Kingswood Firsts

Kingswood’s history informs us that the school has been among the pioneers in setting up a few noted trends in Sri Lankan education. In 1891 Kingswood became the first Ceylonese school to adopt rugby as a college sport. The first recorded inter-school fixture in this sport is played against Trinity, in 1906. Kingswoods name is also among the first five registered cadet platoons, which was an incentive brought into the countries education machine in the late 19th century. Kingswood Cadets were among a strong contingent of cadet officers who volunteered their services during world war I and II.

In January 1902, Miss Annie Bartholomeusz was appointed to Standards 1 and 2 at Kingswood: an experiment that was new to Ceylon, where lady teachers were not generally employed in boys schools. Miss Bartholomeusz is followed by other female teachers and Kingswoods experiment is soon adopted at a wider level.

In 1934-35, Kingswood developed a photographic culture, which in the years to follow gains groundt college. The field of photography is thereby studied as an art and a science and by today that initiative has flourished into a well populated club of its own. Kingswood’s photographic society’s presence was felt in any main school event and is now in league with the media club in taking communication into an altogether new generation.

In the 1900s, Kingswood is among the first set of schools to install a motor traffic controlling unit- a cadre consisting of students themselves who would assist in the maneuvering of highway traffic immediately before and after school hours.

Kingswood plays the fourth oldest traditional Big Match in the Country. The Kingswood-Dharmaraja encounter is the oldest such official fixture in the Hill Country. Its generally referred to as the “battle of the Hill country Maroons “. It is notable that Kingswood, a school with strong Methodist ties, had initiated a Big Match with Dharamaraja: a school of the olcott- Dharamapala Revivalist tradition. While most traditional fixtures are played among schools of same traditions, Kingswood, in a rare gesture, has broken out of the that conventional box, to form a link with Dharamaraja College, which belongs to a different educational tradition altogether.