Queen's College, Guyana

Queen's College is a prestigious secondary school in Georgetown, Guyana.

History

Queen's College was established in 1844 as the Queen's College Grammar School for boys by the Most Reverend William Percy Austin, D.D., Bishop of the Anglican diocese of then British Guiana. The female equivalent was the Bishops' High School.

The first assembly was held on 5 August 1844 with an enrollment of fifteen boys. Although the school started out as an Anglican Church School, Bishop Austin was interested in making it a more broad-based institution to include non-Anglicans. Its first administration, however, consisted only of members of the Church of England.

Formal classes commenced on 15 August 1844 in the Old Colony House (situated in the compound of what is now the Guyana High Courts, previously known as the Victoria Law Courts). The original fifteen students had two tutors, with Bishop Austin himself becoming the first Principal. In 1845 the school moved to Main and Quamina (then Murray) Streets. Its population was rapidly expanding and, with a student body of seventy and three tutors, another move was made in 1854 to its first formal building at Carmichael and Quamina Streets.

In 1876, the school became a "Colonial Institution" and was renamed "Queen's College." Several additional changes in location took the school to the site of the present Ministry of Health building (Vlissengen Road and Brickdam) in 1918, and then to its present location in Thomas Lands (Camp and Thomas Roads), where the facilities were formally opened on 3 December 1951. The school had a reputation for maintaining a rigorous academic environment with intense competition and graduated students who were eligible for admission to elite public and private universities around the globe, including the Sorbonne, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, and London University colleges. The school became co-educational in 1975. This was accomplished by transferring approximately one hundred and fifty (150) girls into the 2nd, 3rd, Upper 5th and Lower 6th forms from the Bishops' High School,which institution was also a single-sex institution. Girls were also admitted into the first form. On 16 November 1997, the school was partially destroyed in a fire. The three-storey centre block, housing the auditorium, offices and dining hall were destroyed. Damage was estimated at G$200 million (around US$1,000,000). Extensive reconstruction has been carried out, starting six years after the fire. Phase I of the rebuilding - the Administrative Block and Auditorium - has been completed and was dedicated on 19 September 2003. Queen's College celebrated its 160th birthday on 5 August 2004.

chool motto

The school's motto is ""Fideles Ubique Utiles" - "Faithful and Useful Always"

chool houses

The school's traditions included features that were characteristic of an English public school with a head boy and subsequently after co-education, a head girl and prefects picked from students who were determined to have the respect of their peers and to have displayed an appropriate standard of conduct. They provided student leadership. Additionally, students were placed in cross-grade groups called "houses" with a house master or house mistress, who was teacher and a head-of-house, who was a student. The house was essentially a school team. The school's ten (10) houses are named after past Headmasters and masters (teachers), members of the school, members of the British Guiana colonial government, and historical figures significant to the former British Guiana. These ten houses also possess their own colours. The houses are as follows:

A House - Percival (red)
B House - Raleigh (royal blue)
C House - Austin (emerald green)
D House - D'Urban (brown)
E House - Pilgrim (purple)
F House - Weston (light blue)
G House - Moulder (pink)
H House - Wooley (dark green)
K House - Cunningham (yellow)
L House - Nobbs (white; presently gold)

Alumni

Noted alumni include former president Forbes Burnham [http://www.guyanaundersiege.com/Leaders/Burnham1.htm] , former president Dr. Cheddi Jagan, playwright Michael Abbensetts (1952-1956), novelist E.R. Braithwaite, poet Martin Carter, novelist Wilson Harris, lawyer Sir Lionel Luckhoo, historian Walter Rodney, NASA/JPL physicist Dr. Keith E. Wilson, UWI Professor of Surgery (1961-1979) Sir Harry Annamunthodo, McMaster University (Canada) IT Professor M. Jamal Deen FRSC FCAE FINAE, and Dr. Laurence Clarke, who chronicled the school's history to 1994 in the book, "Queen's College of Guyana - Records of a Tradition of Excellence (1844-1994)."

External links

* [http://www.qcguyana.org Queen's College Alumni Associations]