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David Granger’s The Houses of Queen’s College examines the origins of an often overlooked aspect of any school’s traditions – its divisions into ‘houses.’ The ‘House’, as the author explains and as is well known, does not refer to a building but to a group of students not restricted to any class level.
Houses facilitate students’ participation in annual sports events in most schools. Students are assigned to ‘houses’ and they are required to represent these houses in the school’s annual sport events and other cultural activities.
Houses could become dormant after these events are concluded. Not so at Queen’s College. A student, upon entering the College, is asked whether a parent or relative belonged to a house and, if so, that student is invariably assigned to that same house to maintain the family tradition.
Students are assigned ties, colour-coded to represent the house to which they will belong throughout their College days. The House thereby becomes a life-long fraternity in which camaraderie and esprit de corps have been nurtured.
Queen’s College’s House system was introduced in 1916. It is an integral element of the College’s proud traditions. According to the book, it was modeled after the 19th century British public school House system.
The College’s ten Houses are named after ten historical personalities – Percival, Raleigh, Austin, D’ Urban, Pilgrim, Weston, Moulder, Woolley, Cunningham and Nobbs – most of whom were directly associated with the school either as masters or principals. The author describes them as “…sources of inspiration”:
- William Piercy Austin – the College’s patriarch who was responsible for its establishment and early development;
- Admiral John Henry Dacres Cunningham, a distinguished alumnus, was born in British Guiana and served with distinction in the Royal Navy during the Second World War;
- Lieutenant General Benjamin D’ Urban was the Governor who was responsible for the amalgamation of the former colonies of Berbice and Demerara-Essequibo and the first Governor of the United Colony of British Guiana.
- Edwin Richard Denys Moulder, a distinguished alumnus, was born in British Guiana and served as College principal and later became a distinguished education official;
- Captain Howard Nobbs, a veteran military officer of the First World War was the College principal from 1931 to 1951;
- William Exley Percival was appointed College principal when he was only 29 years; he helped to expand its intake during its early years;
- Edward Pilgrim was a long-serving College master and was responsible for introducing the House system;
- Sir Walter Ralegh was thought to be the discoverer of British Guiana, mistakenly, and was executed during the reign of the English monarch, Queen Elizabeth I.
- Frederick Weston, a College master, was an avid sports enthusiast was killed in the Second World War at the age of 35 years;
- Sir Charles Campbell Woolley was the Governor of British Guiana between 1947 and 1953 and was responsible for the construction of the College’s present premises in Thomas Lands.
The Houses are all named after individuals who were part of British Guiana’s colonial heritage. It is remarkable that the names of College’s Houses were untouched by the ‘Guyanization’ which commenced in the 1950s and the co-education movement of the 1970s, all the more so considering the post-Independence renaming enthusiasm and the outstanding local alumni which the College produced.
The House system represents part of Queen’s College rich intellectual culture and may provide answers as how the College was able to successfully sustain exceptional standards academic excellence. Anyone seeking a richer understanding of the traditions which have inspired excellence at Queen’s College will find this book enlightening.
David Granger, himself a College alumnus, is one of its most eminent and the fourth of Guyana’s nine Executive Presidents – the others being Forbes Burnham, Cheddi Jagan and Samuel Hinds – who received their secondary education at Queen’s. The College has not only produced Executive Presidents but, also, has three Prime Ministers, three Chancellors of the judiciary, several Chief Justices and high court judges, numerous Ministers and senior public servants, businessman, diplomats.
Granger addressing a convocation commemorating the College’s 175th anniversary in 2019, hailed its outstanding scholastic record. He observed that, up to that time, the College had earned an unenviable reputation in Guyana and the Caribbean, having won the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) School of the Year Award three times in the previous five years and won the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) School of the Year Award three times in the preceding six years.
Granger quoted Professor Winston Mc Gowan − writing in his A Concise History of Queen’s College – and who had cited a UNESCO Educational Survey Mission to British Guiana from November 1962 to March 1963 – as reporting that:
“Queen’s College has won for itself the unenviable position of the premier school of British Guiana…there is a great deal of evidence to support the claim for it as the premier school of the Caribbean. The whole tone of the school is permeated by the tradition and reputation built up over the years”.
Granger attributed the College’s rich traditions as one of the factors responsible for its standard of excellence. Among those traditions is the House system.
Granger, as President of Guyana three years ago, addressed St. Stanislaus College’s annual graduation ceremony. He emphasized the importance of traditions in educational excellence noting that it was no coincidence that the country’s top six secondary schools were all established more than one hundred years ago and still embodied certain traditions and values. He argued, then, that traditions sustain a College’s standards, evinced its values and reflect its intellectual origins.
The value of this book – The Houses of Queen’s College – extends beyond the recounting of the past lives of the ten Caucasians after whom the College’s Houses are named. The book points us, also, in the direction of examining the vital role which traditions play in fashioning academic success in the future.
