Queen's College, Hong Kong


Queen's College, initially named The Government Central School in 1862 and later renamed Victoria College in 1889, is a selective sixth form college for boys with a secondary school attached. The first public secondary school founded in Hong Kong by the British colonial government, Queen's College obtained its present name in 1894 and is currently located at Causeway Bay, Hong Kong.

Brief history

The history of the College can be traced back to the Chinese village schools that were believed to have existed prior to the founding of British Hong Kong as a colony in 1842.
In August 1847, the British colonial government decreed that grants would be given to existing Chinese village schools in Hong Kong. It appointed an Education Committee in November of that year to examine the state of Chinese schools in Victoria, Stanley and Aberdeen, the aim being to bring the schools under closer government supervision. Following its examinations, the Committee reported that 3 Chinese village schools, namely Taipingshan School, Chungwan School and Sheungwan School were operating actively within Victoria City under Chinese masters Mr. Chuy Shing-cheung, Mr. Leung Sing-Than and Mr. Mak Mai-chun, respectively. The books used in these schools included the Three Character Classics, and the Four Books and the Five Classics. This marked the beginning of the establishment of public education in Hong Kong. Subsequently, government intervention in the provision of education in Hong Kong increased, and in 1857, it established new schools, including West Point School, to meet the ever-increasing demand for education in the burgeoning entrepôt.
In 1860, the British sinologist Rev. Dr. James Legge proposed that the Board of Education establish a Central School that would amalgamate the 3 existing government sponsored and monitored Chinese schools in Victoria City. Two years later, a Government Central School on Gough Street, Central, opened its doors to the public in 1862. Its first headmaster was Dr. Frederick Stewart, who was also appointed Inspector of Schools in the Colony. As Headmaster, he was responsible for the supervision of all schools in Hong Kong until March 1879, when the Government established a separate office for the Inspector; this later became the precursor to the Department of Education, which was then incorporated into the Education Bureau.
In its first five years, the school admitted only Chinese students as a matter of policy. In 1867, it began admitting students of other nationalities, such as British, Indian, Parsee, Japanese and Thai. While Chinese students had to enrol in English classes, students from other nationalities were not expected to study the Chinese classics.
Secular schooling sparked a great deal of controversy with the Hong Kong Governor and religious leaders. On many occasions, the Governor personally scrutinized and intervened in the operations of these schools. Later, the Government established a grant program that enabled religious schools to compete on par with the Central School for funding.
On 26 April 1884, a foundation stone was laid on Aberdeen Street for the school's new premises by Sir George Bowen, Governor from 1883 to 1887. Witnessing the ceremony was Sun Yat-sen, then a student at the school. On the Governor's recommendation, the school was to be renamed Victoria College following the completion of the new building.
In 1889, construction of the school was completed at a cost of HKD250,000, making it one of the largest and most expensive buildings in Hong Kong at that time.
In 1894, the school was officially renamed Queen's College. Since the 1870s, the Government had wanted to expand the College to become a university; however, the idea was scrapped after the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. Fearing that the benefits it enjoyed in the Far-East could be jeopardized by Japan's growing influence in the region, the British colonial government decided that it was crucial to establish a university that could train graduates in war-related subjects, such as engineering and medicine. While Queen's College remained a secondary school, this eventually led to the establishment of the University of Hong Kong in 1910.
Following the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in 1941, the school was forced to close, after which it was converted into a Field hospital. Immediately after the fall of Hong Kong, refugees stripped the buildings of their timber for fuel. During the Japanese occupation, the school site was used by Japanese Occupying Forces. As a result, the campus was destroyed during an Allied bombing attack near the end of the War. For a brief period after, its ruins were occupied by refugees following the Japanese surrender, and fire accidents were common. Beginning in 1948, the site was cleared to make way for the PMQ.
In 1947, the school re-opened in a temporary facility on Kennedy Road, sharing a campus with Clementi Secondary School.
In 1950, a new campus of Queen's College was built in Causeway Bay to accommodate the school's expansion. It moved to the present site on Causeway Road, opposite Victoria Park, on 22 September. That day, Sir Alexander Grantham, Governor of Hong Kong, announced the re-opening of Queen's College. Since then, the two-storey high building has served countless numbers of Q.C. students.
Until 1951, pupils typically entered Queen's College at Class 4. In September 1951, two additional grades were created at the bottom end of the school, the lowest grade thus becoming Class 6. For a time, these changes in organization and other factors, resulting from the rapid growth of education, led to an uneven distribution of divisions. In 1950 for instance, there were ten divisions of Class 4. In 1951, four of these divisions were transferred to King's College. From 1955, undergraduates intending to focus on the Arts were transferred to King's College and later to Belilios Public School for their Advanced Level year. From 1962, an extra Upper Sixth Form was provided to arts students so that QC boys would no longer have to study at Belilios. Meanwhile, for a brief period, Belilios Girls were sent over to Queen's to study Science. Since then, Queen's College has remained a full-time Anglo-Chinese secondary school for boys.
Today, the school's original site on Gough Street is often cited in tours examining the legacy of Sun Yat-sen in Hong Kong.

School song

The melody of the school song of Queen's College was adapted from the school anthem of England's Harrow School, with lyrics provided by Mr. William Kay, formerly a long-serving vice principal at the school. Heep Yunn School, an all-girls school in Kowloon, also shares the same melody for their school song. This rendition of the is arranged by .

School Logo

At Queen's College, school logos were only officially adopted after the Second World War. Prior to the War, the school, like other government departments, used the Royal Emblem as its logo. However, Queen's College's first school logo was designed as early as 1923 by Mr Ng Ping-un, Chief Chinese draftsman of the Architectural Office. The post-war school logo changed numerous times, all of them based on Ng's 1923 design. The school's current logo was adopted in 1997 after the Transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong.

Enrolment and medium of instruction

Queen's College currently has 24 classes, with 4 classes per form and approximately 860 students enrolled. Prior to the implementation of the 334 Scheme and Voluntary Optimization of Class Structure Scheme, the College housed 33 classes with approximately 1,200 students on roll, with 5 classes per form from Secondary One to Five, and 4 classes per form in Lower and Upper Sixth Forms. Secondary One students are allocated by the Secondary School Place Allocation System.
The medium of instruction is English ; however, teaching in Cantonese is not uncommon, and is usually at the discretion of individual teachers.

EDB Pre-S1

Activities and achievements

All students are divided into eight School Houses, namely: Stewart, Wright, Dealy, Tanner, Crook, de Rome, Kay, and Williamson. The School Houses compete in Athletic Meets, Swimming Gala and other inter-house competitions. School teams regularly participate and excel in inter-school competitions.
There are also 49 clubs grouped under Sports, Recreational, Religious, Social Services, and Academic areas. Most clubs hold events and functions for the participation of all students and many of them organize joint events with sister schools throughout every academic year. They also actively participate in annual school Open Days. Last but not least, school clubs co-ordinate with and contribute to many charitable activities.
Queen's College students are known for excelling in the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination. Historically, more students at the school have received 10 A grades on the HKCEE than at any other secondary school in Hong Kong. Out of over 572 secondary schools in Hong Kong, fewer than 30 have ever produced these so-called "10A" students. In particular, between 1990 and 2006, 50 Queen's College students received 10 A's on the HKCEE. This number represents over 26% of the 10A scores received during this period.
The stellar academic performance of Queen's College students is reflected in its representation at many of the world's best universities. Many excellent Form 6 students continue their education at prestigious overseas institutions in the United States, the People's Republic of China and the United Kingdom, while most Form 7 graduates enroll in prestigious local universities such as the University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Hong Kong Outstanding Students Awards

Queen's College students have won 21 of the past Hong Kong Outstanding Students Awards, placing the school in 2nd place among all secondary schools in Hong Kong. Of the 45 winners and finalists, 21 have served on the Executive Committee of the Hong Kong Outstanding Students' Association

President

Queen's College counts a total of seven winners and finalists of the from 2002 to 2017.

Publications

First published in June 1899, the Queen's College school magazine, The Yellow Dragon, is the world's oldest existing Anglo-Chinese school magazine. A priceless historical resource, it provides a window into the evolution of education in Hong Kong and on societal evolution in the Asia Pacific region. In 2005, the magazine published its 100th volume. The Chinese section of the edition featured a brief summary of the magazine's past 100 volumes, written by seven students to commemorate the special occasion.
Another regular publication is the school newspaper, The Courier, which has been published since 1968. Currently, 3 issues are produced each year, covering the school's major functions and featuring student contributions.
In commemoration of the school's 125th anniversary, the Queen's College Old Boys' Association published a limited-edition history of the school entitled Queen's College: Its History 1862-1987 in 1987. Its author, Gwyneth Stokes, whose husband John was the Principal of Queen's College from 1965 to 1970, spent 2 years researching the 494-page book in local archives and in the UK.

Scandals

Mr. Chiu Sin Hang, an assistant principal on probation, was involved in several scandals:

Politicians, judges, diplomats, and military staff

History
The Queen's College History Gallery was established in 2013 to illustrate the history of the school and to serve as an archive for preserving and restoring school-related artifacts, documents and relevant publications. To give the 4000-piece strong collection and exhibition a more favourable environment, a new purpose-built museum converted from several classrooms was completed and opened on 23 January 2017. Renamed the Queen's College History Museum, it currently hosts a permanent exhibition entitled "From Gough Street to Causeway Road: Change and Continuity of Queen's College" curated by Old Boys Mr Joseph Yu, Mr John Kwok and Mr Justin Cheng. Mapping out the changes and continuities of curricula, education policies, student activities and traditions over a span of a century and a half, it also shows the College's contributions and relationships to the development of Hong Kong and China. Despite the ever-changing environment and the emergence of new challenges, the core values and spirit of Queen's College remain unchanged. To encourage the public to learn more about their school history, the museum currently operates a and a .
Curatorial Methodology
Most of the surviving materials and records were collected by institutions and University Archives in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, as well as private collectors and Old Boys. The Internet presented both opportunities and challenges to the curators. Apart from being overwhelmed quantitatively by various materials previously not available to researchers, useful information is often fragmented and hidden deep inside these materials, which require specific historical knowledge and skills to detach them from their sources and connect them with the wider picture. As a result, materials and information previously unknown to the world were found and displayed, in the hope that visitors and researchers would benefit from a more holistic picture of the history of Queen's College, and its relation to the development of Hong Kong and Greater China. In terms of curating the exhibition, the curators have adopted both chronological and typological display methods, tailoring to the specific nature of our collection. Organizing the main exhibition in a chronological manner can effectively communicate in a simple and straightforward manner, allowing visitors from different walks of life to observe and fully appreciate the changes and continuities of school policies, curricula, student experiences and activities, and their relation to the broader socio-political development in Hong Kong and the World. The 8 typologically organised cases are aimed at showing visitors the 'evolution' and development of school-related items formerly used by students and staff from different eras, reflecting the response to changing demands across history. It is hoped that both displaying patterns will complement each other and inform visitors of a more holistic picture, thus reflecting the changes and continuities of Queen's College.
Old Boy Honorary Curators and Staff