Alan Megahey

A SCHOOL IN AFRICA

 

PETERHOUSE - Education in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe - 1955-2005

Foreword by The Lady Soames

ISBN: 1-4039-9851-5

 

Macmillan will be publishing A School in Africa at Rhodes House, Oxford on 2nd July 2005.  The book has 277 pages plus 19 pages of front matter, end papers, maps, colour frontispiece, 16 pages of photos, full colour jacket and a Peterhouse crest blocked on the front cover.  The UK published price will be £30.00.  It will be available in South Africa book shops and in Zimbabwe (from the school) from late July at a South African retail price of ZAR360, or Zimbabwe equivalent.

 

Description

When Peterhouse opened in 1955, the British Empire in Africa was still intact and the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland - with its high hopes and fears had just come into being. It was a boarding school founded on the British model, but with the intention that it would 'adapt all that is best in the Public School tradition to African conditions'. For 50 years, in Rhodesia and then in Zimbabwe, its governors and staff have attempted to do that, and have seen it grow from a boys' school of 350 to a group of schools educating over a thousand boys and girls. But the story of Peterhouse is not only about work and sport, music and drama, chapel, building developments and syllabus changes. It is set in the context of educational development and political changes in a Southern Africa country. This history of the school shows how it became a pioneering multi-racial institution in 'white Rhodesia'; shared the sufferings of the country during the 'bush war'; expanded greatly in the new Zimbabwe, survived the contradictions of a black 'Marxist' government, and has kept its firm commitment to being a 'Church School'. Despite the uncertainties and challenges of the new century, this is a story of faith and vision.

 

Contents

A Colony in Africa

Founding Fathers

Getting Started

Metamorphosis

The Wider Scene

Changes All round

Mind and Soul

War and Peace

A New Era

 

Being Rector

The Great Expansion

'Play the Game'

Enrichment

A Zimbabwean School

The New Millennium

Endnotes

Appendices (14)

Index

 

Author

ALAN MEGAHEY has been associated with Peterhouse for almost half its history. Having taught in the independent sector in Britain, Alan ran the school for ten years, and retains close links with it. Dr Megahey was educated at Royal School, Dungannon in his native Northern Ireland, read history at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and was ordained in 1971. He has taught at Wrekin College, housemastered at Cranleigh School, and was Rector of Peterhouse from 1984 to 1994. He was Chaplain at Uppingham School until 2001. Alan lives in Leadenham in the Diocese of Lincoln, where Alan is a Rector and Rural Dean. Their married daughter teaches at Oundle; their son is buried in the Peterhouse graveyard.