Esquimalt High School turns 100 this year, and it’s time to party. Esquimalt High School officially opened on Aug. 24, 1915, when principal Mr. T. Patterson and his assistant Miss Robb welcomed 25 pupils to a designated floor at Lampson Street Elementary School. The Esquimalt School Board announced that the new high school would follow the same curriculum as Victoria High School, assuring Esquimalt parents that their teens would have the same advantages as young people in the city.
That may have been the start of a sports rivalry between Esquimalt’s Dockers and Vic High’s Totems.
George Copley, who graduated in 1959, recalled: “Early in the season in 1959 the Dockers beat the Vic High Totems in an extremely close and exciting, fast-paced basketball game where we cheered ourselves hoarse over each and every single point scored by the ‘good guys.’ After that game, the Totems cruised along to win the provincial championship later in the season under the coaching of the legendary ‘Porky’ Andrews without losing another game. The rivalry between the two schools was intense. How sweet that early victory was!”
“EHS has its own High School,” read a September 1918 Daily Colonist headline, announcing the high school’s move into a remodelled building on Esquimalt Road, known as the Old Island Weavers Building. Six years later, students temporarily moved back to Lampson Street to await the opening in October 1926 of a new three-room school under construction on nearby Head Street.
Remarkably for the time, Gwendolyn Nora Hewlings was invited by the Esquimalt School Board to become principal, the first woman principal of a B.C. high school. Hewlings was joined by teachers Clive Kelly and J.E. Saunders. The school motto, Esse Quam Videri (“It is better to be, rather than to seem”) was chosen by her Latin class.
Hewlings returned to the classroom, and Kelly became principal in 1940, six years before Esquimalt High School joined the brand new Greater Victoria School District.
Though there was some conjecture about the district politics around a woman principal, Hewlings remained close-lipped about it, and Kelly was an equally popular principal. Hewlings continued to teach and to direct the school’s award-winning drama productions, retiring in 1959, just before the fourth and final move of the school.
The 1959-60 school year was one of commotion. In fact, 1960 grad Sherri Robinson refers to her grad class as “the forgotten class.” Students attended classes in shifts at the Head Street location until January 1960, when the senior students moved to a new building on Colville Road, leaving the junior students behind at what then became Esquimalt Junior Secondary.
One hundred years of EHS graduates includes some highly accomplished alumni, the variety of their accomplishments reflecting the diversity that is still a source of Esquimalt High School pride today. Actor and novelist Meg Tilly, composer Christopher Donison, soccer star George Pakos, rugby star Tom Woods and NHL players Ron Grahame, Rick Lapointe and Bruce Cowick all graduated from EHS.
Dr. Frederick Sanders, a 1918 graduate from the Lampson Street location, not only specialized in microwaves and antenna design, but in 1941 he took Canada’s first radar to England.
Toyo Takata, a grad of 1936, was born near the Japanese Tea Garden in Gorge Park, which was owned and operated by his father and his uncle. In 1942, the family was expelled from Victoria and sent to detention camps, part of our city’s darker heritage. Takata wrote the book Nikkei Legacy: The Story of Japanese Canadians from Settlement to Today.
Internationally known musician Robin Wood graduated in 1942, and studied and taught at the Royal Academy of Music in London before returning to Victoria in 1965 to assist at a new music school, the Victoria Conservatory of Music, where he and his wife taught for almost four decades.
Sports artist Bob Mueller graduated in 1973 and has made a name for himself producing “tough guy” greeting cards of professional sports figures. Grad of 1987 Rob (Scratch) Mitchell, entered the Canadian Forces to train as a fighter pilot, and became a member of the Snowbirds. After he retired from the Forces in 2009, he joined the privately owned Patriots Jet Team aerobatic team as a producer, actor and reality air show pilot.
Fifty years ago, principal Kelly invited alumni to a homecoming dance to celebrate the school’s 50th anniversary.
Music was by the Pharoahs, and for the $1 price of admission, a floor show was included with the evening’s entertainment.
Fifty years later, alumni are invited to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Ecole Secondaire Esquimalt High School. A Welcome Back evening on Friday, May 15, and a dinner and dance on Saturday, May 16, will both be held in the Esquimalt curling rink to accommodate the expected crowd.
Also, former and current staff are invited to attend an EHS Staff Reunion at the high school on the afternoon of Friday, April 17.
Tickets for all of these events will be more than $1, ranging up to $75 for the dinner and dance, but all profits will go toward paying for a much-needed new school bus. All event information is available online at Esquimalt.sd61.bc.ca or registration forms can be picked up at the school. Check the website for details about further alumni events planned throughout the year.
Marilyn McCall graduated from Esquimalt High School in 1971, and then in 1988 she returned to the school as Marilyn McCrimmon to work as a counsellor/teacher for the next six years. Now retired, she has returned to the school yet again, this time as a member of both the Esquimalt Alumni Association and the 100th Anniversary Celebration Committee.
EHS GRAD MEMORIES
My favourite teacher was vice-principal Bill Reid. He used quiet discipline by saying, “A word to the wise is sufficient,” and it usually worked because most students thought they were wise.
— 1951 grad John Carmichael
Max Menkes’ weekly 15-minute quizzes, appropriately called “quickies” by several generations of students, were designed to solidify and implant the previous week’s learning.
— 1959 grad George Copley
Miss Lang was a delightful French teacher. Her love of the language was very evident and, along with patiently shaping our pronunciation, she introduced us to cultural pleasures such as brioche and café au lait.
— 1965 grad Mary Helen Littleton
John Steele was my favourite teacher. He tried to be “so correct,” but when it came down to it, he was just as much fun as the other teachers.
— 1972 grad Shannon(McIlroy) Knapp
I remember walking down the stairs to the main floor and one of the gym teachers approaching me. I was worried at first because I had skipped a few classes, but she said Esquimalt High had a great opportunity to send a student to the Hudson Bay Company to be interviewed for the first student council. She picked me.
— 1976 grad Cathy Byrnell
Mrs. Parker was my favourite teacher at Esquimalt High. She taught math in the most nurturing, and accessible way, often utilizing analogies and memory tricks to help make the processes easier to digest. Now that I teach Math 10, I find myself channelling Mrs. Parker in practically every class I teach!
— 1990 grad Dana (Allingham) Bjornson
From tea, journals and philosophy with Mrs. Cherrington, to 20th-century history with Mr. Dodds, lasting friendships with Mrs. Bohaker and Mrs. McCrimmon and, oh, everything with Mr. Bowker, but especially polar-bear swims in his pond, the family at ESS helped me find myself in what is typically a turbulent time.
— 1990 grad Berry Hykini