Ernest Price
Jamaica
Baptists established the Calabar Theological Institution which opened its doors
to students on October 3, 1843, in the village of Calabar, near Rio Bueno,
Trelawny. Calabar operated from that location until 1868, when it was
transferred to the site of the East Queen Street Baptist Church in Kingston in 1868.
From there Calabar was relocated to Slipe Pen Road, on the northern edge of the
city of Kingston in 1904. Over the years, the Calabar was an ever-expanding
institution. At Calabar village, a theological college commenced operation. The
Calabar educational complex grew to include an institution to train Jamaica-born
teachers irrespective of denomination, but especially
to serve in Baptist schools, a high school and an elementary school.
During most of the
institution’s ministry at East Queen Street, all four institutions were
operational. In 1868, Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) sent out University of London graduate, A. H. Dick, an Englishman, to serve
as master at Calabar’s institutions except the theological college.
According to the British Missionary Herald, in 1872:
The schools connected with the [Calabar] College continue
to give much encouragement. The High School numbers seventy scholars, belonging
to the more respectable classes of the community…. Lads are thus brought under
Christian missionary influence who would otherwise enjoy no religious culture.
The day-school has been somewhat reduced in numbers by the opening of a free
school in the neighbourhood, the schools of the Calabar Institution being
conducted on the principle of self-support; the fees, therefore, form an
important element in the success of these institutions.”[1]
Thirteen years later,
Calabar President’s Report for 1885 stated:
The
High School, which at the commencement of the year numbered about fifty boys,
increased to between seventy and eighty in daily attendance.[2]
In 1886, President East reported as
follows:
[The
year] commenced with 17 students in the Normal School department, and five in
the Theological; 60 in the High School, and 150 in the General Day School for
boys and girls.[3]
A year later, in 1887, when Jamaica Baptist celebrated the jubilee of the ministry of Rev. David Jonathan East, a very large congregation gathered in the East Queen Street Baptist Church to pay tribute to the highly regarded President East. East’s 50 years in the ministry included 35 years as Calabar President, first at Calabar, and afterwards, at East Queen Street in Kingston. In his response to the tributes paid to him, East described his first months at Calabar:
In
a week or two, I was settling down to my work, but it was with only four
students, these being the complement with which to commence; but, small as was
the number, I had great joy in my duties. Soon, however, I began to feel that
so small a number could hardly justify the expenditure involved, and I was led
to consider how the Institution might be expanded.
On
examining the deeds of the property I saw that the founders had contemplated,
not only the training of ministers, but also of schoolmasters, and I was led to
consider how this object could become associated with the higher one which had
brought me to Jamaica, and soon learned that some of my brethren were in full
sympathy with it. If any difficulties and discouragements had to be overcome,
and it was several years before this department of the Institution was
established on a satisfactory basis, with a normal school tutor from England,
under the auspices of the Baptist Missionary Society. I rejoice that this
branch of the College has grown to its present dimensions, and that side by
side with the theological students there are nineteen young men now training
for schoolmasters, in all twenty-five.
Since
its commencement, … nearly 100 have gone forth as day-school teachers, besides
over fifty as ministers or missionaries, not including some failures from
various causes. A general educational work has also been carried on with
varying success, both at Rio Bueno and in Kingston. Our High School has not
accomplished all we could desire; but it has done work, as numerous young men
occupying respectable positions in the city, and in different parts of the
island, gratefully testify; while our day school, the training-ground of our
normal school students, is second to none among the elementary schools of
Kingston.
The Missionary Herald, reported on the associated schools in the Calabar network and included the hope for the “resuscitation of the High School” in a modified form. It added:
Calabar,
as it now exists, has been a growth which it is hoped may be capable of yet
further development, especially in some modified form. The four theological
students of 1852 were soon increased to seven. Six or seven have been the
average number in this department, and the session of 1892 will number eleven.
At
Rio Bueno, a small practising day-school was opened with about fifty or sixty
scholars. In Kingston, the College Day School now numbers about two hundred and
fifty on the roll, and [there is] a daily attendance of one hundred and
seventy.[4]
In 1899, the Jamaican government withdrew funding for colleges training male teachers. The loss of this subsidy and the absence of a large enough student body to fund the schools’ operation forced JBU to close the Calabar Normal School. With this, the high school ceased operations.[5]
After Calabar was transferred to Slipe Pen Road, under the leadership of Arthur James, calls began to emerge for the re-establishment of the high school. Part of the reason James resigned his post at Calabar and returned to England in 1909 was his unwillingness to undertake the rigorous work of leading the process of re-establishing Calabar High School, especially after just completing the challenging work of relocating the Calabar educational complex to Slipe Pen Road.
Ernest Price replaced Arthur James as the head of Calabar College. He arrived in Jamaica in 1910 when very few high schools in Jamaica were set up to educate the children of the working class and the rising middle class. It was to meet this need that, in 1912, through the instrumentality of the Revds. Ernest Price, principal of Calabar College and David Davis, tutor and main collaborator with Price, that the new Calabar High School came into existence under the sponsorship of the Baptist Missionary Society of London and the Jamaica Baptist Union.
When the High
School re-opened on the September 12, with 26 boys, its foundations were firmly
laid in the Christian tradition. As founding principal of the new Calabar High
School, Price excelled. Within a year, enrolment reached 80 and the school
received government recognition. An early benefactor was Miss Elizabeth
Purscell who, in 1919, left Studley Park, an adjoining property to Chetolah
Park on Slipe Pen Road, in the trust for the benefit of the High School. Concerning Price, historian and Calabar “Old Boy” Arnold
Bertram writes:
He was Calabar’s headmaster for the first 25 years, and during his
tenure [he] guided the school from its modest beginnings to the pinnacle of
high-school education in Jamaica.[6]
In 1952, under the leadership
of principal Keith Tucker, Calabar
Theological College and High School moved from their location at Chetolah Park/Studley
Park property to Red Hills Road, where 60 acres of land then called “Industry
Pen” had been purchased as the new site of the college and High School. At the time, Industry Pen was a thinly
populated, undeveloped area and many people thought the move to this location was
unwise. The new school was built to house 350 boys, but before long extensions
became necessary. Boarding facilities were provided up to 1970. When boarding
ceased dormitories were subsequently converted to workshops.
In 1967, the Theological College moved to Mona as a part of the United Theological College of the West Indies and Calabar High School took over the space thus vacated. This is the section of the premises which the boys used to refer to as “Long Island.”
As a result of
the massive increase in population in the city, Calabar High School grew by leaps
and bounds. A privately-run Extension School was added in 1971. In 1978 the
School adopted a Shift System incorporating the day and extension schools, at
the request of the Ministry of Education. By that time, the school’s student
population was approximately 1,600 students.
Calabar High
School was famous from the start. It established a reputation for scholarship
as seen in the large number of major scholarships such as Jamaica and Rhodes
Scholarships that Calabar boys have won. The school pioneered in the teaching
of Science, Spanish and Agriculture. Sports, particularly athletics, have
always been important and the school won the Championship Trophy 18 times,
the first time being in 1930. Calabar was the first school to have a swimming
pool and won the swimming competition repeatedly for many years.
When the school
celebrated one hundred years of service in 2012, Calabar Old Boys could be
found occupying important positions in many fields of endeavour, making
outstanding contributions in Jamaica and internationally – in fields extending
from public service to law, politics to education, to church and religion,
sports, business, the creative arts, journalism and diplomacy, just to mention
a few. Truly an outstanding record of accomplishments!
The Calabar Old Student’s Association in Atlanta, USA, noted that, “in 1923, the [Calabar High School] student body included students from many countries. Besides Jamaicans, there were students from England, U.S.A., Australia, New Zealand, Haiti, Panama, Cuba, Cayman, Turks and Caicos Island, Costa Rica, Columbia, Belize, and Nigeria.”[7] Today, graduates of Calabar High School continue to make an outstanding contribution to the development of Jamaica. Some have also made their mark overseas.
[1] May
1, 1872, pp. 339-340.
[2]
Missionary Herald, June 1, 1886, p. 290.
[3] Missionary Herald, May
2, 1887, p. 193.
[4] May
1, 1892, pp. 231-232.
[5] It was not until 1912 that JBU
reopened the high school.
[6] Arnold
Bertram, “Celebrating the centenary of Calabar High (Part I) The Studley Park
years”, Gleaner newspaper, September 26, 2011.
Comments
Post a Comment