Notes

Designed in 1895 by Sytze Wierda in the so-called Eclectic Wilhelmiens style, and positioned on the corner of Skinner and Van der Walt Streets, the building of the Staatsmodel Skool was overseen by the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek’s Public Works Department. Completed in 1896, primarily with red brick and Stinkwater sandstone, the single-story façade, with its simple gables, stone finials and plentiful airvents, was typical of contemporary Republican buildings in Pretoria. The school nurtured a number of gifted students in the years leading up to the Anglo-Boer War: a young Henk Pierneef, alongside his friends Fanie Eloff and Gordon Leith, excelled in the school’s drawing classes with HF Hondius. The school shut its doors on 11 October 1899, however, at the outbreak of war. Before British forces took Pretoria early in June 1900, the building was used as a hospital, as well as a prison, from which a young Winston Churchill famously escaped. In 1901, under Lord Alfred Milner’s anglicising educational policies, the building was refurbished and renamed Pretoria High School. While known as the Pretoria College between 1903 and 1909, the school moved to new Piercy Eagle-designed buildings in April 1909, which were officially opened by Jan Smuts. In 1910, the year of Union, it was renamed Pretoria Boys High School.