Ordinance of 1879
names such as Joseph Waterhouse and Reverend John Binner.
In a correspondence by Waterhouse, where he sought support for the Wesleyan Mission’s work on education, he urged the reader passionate about religious education to “Go to Feejee and behold the training of the infant”.
“..His lips rubbed with human flesh in order that a taste for such food may be excited and early acquired. Of the boy, playing with dead human bodies as toys. Of the youth, aiming his poisoned arrows at the eyes of a captive lad or lass and making the body of the little suffering innocent his target! Does not your heart pity poor Feejee?”
Led by one of the first settlers on Ovalau, David Whippy, a group of white men built Fiji’s first school on Mission Hill.
Waterhouse was unable to carry out his work in Bau because of the enmity with Ratu Cakobau. According to Stanley Brown in “Men
from Under the Sky”, he began teaching at the school attended by eighty children of “mixed Fijian and European blood”. Of the school roll, Whippy’s household made up a huge portion of pupils. His nine children attended the school as well as other children he looked after, some of them orphans.
“Once the school was running satisfactorily, the mission sent out a trained teacher, Rev John Binner,” Brown noted, describing the success as “one small, peaceful achievement in Levuka”. That school transformed over the years and today have branches in Delana Methodist primary and high schools.
While Methodists chose the town to build their school, the Catholics scouted the outskirts of Levuka, where there was plenty of space and more of nature. According to St John’s College Cawaci literature, an all-boys school was opened at Loreto (Tokou Village) in 1886 followed soon after by a girl’s boarding school. Here students were taught by sisters belonging to the Third Order of Mary (TORM) who had arrived in Levuka in 1882 and used school buildings erected by Father Marion.
In 1894, St John’s College was opened at Cawaci, which in early years was used to educate sons of Fijian chiefs from both Catholic and nonCatholic backgrounds.
The early school started with 12 students who were taught by Marist Brothers teachers. Later in 1897, a school for Fijian girls was established in Cawaci run by Marist sisters – Mother Melanie, Sister Isabelle and Sister Marie-Joseph.
The Marist Convent School started in the town in 1892, shortly after the first Marist Sisters arrived. At the northern end of Levuka, the Anglicans later erected their own school, today called St James Anglican Primary School.
In 1890, with the arrival of a new headmaster, Garner Jones, Levuka Common School officially became Levuka Public School. Jones, though unorthodox in his teaching methods, was revolutionary in his approach and took the school’s education portfolio and curriculum to greater heights.
He eventually spent 36 years in Levuka and passed away in 1930. He did not live long enough to see the school grow in size, in fact too big that it had to be divide into two separate primary and secondary schools in 1973.
Today, a road named after him still remains, as are the many school buildings that were once the pride of the colony and the nurturing grounds of many Fiji greats. A careful look at the school’s rolls in its first 100 years shows the recurrence of names of families associated with the development and welfare of Fiji. The list runs endlessly.
“The list of LPS old boys and girls who have gained prominence in almost aspect of national life….would not complete the picture of the contribution which the school has made to Fiji,” notes Sir Len Usher in Levuka School Century.
And so too have other faith-based schools of the old capital that sprung up during colonial times and continue to shine and educate the children of 21st century Fijians.
Though many schools in other urban centres around the country today have something to brag about, the centenarians of Levuka possess a special type of charm.
For Levuka possesses its own peculiar magic, characterised by its quaint buildings and narrow streets, where every turn leads to discovering a piece of Fiji’s history that only the special town and its people are able to tell.
History being the subject it is, a group’s version of events may not be the same as that held by another group. When publishing one account, it is not our intention to cause division or to disrespect other oral traditions. Those with a different version can contact us so we can publish your account of history too — Editor.