Excelsior:The Story of Wynberg-Allen School
Author : Rakhshanda Jalil
Publisher : Niyogi, Rs1,500
This book envisages the vision of the school's founders, the selfless commitment of missionaries who worked tirelessly for what began as an orphanage, writes JASKIRAN CHOPRA
Mussoorie’s Wynberg-Allen School ,with its 125-year-old rich and treasured history, is one of the best educational institutions in India. How it has reached where it is today has been captured in this dramatic story of the school written by renowned writer, translator, critic and literary historian Dr Rakhshanda Jalil.
Excelsior: The Story of Wynberg-Allen School envisages the vision of the school’s founders, the selfless commitment of missionaries, who gave with open hearts and worked tirelessly for what began as an orphanage. The book embraces the experiences of all those who have passed through the school’s portals — staff and students, past and present — their dedication and contribution. To encompass the long journey of 125 years is a challenging task and has been fulfilled efficiently and imaginatively by Dr Jalil. She has succeeded in documenting the history methodically and in a manner which holds the interest of the reader throughout this treatise of 220 pages.
The journey of the school is indeed remarkable and worth reading about. From one ramshackle rented bungalow on a deserted hilltop to a sprawling campus spread over 130.5 acres. From precisely two children on its rolls to a student strength of 730 in 2013. From a few hundred rupees scraped together with kindness of friends to a substantial corpus.Besides telling us the history of this prestigious school, the book also pays tribute to every member who served the school with commitment and sacrifice since its inception.
During 1887, a group of friends — Alfred Powell, Arthur Foy and his wife, and Brig J H Condon — met in Kanpur and decided to set up a school in Mussoorie. These great people, the founders, established a school at Jaberkhet along the Tehri Road in 1888. In 1894, the school was shifted to the present Wynberg Estate from where the seed planted in 1888 really began to take root, blossom and flourish.
Mrs West and her two orphan students, Peter and Mary Cables, lived in the old rambling house where the school began as The Christian Training School and Orphanage on a hilltop called Jaberkhet along a bridle path from landour to Tehri. “The lord Shall Provide” was a principle of faith which the school always abided by. And God never failed the school. The changing times, right from 1888 to the present, have been captured by the author as they were reflected in the world of the school. The early years of the school, when there was no electricity and running water, also tell us about Mussoorie of those days. Dak Gharries or tongas would be made available at the railhead at Saharanpur when children arrived from their homes in the first week of April. Electricity came to Mussoorie on May 24, 1909, and it was on April 14, 1913, that electric lights began to be used at Wynberg. Christmas treats for children who could not afford to travel to their homes, the Fancy Fairs (these are still held), the Christian Endeavour Classes, the cookery and tailoring lessons, the piano lessons given free of charge by Mussoorie’s generous ladies to poorer students — all these are described by Jalil to recreate the atmosphere of the late 19th and early 20th century in the school.
It was on February 24, 1894, that the school moved to the location which would become its lasting abode — Wynberg. The author tells us that the word Wynberg means wine mountain in Afrikaans. There is a suburb of the city of Cape Town in South Africa called Wynberg.
Some of the highlights of the school’s history include its adopting the motto “Excelsior” in 1905, inspired by the poem of the same name by HW longfellow (excelsior is a latin adjective meaning higher or loftier, used in English as an interjection with a poetic meaning of ever upward), and the school’s registering itself as a high school in 1906.
This book chronicles not just the physical growth but also the spiritual evolution of this hallowed institution, and the strength given to the school by many of its well-wishers, besides the dedicated principals and teachers. The challenges that the school faced in these 125 years were no small ones. They included national and international events like the great famine, the two World Wars, the struggle for Independence, and the Partition .
Indian boys and girls were admitted for the first time in 1930 and the transition from being a European institution to one which adjusted to the needs of the land where it was located was gradual but smooth. Rev Biggs, the school’s principal in the 1940s, spoke of the school’s new role in the new India in these words: “Here proudly stands Wynberg-Allen that once served mainly foreign people and their descendants, but now it is intimately integrated with the needs and ambitions of this wide flung, throbbing nation Bharat and her people over the seas.”
Basically an Anglo-Indian school, Wynberg-Allen opened its doors — as the number of Anglo-Indian pupils declined — to “the ‘nationals’ clamouring for admission: Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christian”.
The photographs, both sepia-tinted and coloured, are by Arvind Hoon, Pankaj Sharma and from Wynberg-Allen School archives as the book is a collaborative effort of Wynberg Homes Society and Niyogi Books. The historical as well as literary value of the book make it a collector’s item.
The life and times of the people who played important roles in the growth and development of this institution have been described at length in the book. Among these stalwarts are Mrs West, HG Meakin, B Dukoff Gordon (the first principal), Dr Condon, HD Allen and his family of Cawnpore, Major FW Hart, Rev Biggs and his wife known among the students as “Mama Biggs”, Major and Mrs lehmann, lO Edwards, lt Col Skinner, Terence W Phillips, SC Singha and the present principal leslie Tindale, who is an ex-student of the school.
The book focuses on the school’s discipline based on values of hard work, compassion, respect and integrity. The school’s strong foundation has been laid by its team of dedicated teachers and a deeply ingrained sense of dignity and pride in the vocation of teaching built over the years .
In the afterword, the author writes: “The tiny seed that was planted in Jaberkhet 125 years ago has indeed grown to be a strong and magnificent tree with its roots going deep into the soil, its branches sturdy and solid, its foliage dense and lush.” There could be no better way to sum up the story of the evolution of Wynberg-Allen School.
