St Thomas' College , Dehradun

as a school building. The St. Thomas' Day School was opened in January 1916 with Miss Priscilla C. Wells as Headmistress, two teachers. Miss Hannah and Miss Moses and 34 children. Later on an application was made to the Municipal Board of Dehradun, for the lease of Nazul land and the present site of the School was maintained. Various bodies were then approached for funds to erect a proper School building on the plot. The European School Improvement Association, three members of the School Committee, members of the St. Thomas' Church donated some money and some was raised from two concerts. The construction of the School was entrusted to Mr. Jones, District Engineer of Dehradun. He designed a building, consisting of a Central Hall, four class rooms, two and a back verandah and this cost the School Rs.8,600/-. Servant quarters were erected at a cost of Rs. 1,060/-. As the number of children on the roll increased, additional class rooms became necessary and the U.P. Government was approached for a building grant. This could not be given except to a Society and so a School Society was formed and registered with the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies - U.P. on 28.2.1924. The members of the Society were Rev. Francis A. Judd, Mr. W.E. Perrce, IFS, President, Forest Research Institute & Colleges, Dehradun, Mr. Pearson, IFS, Forest Economist, Mrs. D.C. Mackinnon, Mr. O.C. Ollenbach, Mr. S. D'Gama and Miss A. Degruyther. The U.P. Government then sanctioned a building grant of Rs.3,436/- for the Society. Mrs. Amelia Fraser, a local resident, very kindly donated a sum of Rs. 10,000/- to the School to build a hall. This was gratefully accepted and thus the 'Fraser Hall' was con¬structed and formally opened in 1933. Till 1947, the School taught only upto the Middle School and it was only the fol¬lowing year that the U.P. Government accorded the School the status of being a High School. This necessitated further expansion and so the Society built new class rooms and Science laboratories, which were built under the able supervision of Engineer Lt. Col. R.C. Wilkinson. Percy Paine served the School for 14 years. After she left, the post was taken by the following ladies: Mrs. M.E. Mobsy, Mrs. M. Alexander, Mrs. Dorothy Sealy, Mrs. P. Ghose, and the present Principal, Mr. R.V. Gardner, Ex-MLA who happens to be not only the 13th Principal of the Institution but the only Gent. The Institution has always been co-educational and has prepared students for the Jr. Cambridge Examination, Senior Cambridge Examination, ICSE (Year X) ISC (Year XI) ISC (Year XII) and Trinity College for music through the 91 years of its existence. Children of all nationalities, communities, class and creed have studied and are still studying. It has always been inculcated in the staff and students that they are members of one happy family and this pleasing spirit is a very noticeable feature of the School. The staff and students have always had before them the School motto "Build Ye High and Build True". The Institution has a House System, which initially consisted of 3 Houses, but now the staff and students are divided into 4 Houses - namely: Burn (Blue) , Cole (Green), Degruyther (Yellow) and Fraser (Red) and all Sporting events, Dramatics, Dancing and Singing (Classical and Western), and Scholastics are held on an Inter-House basis which creates a healthy spirit of competition not only among the students, but also the Staff. The games played in the Institution are - Cricket, Hockey, Soccer, Basketball, Athletics, Boxing, Badminton and Table Tennis. At the present moment the Institution has classes from III to XII with strength of over 2200 students, 90 staff and 25 Support staff with students getting the option to offer Science or Commerce in the plus two stages along with Computer Studies. There is very clearly a need for a Primary School and that is why the Institution now needs a few benefactors who would donate generously for this cause. as per submitted by Peter Howard on March 2008.