User:K.K. Rokossovski/Antigua Grammar School

Antigua Grammar School is an Antiguan, public, secondary educational institution located in the parish of St.John, of the twin island state of Antigua and Barbuda. The school was founded in 1884 during the British colonial era, and is the oldest educational institution on the island. It is among the numerous other institutions on island administered by the nation's Ministry of Education (or, the government)The schools wealth, history, and administration, have made it one of the more notable institutions in the West Indies, and the foremost prominent in the nation.

History
Antigua Grammar School for boys was founded in 1884 and presided over for more than 40 years by Reverend (later to become Archdeacon) Samuel Edmund Branch. It was founded as an Anglican school run on British public school lines. The school itself was partly government funded as Parents paid modest fees, affordable for the island’s Afro middle class as much as by European colonial servants and planters who were initially its main patrons. The school owed its existence to the Middle Class Education Act of 1882, albeit as an Anglican institution. In the early 20th Century it was open to accusations of discrimination by reason more of religion than by race or skin colour, though Catholic pupils were admitted. From an early stage a majority of its boys were Afro-descendant.

By 1925 Total enrolment at that time was 70 or 80 boys who were taught in five one-year classes. Sport, including cricket, football and shooting, was a compulsory activity. The boys went boating and swimming at St James’ beach(locally know as 'Fort' or 'Fort James'). At school they wore uniform in the school colours of dark green and black as well as straw hats or ‘boaters’. Later, in the 1940s, clothing better suited to Antigua’s tropical climate was introduced.

In the 1970s AGS passed from diocesan administration (local Anglican jurisdiction) to full governmental control. The school’s historian of the time, E T Henry noted: “It appeared that there was a deliberate attempt to… elevate other Government secondary schools in an effort to submerge the prestige of the AGS. The argument appeared to be that anything that had to do with colonialism, class and status must be despised and destroyed.”

Daily Bureaucacy
Presently, the

Campus
The school itself consists of one physical campus on 'Old Pharam Road' of the parish St.John.The school initially occupied a house in St John’s High Street, which later became the Treasury. By the early 1900s, it moved to its present site in the area known as Lady Nugent’s, on a small hillock overlooking the Old Parham Road.