In 1885 Rev. Thomas Field and Frank Dobbs opened the Adelaide School Collegiate' for the Anglican Church in the Christ Church schoolrooms at c. 79–85 Jeffcott Street, North Adelaide. In 1889 Dobbs retired and was succeeded by the Rev. H. A. Brookshank, M.A. In 1891 the school was taken over as a private venture by J. H. Lindon and G. L. Heinemann, and renamed "The Queen's School" in honour of Queen Victoria. The new school was a success from the start. The first school year opened with 34 students and ended with 72, and managed to provide quality education despite the cramped conditions. Teachers in that first year include: L. B. Cross, Bronard, Greenwood, Wallace Packer, Hugo Leschen, Norman MacCreorge and Sgt. Egan, who drilled the boys twice a week. At the end-of-year prizegiving, the visiting examiner B. T. Williams pronounced the school highly successful in producing boys with high average standard of education rather than a few brilliant examples from talented boys. In 1892 a new building was constructed on Barton Terrace, four doors east of the boarding-house, to a design by architect Frank J. Naish, which included four classrooms, an assembly room "Big School Room" and a chemistry laboratory. Ceilings were high. The grounds included tennis courts and a parade area. The school was close to the Park Lands and an oval, where the first of many cricket matches was held between Queen's School and Hahndorf Academy. Heinemann, a member of the famous publishing family, left at the end of 1895 to return to Britain, and Lindon, who by this time was bed-ridden, took on as partner R. G. Jacomb-Hood. Lindon died in 1897, and his remains were buried at the North Road Cemetery alongside those of J. A. Hartley and J. T. Sunter of Prince Alfred College. Hood purchased the business from Lindon's widow and ran the school successfully for 30 years. On 27 August 1926 Edward Stokes, M.A. took over the school, which continued to prosper and, "on the advice of a number of old boys and certain educationists", it was in 1928 renamed Queen's College. The curriculum in the 1930s included history, geography, classics, modern languages, mathematics, science, book-keeping, and shorthand. The boys were organised into two Houses, "Lindon" and "Jacomb-Hood", named for the first two headmasters. They competed for the Bonython Cup, presented by Sir Langdon. The school colours were chocolate and gold. The school library, which contained over 800 books, memorialised Sir Ross Smith, who with his brother Keith was educated at the school. Stokes died on 7 April 1934 and D. O. Haslam, who had been with the school since 1931, leased the college and boarding house from Stokes' trustees. The school roll dropped in the mid 1930s, then returned to 100 in 1938 and continued to grow, reaching 133 in 1941 and 160 in 1943, and there were now three Houses: Hood, Lindon and Field. Additional property was purchased in 1942 to cope with the increase then in July 1949 Haslam announced that the school was no longer viable and would close at the end of the year. Haslam immediately accepted the offer of a teaching appointment with his old school Scotch College. Many of the school's pupils transferred to Pulteney Grammar School.
Notable students
Arguably the best-known names among past students were Sir Ross and Keith Smith, but the school had seven or eight Rhodes Scholars including Reginald J. Rudall and Dr. W. Ray, and a surprising number of prominent medical men including Dr Thorold Grant, whose dermatitis case made headline news in 1933, and the leading London ENT specialist F. F. Muecke who married Ada Crossley. Other notable students included Lawrence Bragg, Cecil Hackett, Elton Mayo and his brother Herbert Mayo, Victor Marra Newland, Grenfell Price, Walter Parsons, Reginald Rudall and Arthur Rymill In the Great War of 1914–1918, around 200 "old boys" enlisted, 34 losing their lives.
