Victoria High School (British Columbia)
| Victoria High School | |
 No reward without effort |
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| Address | |
| 1260 Grant St Victoria, British Columbia, V8T 1C2, Canada |
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| Information | |
| School number | 6161018 |
| School board | School District 61 Greater Victoria |
| Principal | Ms.Randi Falls |
| Staff | 60 |
| School type | Public high school |
| Grades | 9-12 |
| Campus | Urban |
| Team name | Totems and Tigers |
| Colours | Black and Gold |
| Founded | 1876 |
| Enrolment | 927 (30 September 2007) |
| Homepage | http://vichigh.sd61.bc.ca/ |
Victoria High School, commonly referred to as Vic High, is a high school located in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It is the oldest high school in the province, and is often cited as "the oldest public high school in Western Canada."
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[edit] Architecture
The school has notable architecture. The architect was Francis Mawson Rattenbury, architect of the British Columbia Parliament Buildings and The Empress Hotel (or Fairmont Empress Hotel).
The foundations of the school are made of impressively heavy 4-foot-square blocks of granite. The building has two ornate facades, including some very large windows which offer prime views of downtown Victoria and Fernwood. The building is U-shaped, with a large auditorium inside the U. Recent additions to the school have turned the spaces between the auditorium and the rest of the building into inaccessible courtyards.
The school has two gymnasiums, one of which is from 1914 and is notable for having a wooden running track suspended 20 feet above its floor. There is a rifle range in the attic, and there is an old tradition that the graduating students sign their names there.
Victoria High School is also notable in that it has three large underground floors for storage and boiler rooms. There are also supposedly two tunnels under the school.
[edit] History
The school opened on August 7, 1876, in a log cabin with two classrooms on the school reserve between Yates Street and Fort Street bounded by Fernwood Road. This same cabin had been the first common (or public) school in British Columbia when it was used as a primary school starting in 1853. It was located on the grounds of the current Central Middle School building.[1] In 1882, the high school moved to a new wing of a brick building that had been built in 1875–1876 and had been used exclusively as the primary school until occupied by the high school. By 1882 the high school included 80 students and was situated between the primary girls' school in the east wing and the primary boys' school in the west wing.[2] The high school remained pressed between the boys' and girls' central schools until 1903. Victoria's growing population in the 1890s led to Victoria High School being described as "one of the most inadequate school buildings in the Province" by the principal Edward Paul.[3] In 1902 a third Victoria High School was opened which quickly outstripped by Victoria's burgeoning population.[4] The present Victoria High School on Grant Street at Fernwood Road was opened in 1914, on 3.5 acres (1.4 ha) of land donated by the City of Victoria.[5]
In 1903, Victoria College (the precursor to the University of Victoria) started as an annex to the high school.
On May 1, 1914, the fourth Victoria High was opened at the new location, Grant and Camosun, with Victoria College on the top floor. The school cost slightly above $460,000. The high school's first principal was S. J. Willis. When the University of British Columbia opened, Victoria College suspended operation until 1920 and when it reopened at nearby Craigdarroch Castle.
When the province renamed all its high schools 'Secondary School', Victoria High School, Oak Bay High School, and Esquimalt High School were the only schools to retain 'High School' as part of their names.
Central Junior Secondary continued as a Junior High School (grades 8–10) and as of 2002[update], a middle school offering French immersion (grades 6–8), and refers to itself as the oldest public school in British Columbia.
Peter L. Smith, himself a graduate of the school and son of Henry L. Smith, longtime principal of Vic High (1934–1955), wrote a history of the school to mark its centennial celebrations in 1976: Come Give a Cheer: One Hundred Years of Victoria High School.
Victoria High School has two war memorials in the school's main entrance, one for World War I, another for World War II. After World War I a large flag (four stories high) was commissioned. It had blue and red maple leaves on it, each representing a student or staff member who died in the war, respectively. It was then lost until 2005, when it was found in the school's basement. For Remembrance Day it was hung from the school's fourth floor.
Former principals:
- S. J. Willis
- Ira Dilworth 1926–1934
- Henry L. Smith 1934–1955
- H.D. Dee
- G.A.V. Thompson
- J.D. (Duncan) Lorimer 1965–1979
- Keith McCallion 1989–1994
- Dennis Harrigan 1994–2002
- Keith Forshaw 2002–2006
- Stephen Bennett 2006–2010
- Randi Falls 2010–
[edit] Notable alumni
- Samuel Maclure, architect
- Simon Fraser Tolmie, Premier of British Columbia
- Byron Ingemar Johnson, Premier of British Columbia
- Emily Carr, artist
- David Anderson, Canadian Cabinet Minister and MP
- Alan Lowe, Mayor of Victoria
- Filip Filipi
- Alex Bennett-Colpman, Musician (Tangs Pagoda)
- Daniel Berikoff, Musician (Tangs Pagoda)
- Samuel Sanderson, Musician (Tangs Pagoda)
- Mark Wyatt, Rugby Player[6][7]
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ John J. Ellis with Charles Lillard, The Fernwood Files, Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, p. 57
- ^ Ellis, p. 59
- ^ Ellis, p. 59
- ^ Ellis, p. 60.
- ^ Ellis, p. 63
- ^ BC Rugby News
- ^ Victoria Times-Colonist, June 2, 2011
Coordinates: 48°25′44″N 123°20′49″W / 48.4290°N 123.3470°W
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