Victoria College, Jersey
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Victoria College is a fee-charging States of Jersey boys school in St Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands. The castellated neo-gothic architecture (architect: J. Hayward) is a landmark overlooking the town.
[edit] History
Although in the 1590s, Laurens Baudains, a wealthy farmer from St. Martin, had persuaded the monarch and the States of Jersey to support a scheme for the establishment of a college to instruct the youth of Jersey in "grammar, latin, the liberal arts and religion", the scheme foundered.
The visit of Queen Victoria to Jersey in 1846 finally gave impetus to the long-mooted scheme of a college. The foundation stone was laid on Victoria's birthday 24 May 1850, and the college was opened in 1852.
Although French was still the sole official language in Jersey, the new college was consciously patterned after the English public schools. The medium of instruction was English from the beginning and was therefore one of the causes for the decline of French as the élite sent their sons to the new college.
Queen Victoria visited the college on her return to Jersey in 1859. The British monarch remains Visitor of the college, visiting as recently as 2002.
In the 1860s, the ancient grammar schools of St. Mannelier and St. Anastase closed and their endowments were used to fund scholarships at Victoria College.
The college was controlled by the Assembly of Governor, Bailiff and Jurats until 1921 when the States took over the assets of that Assembly (including the college) along with most of its powers. The Governing body now consists of a board of Governors, some States appointed, others taken from parents of current pupils.
The buildings expanded with a new quadrangle to provide extra classrooms. The WWI memorial, a statue of Sir Galahad (1924) by Alfred Turner with a quotation from Tennyson, stands there. The WW2 memorial is located outside the Sixth Form common room. Every Remembrance day the College holds a service to commemorate the pupils who died in the two wars, placing a wreath of poppies at the base of the statue and the plaque outside the Common Room.
In 1935, the Howard Hall, built with the benefactions of T.B. Davis to commemorate his son, Howard Davis, who died during WWI, was opened by the Prince of Wales. The Hall was refurbished in 1996 and now exists as the Howard Davis Theatre where numerous types of drama are performed by the pupils.
College House, a boarding house attached to Victoria College, was used by the occupying German army as military headquarters during WWII. It was subsequently incorporated into the new Jersey College for Girls building when that institution moved to a site adjacent to Victoria College. Despite some initial opposition from staff and parents at Victoria College to this development, the pupils of both schools now share Design and Art facilities.
[edit] Houses
In the style of the English public school system, the school operates on a house system, each house named after a pupil who was awarded the Victoria Cross as the college lost many of its students to the First World War and the Second World War, namely Braithwaite, Bruce, Dunlop and Sartorius. In 2002, under Headmaster Robert Cook, a fifth house, Diarmid, was added in recognition of a VC winner who had previously not been assigned one.
