Malacca High School

Malacca High School (MHS) is a secondary school in Malacca, Malaysia. Founded on 7 December 1826, it is the second oldest recorded school in the country after only Penang Free School. It was awarded cluster school status and is known as one of the premier schools in Malaysia.

Establishment
On 7 December 1826, MHS was officially established; just after Malacca was made a British colony on 17 March 1824, when the Dutch ceded Malacca to the English after the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824.

The establishment of the school (then known as Malacca Free School) was initiated by Thomas H. Moor, who came to Malacca in 1825 on the orders of William Milne, who was one of the educators at the Anglo-Chinese College. In his letter dated 4 January 1825, he stated his wishes to Arundel in London to establish a school. The establishment of the school was also supported by some influential people, including James Humphrey, a superintendent in the London Missionary Society. The startup of Malacca High School was directly related to the closing of the Dutch-Malay school which was established in January 1815 by Christian missionaries during the Dutch administration. The school was closed when Malacca was handed over to the British by the Dutch.

Meliora Hic Sequamur
This old main motto stands for "Here We Strive For Better Things". The motto was introduced by the principal of Malacca High School L.W. Arnold. He was stationed in the school from 1931 to 1934. The use of the motto coincided with the shifting of the school from the High Court Building to the current location. The official opening of the school was in October 1931. The motto obviously was chosen to coincide with the abbreviation of MHS for the school. And that Headmaster Arnold was definitely purposeful in giving the translation of Meliora Hic Sequamur (=MHS) for the Malacca High School (=MHS) as such according to his own interpretation. A check with its actual Latin meaning, shows that the translation should have been "Let us follow (sequamur) the melody (meloria) here (hic)".

School emblem
The school emblem was introduced in 1931. During this time the School Board of Governors was established and the motto "Meliora Hic Sequamur" was established. Originally, the school emblem reflected ‘History,’Resilience’ and ‘Strength’.

The ‘A Famosa’ logo was used and the colour of green and maroon were used. At the bottom of the logo, ‘ Meliora Hic Sequamur‘ was etched. At the beginning, this logo was used by the school prefects only but from 1970 all students wear the logo.

Principals

 * 1826 - T.H. Moor
 * 1843 - John Overee
 * 1862 - T. Smith
 * 1878 - Alex Armstrong (A. Armstrong)
 * 1893 - J. Howell
 * 1916 - C.F.C. Ayre
 * 1921 - C. Beamish
 * 1924 - C.G. Coleman
 * 1930 - T.A.O. Sullivan
 * 1931 - L.W. Arnold
 * 1934 - L.A.S. Jermyn
 * 1941 - C.A. Scott, Lee Chin Lin
 * 1945 - Goh Tiow Chong
 * 1946 - C. Foster, C.J. Gurney
 * 1950 - G.P. Dartford
 * 1952 - F.T. Laidlaw, E.H. Bromley
 * 1956 - A. Atkinson
 * 1957 - W. Gibson
 * 1958 - K. Kandiah, Ee Tiang Hong
 * 1960 - C.T. Wade, Goh Keat Seng
 * 1965 - Tan Teik Hock
 * 1969 - Lim Leng Lee
 * 1970 - K. Anandarajan
 * 1972 - Chan Ying Tat
 * 1985 - Abdul Rafie Mahat
 * 1991 - Mohammad Ismail
 * 1994 - Hussin Abdul Hamid
 * 1996 - Mohd Zin Abdul Hamid
 * 1998 - Othman Ibrahim
 * 2000 - Noh Ahmad
 * 2001 - Ya'amah Mohd Dris
 * 2003 - Mohd Ali Saed
 * 2006 - Yusof Ahmad
 * 2007 - Abd. Razak Che Ngah
 * 2014 - Ramnan Saidun

Politics and Civil Service

 * Lim Guan Eng, MP for Bagan, and former Chief Minister of Penang and Finance Minister of Malaysia
 * Mohd Ali Rustam, Yang di-Pertua Negeri of Melaka
 * Abu Zahar Ithnin (Former Malacca Chief Minister)
 * M.K. Rajakumar
 * Tan Cheng Lock (one of the founding fathers of modern Malaysia and the founder of the Malaysian Chinese Association)
 * Tan Siew Sin (former Minister of Commerce and Industry, Finance Minister and former president of the Malayan Chinese Association)

Literature

 * Shirley Geok-Lin Lim (UCLA Professor of English who chairs the School of Education of UCLA, winner of Commonwealth Poetry Prize and National Book Award)

Education

 * Anuwar Ali currently President of Open University Malaysia


 * Professor Teh Soo Lee Head of Aeronautical & Mechanical Engineering 2016 to 2019, Nazabayev University, Kazakhstan

Extra-curricular activities
There are now nine uniform units. Among them are Scouts, Red Crescent Society, PKBM (Land), Police Cadets, KRS, Fire Brigade Cadets, Marching Band, Silat Seni Gayong and JPA3.

Sports houses
The house system was introduced in 1923. Every student was assigned a "house" named after historical figures. The sports houses in the school are:
 * Albuquerque
 * Famosa
 * Minto
 * Raffles
 * St Francis
 * Van Dieman

Starting from January 2014, all the sports houses were changed from 6 to 4. The new names for the sport houses are:
 * Red  St. Francis
 * Yellow/Orange Raffles
 * Blue  Albuquerque
 * Green  Famosa