Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year in 1958 when Maurice Fernando, the captain of cricket, that was chosen for this prestigious award.

In 2005, a student of Kingswood College, Ransilu Ranasinghe, brought credit to his school, and country, when he won a Gold Medal for weightlifting at the Junior Commonwealth Games held in Australia. This was the first time that a sportsman, from Sri Lanka, had won a Gold Medal at an international competition of this nature.

Kingswood was one of the first schools to start cadetting. As in the case of rugby, Kingswood gave up cadetting after some time. A few years ago, cadetting was re-introduced. Kingswood fared very well in 2004, annexing the Herman Loos Trophy.

In the early 1950s, road safety was begun where the senior students controlled the vehicular and pedestrian traffic in front of the school. This experiment proved to be a tremendous success that later some of the schools followed suit, including leading girls’ schools. The first leader of Road Safety Squad was successful in gaining selection to the Police Department on the basis of the experience he had gained in forming the squad and taking an active part in it.

Kingswood established traditions which none of the other schools in Sri Lanka had. Blaze established the tradition of reciting a prologue at the annual prize giving of the school. The prologue was written in verse describing the events of importance that had taken place during that year in the school, country and the world. Blaze himself wrote the prologue during his lifetime, and thereafter it was one of the old boys who did it, but maintaining anonymity. It is with a sense of pride that all Kingswoodians, both past and present,, would wouch that the prize giving has been held every year without a break, whereas in some big schools it is not so. The then Governer General, Lord Soulbury graced the occasion as the Chief Guest at the prize giving in the Diamon Jubilee year of Kingswood in 1951, which in fact was the last prize giving that the founder attended with his daughter.

The other tradition Blaze established was addressing the students of Kingswood as gentlemen of Kingswood, which set a standard for each Kingswoodian to live up to. Mr. OL Gibbon, who was the Principal of Kingswood from 1929 to 1937, had stated as follows in respect of this tradition.”Kingswood College has a tradition that its students are Gentlemen of Kingswood regardless of religious and social background, they form a brotherhood, loyal to the highest ideals and keen to serve their families, their social circle and the nation”.

It was in the year 1925 that Kingswood moved to Randles Hill on Peradeniya Road, the location which the school presently occupies and which is half way between Kandy and Peradeniya. Kingswood was able to move into these premises through a very generous donation given to purchase the land and put up the buildings by Sir John Randles, who was a Member of Parliament and a distinguished Methodist in England. With separate buildings for the upper school and the lower school, two buildings for the hostel right on top of the hill and two playgrounds in the premises helped the school to develop further and to accommodate a larger number of students. Students residing in the hostel benefitted a great deal in that they had two study periods every day and the playgrounds being just below the hostel enticed all hostellers to participate in sports , so that the larger number of members in all teams were from the hostel.

Kingswood had the distinction of being the first boys’ school to have a lady teacher on its staff. Blaze appointed the first lady to teach in Standards One and Two at that time. At the beginning, this appointment of a lady teacher was criticized by those who were averse to change. But when this proved successful, other boys’ schools too followed suit. I still remember that we had lady teachers from the Baby class to Standard Three and they were the persons who really moulded the Gentlemen of Kingswood. The old boys who had been in Kingswood during the 1940s and 50s would recollect with gratitude those gracious ladies, Miss Jacob (Baby class), Miss Clements (Lower Kindergarten), Miss Thorpe (Upper Kindergarten), Miss Elias (Standard Two), Miss Lekamge and Miss Abrahams (Standards Three and Four) who did the teaching as a service rather than a job with dedication, kindness and care. Their work did not end in the classroom. Outside the classroom they inculcated good manners and even good habits like waking on the right hand side of the road where there are no pavements. Today one finds many walking on the wrong side of the road.

In addition to Balze, Kingewood had been served by some of the finest educationists in the land as its Principal who continued the traditions introduced by Blaze, and some did even more. Messrs. OL Gibbon, MA Utting, PH Nonis and Kenneth M De Lanerolle were some of these stalwarts who contributed immensely towards the upliftment of the standards of Kingswood and the maintenance of its traditions.

Lest I forget, mention should be made of the other teachers who had taught at Kingswood with dedication and helped to mould students into gentlemen before they ventured out into the world on their own. We will never get teachers of the caliber of Messrs. CH Lutersz, Dea Shockman,BA Thambapillai, CV Abeyratne, AP Samarajiwa, JO Mendis, Sydney Perera, Anton Blacker, KOE Fernando, Mrs. Arieth Perera, Mrs. Evelyn Samarajiwa and Misses Muriel Elias, Gertrude Thorpe and Eileen Clements , to name a few.

The dedication of the teachers during the time we were in school was such that the teachers who were good in sports coached the college teams, and this was done free of charge. Whilst we had teachers such as Messrs. BA Thambapillai, Winston Hoole, Roy Abeysekara, RAV Dharmasena and Anton Blacker in charge of cricket , Messrs. Leonidas James and Sathananthan were in charge of athletics. Mr. james also coached the hockey team. He was so good in hockey that he captained the Kandy District team in the first Hockey Nationals held in Colombo.

Mr. Blaze’, with the knowledge of the Public Schools in England that he had gained whist teaching in Lahore, established the Houses in the school named after four of the most prestigious Public Schools , namely, Eton, Harrow, Rugby and Winchester, which are continued to this day. It is a credit to the school that the conducting of the affairs of the Houses was left entirely with the captains and vice-captains.

The motto of Kingswood College, “Fide et Virtute” and the school song which starts “Hill throned where nature is gracious and kind” are two things that Kingswoodian , past and present, can easily forget! The boys who pass through the protals of Kingswood College cherish the memory of the unforgettable time spent in school and the traditions and the discipline inculcated in them during that time. The spirit of Kingswood is such that all those who have had their education at Kingdwood express their appreciation by the sign “Kingswood for ever”