Educational Establishments
With grammar schools firmly back on the Government’s agenda, one such establishment has been educating the youngsters of Northern Ireland - and further afield - for well over 120 years. Chris McCullough went to East Belfast to meet Michael Quee, Head Groundsman at Campbell College, an all-boys school catering for students from as young as four up to eighteen- years old
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ounded in 1894, Campbell College has quite an impressive history and now acts as a boarding school with a strong international reputation, attracting students from as far
afield as Hong Kong, Singapore and Africa. The grounds of the school extend to 130
acres and are sited very close to Northern Ireland’s Parliament Buildings in the Stormont Estate. All the school’s facilities are located on this site, which also contains a small lake and a forest named Netherleigh. Past pupils of Campbell College are known
as Old Campbellians and the school has an extensive past pupil organisation known as the Old Campbellian Society, which has several branches across the United Kingdom as well as regular alumni reunions at the college itself.
68 I PC OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2016
Campbell College
Keeping in shape!
Also famous for its excellence in rugby, Campbell College was founded thanks to a bequest from Henry James Campbell, who had made his fortune in the linen trade. Campbell College’s junior school, formerly
located on an adjacent site and called Cabin Hill, is now also located on the main premises. Initially, the school was primarily a
boarding school, but it has, particularly since the 1970s, become a day school; today it has 1200 pupils, of which 120 are boarders. Until 2006, pupils began at the school at age eleven but, since the closure of Cabin Hill, has accepted pupils from four into the newly built junior school and both boys and girls into the kindergarten also located on the grounds. The current headmaster, Robert Robinson,
summed up the school up by saying: “We have one of the largest Combined Cadet Force divisions in the UK, one of the country’s most successful school rugby teams, world-renowned authors, Olympians, Victoria Cross and Nobel Prize winners, international rock stars and leading actors among our Alumni.” “Not to mention we have our own pipe band and 120 years of history, our buildings hold over a century of stories in their walls! The list goes on.” “Boys walk through our gates at four years of age and, from that moment, they are Campbellians until the end of their days. We have generations of families who have attended the school; some of whom have been married here and many of whom have their names etched into our history. This is
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