Royal College, Colombo
Royal College, Colombo also known as; Royal Colombo, Colombo Royal College or Colombo Royal is a boys' school located in Cinnamon Gardens, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Started by Joseph Marsh in 1835, it was established as the Colombo Academy by Sir Robert Wilmot-Horton in January 1835, as part of the implementation of the recommendations of the Colebrooke–Cameron Commission, and was the first government-run secondary school for boys in the country.
Royal College is the first public school in Sri Lanka and is often referred to as the "Eton of Sri Lanka". The school was founded in the British public school tradition, based on the recommendations of the Colebrooke–Cameron Commission, and having been named the Royal College, Colombo in 1881 with consent from Queen Victoria, it became the first school to gain the prefix, "Royal", outside of the British Isles. It was one of the first schools to be designated as a national school by the Sri Lankan Government in the 1980s.
As a national school, it is funded by the government as opposed to the provincial council providing both primary and secondary education. The school was set as one of the most innovative educational institutions in the world at the fifth annual Worldwide Innovative Education Forum, organised by the Microsoft Corporation in 2009.
The students of Royal College are known as Royalists or referred to in the press as Colombo Royalists. whilst past pupils are known as Old Royalists. The school has produced many distinguished alumni, among whom are presidents of two countries, a sultan, and four prime ministers.
College
Location
Situated in Cinnamon Gardens belonging to Kurunduwatta, a residential suburb of Colombo, it occupies an area of along the Rajakeeya Mawatha, bordered by Reid Avenue to the east; Kumarathunga Munidasa Mawatha to the west and to the south its former premises, which now houses the Department of Mathematics of the University of Colombo. Adjacent to Royal College is Thurstan College, which was established to accommodate the overflow of students from Royal Primary who could not gain admission to Royal College.Administration
The college is funded by the Ministry of Education, which appoints its principal. The principal is the head of the administration of the college and is assisted by a Senior Deputy Principal. The school is divided into four sections: the primary school, middle school, upper-middle school and the upper school, each coming under a deputy principal. The college educates close to 9,000 students in both secondary and primary education. The administration of the college hostel is carried out by the warden under the supervision of the principal and is assisted by a sub-warden.Student Leadership
The senior prefects of the school also hold comparatively an important role in the school. Since they have completed their final examinations, they are senior to any other student of the college. Hence their disciplinary powers extend to all students of Royal College.Admission
Admission to the school is among the most competitive in the country. It gets its highest number of applications for admission to grade 1 and the best 250 students from all over the country to enter the school in year 5 via the grade 5 scholarship examination.Grounds
The school is located on where the primary school, the middle school and the upper school are located. It is equipped with lecture halls, science and computer laboratories, and auditoriums. This includes the College Hall and the Navarangahala, a national theatre. The school hostel is located within the school grounds and it accommodates students from outside Colombo, with around 230 hostelers.Sport plays a major part in Royal College's activities. The school's facilities include a swimming pool, cricket and athletics grounds, tennis courts, basketball courts, and indoor cricket nets within the school premises. The Royal College Sports Complex and the rugby grounds are located a short distance from the college. The international standard sports complex, built in 2000, hosts national and school sporting events all year round.
War memorial
Situated in front of the main building, next to the main Boake Gates, is the memorial to Old Royalists who died in the two World Wars and the Sri Lankan Civil War.Another memorial plaque is displayed in the entryway to the Navarangahala, bearing the names of 47 Old Royalists who were killed in action in the civil war. The first War Memorial Panel of the college was unveiled in the second term of 1933, by Sir Graeme Tyrrell, Chief Secretary of Ceylon commemorating Old Royalists who had died or were decorated during the Great War. Of the 330 Ceylonese who volunteered for service in the Great War, 88 were from Royal College.
History
In 1835, Joseph Marsh started a private school at the back verandah of the church called the Hill Street Academy for twenty students from the upper class community situated at Hill Street, Pettah.Then in the following year in 1836, Sir Robert Wilmot-Horton, the British Governor of Ceylon, based on the recommendations of the Colebrooke Commission, established the Colombo Academy, as an English public school modeled on Eton College, with Marsh continuing as headmaster on government pay. It was the oldest public school on the island and had the governor as its patron. It gave the children of leading Ceylonese families an education which would make them fit to be citizens of the British Empire and served as the principal public school and a model for other government schools that were to be built in Ceylon. In 1836 the school was moved to San Sebastian Hill, Pettah, ; it would stay there for another 75 years before being shifted to Thurstan Road. Even though the college had close ties to Anglicanism in its early years since 1836 it has remained a secular school.
In 1859 the Queen's College, Colombo was established as the first institution of higher education in Ceylon. Affiliated to the University of Calcutta, it prepared students from the Colombo Academy for entrance examinations of English universities. In 1865 the Morgan Committee of inquiry into education recommended that it be reorganized and that scholarships should be awarded to study at the University of Oxford, and as a result in 1869, Queen's College was amalgamated with the Colombo Academy.
The first hostel of the Colombo Academy was established in San Sebastian in 1868, establishing it as one of the first boarding schools in Ceylon.
In 1881 it was renamed Royal College Colombo with the royal consent of Queen Victoria. The Gazette notification giving Her Majesty's approval to change the name of the school appeared on 31 July 1881. The same year the first cadet battalion in Ceylon was formed at the college, attached to the Ceylon Light Infantry. The Royal College Union was formed in 1891 as the first alumni society in the country.
In 1911, work commenced on a new building for the school on Reid Avenue. In November 1911 during construction of this building, it was hit by an aircraft that was trying the establish the record for the first flight over Ceylon in November 1911. On 27 August 1913 the school was moved to thin new building at Reid Avenue. Ten years later on 10 October 1923, the school moved, this time to the newly constructed Victorian styled building further down Reid Avenue, which it continues to occupy. This move was due to the suggestion made by a higher education committee in 1914, that Royal College should be converted into a University college. Due to the objections made by past pupils of the Royal College Union, especially by the speeches made by Frederick Dornhorst, KC, the then Governor of Ceylon, Lord Chalmers instead created a separate University College, University College Colombo, at the school's former premises which became the University of Colombo in the later years.
With the introduction of free education in Ceylon in 1931, Royal stopped charging fees from its students, thus providing education free of charge to this day.
In 1940 the school was again on the move this time due to the onset of World War II. The school was ordered to move out and the British Army moved in, establishing the Combined Military Hospital, Colombo in the school buildings by 1941 and later covering it into a garrison. Principal E.L. Bradby made sure that education was carried on unhindered by moving the students into four private villas at Turret Street, Colombo: the Turret House, Carlton Lodge, Sudarshan House and Firdoshi House.
In 1942 forms 1–3 were relocated to Glendale bungalow in Bandarawela, from Colombo. In 1944 the Royal Preparatory School was moved to Bandarawela due to the risk of Japanese aerial bombings. In 1948, following the end of World War II, both were moved back to Colombo.
Following a decree from the State Council of Ceylon in 1945, religious studies were started at the school.
In 1948, after the war ended, the school was relocated to its old home on Reid Avenue, Colombo, and the Hill School was closed down.
In August 1977, the Royal Preparatory School was amalgamated into Royal College forming the school's primary school. With it came the country's only national theatre at the time, the Navarangahala.
Five years earlier on 22 May 1972, the members of the House of Representatives of the Dominion of Ceylon met at the Royal Primary School Hall and enacted the Republican Constitution that established the Republic of Sri Lanka.
Since its establishment, the main medium of education had been English; however with Sinhala becoming the official language along with Tamil, the medium of education was changed to Sinhala and Tamil. In 2002 English was reintroduced as a medium of education at the college. Students may select one of the three languages in which to conduct their studies.