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The Empress’s Plume: Rotorua’s First High School: Rotorua Boys’ High School centenary, 1914-2014
For 85 years, Rotorua Boys’ High School and its predecessors on the Pukuatua Street site have been regarded as being Rotorua’s Plume – “Raukura Rotorua”. However, the School started life fifteen years earlier, on Arawa Street, as the plume of an Empress.
This book has been published to mark Rotorua Boys’ High School’s centenary in 2014. It also commemorates 100 years of secondary education in Rotorua and tells the story of Rotorua’s first High School.
It all began on a cold, clear mid-winter’s afternoon on the eve of World War I. The people of the town gathered at their local school for what was described as being a “red-letter” day in the history of Rotorua. They gathered for the official opening of the new Rotorua District High School at 3:00 p.m. on Monday, 8 June, 1914. With the addition of a Secondary Department to the Rotorua Public School – Rotorua’s first State school established in 1886, now known as Rotorua Primary School – secondary education in Rotorua officially began.
As there was no room to accommodate the first twenty-one secondary pupils – eleven boys and ten girls – at the already overcrowded Main Street site, a small back room behind the Rotorua Public Library in the Victoria Institute rented for them. That building, which was named in honour of Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress of India, had been built to commemorate her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. It was located two blocks down from the Main School, on the opposite side of Arawa Street, and stood at the centre of what was originally known as the “Government Block” on the site of the present-day Rotorua Court House. From its official opening in late-1898, the Victoria Institute sat at the heart of Rotorua’s government, civic, and cultural affairs. And it was there, in this remarkable but now forgotten building in Rotorua’s colonial history, that the first secondary pupils of Rotorua and their teacher began their work 100 years ago. They would remain at the Victoria Institute for the next ten years until 1924.
In this book, Kevin J. Lyall – Old Boy, Archivist, and Historian of Rotorua Boys’ High School – brings together the never before told stories of the Rotorua District High School’s Secondary Department; its pupils and staff, the Victoria Institute, and the important people and events in its history. The Secondary Department was, due to its separate physical location from the Main School, a quite distinct and independent entity from the outset. This distinctiveness was unusual amongst the contemporary and older District High Schools of New Zealand, and it was an important factor in its development between 1914 and 1926.
In Rotorua’s Plume: A History of Rotorua Boys’ High School, 1880-2001 – the official history of Rotorua Boys’ High School published in 2003 – the author expertly chronicled the School’s history from before its foundation up to the end of the turn-of-the century and the new millennium. In this boo, he returns to re-visit the pioneering era of secondary education in Rotorua and thoroughly explores it. With further research and new sources becoming available since 2003, and with the never before used memories of one of the twenty-one Foundation Pupils who was present at the official opening 100 years ago, the author has been able to give this history a unique first-hand authority and also a “realism” unusual in historical accounts such as this. He makes some new discoveries, and also definitively and quite persuasively settles the question of Rotorua Boys’ High School’s foundation date.
Beautifully illustrated with archive and specially taken new photographs, and with the benefit of some superb photographs and paintings reproduced from the British Royal Collection, in this book, Kevin J. Lyall throws a fascinating and important new light on the people and events that shaped Rotorua’s first High school 100 years ago. This is a wonderfully written book and a story that will captivate the current boys and the Old Pupils and, indeed, anyone with an interest in the history of one of Rotorua’s oldest and most important institutions. The Empress’s Plume has been a story waiting to be told.
This book has been published to mark Rotorua Boys’ High School’s centenary in 2014. It also commemorates 100 years of secondary education in Rotorua and tells the story of Rotorua’s first High School.
It all began on a cold, clear mid-winter’s afternoon on the eve of World War I. The people of the town gathered at their local school for what was described as being a “red-letter” day in the history of Rotorua. They gathered for the official opening of the new Rotorua District High School at 3:00 p.m. on Monday, 8 June, 1914. With the addition of a Secondary Department to the Rotorua Public School – Rotorua’s first State school established in 1886, now known as Rotorua Primary School – secondary education in Rotorua officially began.
As there was no room to accommodate the first twenty-one secondary pupils – eleven boys and ten girls – at the already overcrowded Main Street site, a small back room behind the Rotorua Public Library in the Victoria Institute rented for them. That building, which was named in honour of Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress of India, had been built to commemorate her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. It was located two blocks down from the Main School, on the opposite side of Arawa Street, and stood at the centre of what was originally known as the “Government Block” on the site of the present-day Rotorua Court House. From its official opening in late-1898, the Victoria Institute sat at the heart of Rotorua’s government, civic, and cultural affairs. And it was there, in this remarkable but now forgotten building in Rotorua’s colonial history, that the first secondary pupils of Rotorua and their teacher began their work 100 years ago. They would remain at the Victoria Institute for the next ten years until 1924.
In this book, Kevin J. Lyall – Old Boy, Archivist, and Historian of Rotorua Boys’ High School – brings together the never before told stories of the Rotorua District High School’s Secondary Department; its pupils and staff, the Victoria Institute, and the important people and events in its history. The Secondary Department was, due to its separate physical location from the Main School, a quite distinct and independent entity from the outset. This distinctiveness was unusual amongst the contemporary and older District High Schools of New Zealand, and it was an important factor in its development between 1914 and 1926.
In Rotorua’s Plume: A History of Rotorua Boys’ High School, 1880-2001 – the official history of Rotorua Boys’ High School published in 2003 – the author expertly chronicled the School’s history from before its foundation up to the end of the turn-of-the century and the new millennium. In this boo, he returns to re-visit the pioneering era of secondary education in Rotorua and thoroughly explores it. With further research and new sources becoming available since 2003, and with the never before used memories of one of the twenty-one Foundation Pupils who was present at the official opening 100 years ago, the author has been able to give this history a unique first-hand authority and also a “realism” unusual in historical accounts such as this. He makes some new discoveries, and also definitively and quite persuasively settles the question of Rotorua Boys’ High School’s foundation date.
Beautifully illustrated with archive and specially taken new photographs, and with the benefit of some superb photographs and paintings reproduced from the British Royal Collection, in this book, Kevin J. Lyall throws a fascinating and important new light on the people and events that shaped Rotorua’s first High school 100 years ago. This is a wonderfully written book and a story that will captivate the current boys and the Old Pupils and, indeed, anyone with an interest in the history of one of Rotorua’s oldest and most important institutions. The Empress’s Plume has been a story waiting to be told.
271 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2015
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