The great move

On this day 90 years ago, Penang Free School opened its academic year at its new premises in Green Lane on the outskirts of George Town. The planning had begun eight years earlier with the Straits Settlements Government purchasing a 30-acre piece of land in 1920. Tenders were called in 1925 for the erection of the main school buildings and the job was awarded to the construction company of JC Gammon Ltd.

It was reported then in the Pinang Gazette that: "The new Government School, when completed, should be an imposing one, not so much, perhaps, for its generous proportions, but for its setting and the immense area in which it is accommodated. Government has altogether set apart 31 acres for its new school, and of this no less than 12 acres are for a playing field. This playing field will be the biggest in the whole of Malaya and will be more than sufficient for a cricket field, two football grounds, hockey ground and tennis courts. The local Esplanade will offer no comparison and even the two combined esplanades in Singapore (the S.C.C. and S.R.C. grounds) will still be smaller than the new Free School esplanade. The school building itself, which will be a two-floor structure, that is, a ground floor and upstairs, will occupy a space of 20,000 square feet and Messrs. Gammon and Company, it is understood, have undertaken its construction at a cost of 260,000 dollars."

So it was in Dec 1927 that the Free School at its old premises in Farquhar Street, under the stewardship of their headmaster, David Swaine, began busily packing up almost everything for the eventual move to Green Lane. "Almost everything" because only the staff and boys from the upper Standards VII to IX were involved in the relocation. The transition must have taken several weeks to complete, especially to meet the deadline of a new school year on the ninth of January 1928. But succeed they did and on the ninth of January 1928, the new buildings were formally declared open by the Resident Councillor of Penang, Ralph Scott.

According to an editorial comment by Yeoh Bok Choon in the Penang Free School Magazine of August 1930: "When the building at Green Lane was nearing completion, it had to have a name and the task of choosing one fell on the School Prefects of that time. They decided that it should be called the Penang Free School", thus perpetuating the name of an institution that had began 112 years earlier. Perhaps it was a no-brainer decision but one wonders what would have become of Penang Free School if the School Prefects had decided on an entirely different name!

So what became of the old school premises in Farquhar Street? The same issue of the school magazine said that the School Prefects proposed to rename it as Hutchings' School "in honour of the prelate who had much to do with the founding of the Free School." At the request of the School Trustees, the members of The Old Frees' Association then convened a meeting to accept the proposal and thus Hutchings' School, with the classes of the lower Standards that remained, came into being on the same day, that is, 9 January 1928. It was to be a feeder school to Penang Free School. Hutchings' School's first headmaster was a familiar name, Leslie W. Arnold, who transferred over from the Northam Road Government English School.

Ironically, the Hutchings’ School was immediately to become a direct competitor of Penang Free School in several aspects of school life.

Bok Choon again: "In many areas, the two schools drifted apart and the parent soon had to compete against its branch school. In Cadet field operations, in musketry contests, in Scout Sports and in the Glugor Shield Sports the Free School found itself opposed by its branch school. Even the old Farquhar Street building was overhauled and the monograms that had for so many decades adorned the arches and front of the building were erased by vandal hands. A stranger would think that the Free School and the Hutchings School had no connection with each other."

But at least we know now that on the top of the old building in Farquhar Street, far away and out of reach from the vandals' dirty hands, the original emblems of Penang Free School lay untouched and can still be seen today. Together with three marble pieces inside the building, these are the last remaining vestiges of evidence that the Free School had once occupied this old colonial building.