Message of congratulations to the Diocesan School for Girls, Makhanda, from St Andrew’s College
“It must be unique in the annals of the history of the private schools in South Africa for a husband and wife to have run two parallel institutions with such distinction. The deep bond – indeed the love – that exists between DSG and St Andrew’s College has its origins in the shared labour of John and Catherine Espin. – The Boy in You, Marguerite Poland.
When Catherine Espin was offered the chance to start the Diocesan School for Girls in 1874 on the Eastern Frontier, it was a great day for girls’ education in South Africa and a great day for St Andrew’s College too.
Catherine was a trailblazer, and after a short while as the chancellor of the Cathedral and theological tutor for the Diocese, her husband, Canon John Espin, would become the sixth headmaster of St Andrew’s College, and the first truly great headmaster at College.
Since the foundation of the DSG, the destinies of the two schools have been intertwined.
Generations of boys and girls from the Eastern Cape and from all over the country and the continent have had their education here. Family lines have been interwoven as the alumni of both schools have established their own close and tight Old Andrean and Old DSG communities. Two schools with two communities, but in essence just one big community with a shared set of values and bonds.
Inevitably, our two schools were going to collaborate in a more formal manner. It was Jenni Porter, the modern and progressive head of the DSG in the early 1970s, who proposed some form of co-education between the two schools. The headmaster of College at that time, Eric Norton, was convinced and he took the radical proposal to the Andrean community. It was thus that our unique model of coinstruction was created. On the first day of the 1974 Academic Year, the wall between our two schools came down with DSG girls and St Andrew’s College boys enjoying co-instruction for the first time. The girls could take science and maths to the highest level and the boys could merely marvel at the work ethic that the girls brought to the classroom.
The first joint matric class wrote together for the first time in 1976 and the girls set a stellar standard, with two of the DSG girls achieving six distinctions each. Our College boys have been straining to keep up ever since! To the generations of girls, parents, staff and governors of the DSG, St Andrew’s College salutes you and acknowledges your singular role in our own existence and our shared success.
We have done much together, and the work is not yet done.
Congratulations on your sesquicentennial