St. Margaret's Secondary School

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St. Margaret’s Secondary School (SMSS) is a government-aided girls’ secondary school in Singapore. It is the first girls’ school in Singapore and is often regarded as the oldest existing girls’ school in the Far East. It is affiliated with St. Margaret’s Primary School (SMPS) and St. Andrew’s Junior College (SAJC), and is under the purview of the Anglican Diocese of Singapore.^[1] It was known first as the Chinese Girls’ School, then as the Church of England Zenana Missionary (C.E.Z.M.) School in Singapore, before being renamed St. Margaret’s School. The secondary section split from the primary in 1960 when it moved to its present location at Farrer Road.

The school was instrumental in providing education to girls who would otherwise remain uneducated, particularly the poor, who benefitted from the free education until the school became government-aided in 1939. ^[2]

Contents 1 School Mission, Vision, Crest and Motto 1.1 Mission 1.2 Vision 1.3 School Crest 1.4 School Motto 2 History 2.1 1842-1853 2.2 1853-1938 2.3 1938-1957 2.4 1957-2004 2.5 2004-present 3 Christian Culture and Work among the Community 4 School Uniform 5 References

[edit] School Mission, Vision, Crest and Motto

[edit] Mission

“Founded in 1842, the mission of St. Margaret's is to provide an all-round education in a Christ-centred environment to nurture confident, creative and caring young ladies who will serve God, the Country and the Community.”^[3]

[edit] Vision

“A Community of Learners Growing and Glowing For God.”^[4]

[edit] School Crest

“The green background represents creation, of which we are a part. It stands for life and activity, creativity and growth. The white cross represents the Christian Mission of the school. Like a directional compass, it shows the right way to take and it points us to God's love, truth and provision. The white band running diagonally across from the upper left hand corner to the lower corner stands for purity in thought, word and deed.”^[5]

[edit] School Motto

“Charity, Patience and Devotion"^[6]

[edit] History

[edit] 1842-1853

The school was founded in 1842 when the missionaries Mrs Maria Dyer and her husband were “en route to China from Malacca where they had been based”.^[7] Stopping in Singapore, Mrs Dyer was horrified at the sight of young girls, “some as young as six [. . .] being sold as ‘mui tsais’”^[8], a concept of slavery borrowed from China that remained at the root of Singapore society until the 1930s.^[9] She obtained permission from the Governor “to start a home-cum-school for them”, placing them under the care of the London Missionary Society.^[10]

Miss A Grant took over the running of the school upon setting foot in Singapore in 1843, and was able to begin teaching at once as most of the twenty pupils spoke English.^[11] Walker also writes that

the Chinese generally set little value on girls, and female infanticide is by no means uncommon in China. Ask a Chinese how many children he has, and he will tell you the number only of his boys. The girls are not considered worth reckoning! No marvel, therefore, that to educate them seems ridiculous. (11) Walker further records that most of the children Miss Grant was in charge of were mostly children of Chinese fathers and Malay mothers

.^[12]

Her work, however, was “not always without peril”,^[13] and “[i]n the 1840s, she received threats on her life, mainly from abusive owners whose ‘mui tsais’ had been taken away from them by the government authorities and sheltered in the school".^[14] Furthermore, the school did not grow rapidly as public sentiment was still unfriendly towards the concept of female education; but Miss Grant, not being “one to be easily deterred”, “saved the school from being closed when the London Missionary Society left for China” following the opening of the latter.^[15] The Society for Promotion of Female Education in India and the East thus took over the school in 1845.^[16]

[edit] 1853-1938

Miss Sophia Cooke, succeeded Miss Grant in 1853. Chinese custom dictating that a girl be “kept at home” upon “reach[ing] the age of thirteen or fourteen”, Miss Cooke found herself “expected to look out husbands for her pupils, who were usually married at the close of their two or three years’ stay with her”, and after some consultation, decided to “purchase a wedding-dress, and keep it as school property, to be worn by any who marry from the school” since the “proper Chinese dress” for getting married in was “worn [even] by the poorest Chinese bride and often hired for the day”.^[17]

While Miss Cooke’s salary was covered by the London society, the latter “were very anxious that the money to support the school be raised as much as possible on the spot”, and thus the

girls and many of Miss Cooke’s friends in Singapore worked for the two sales which occurred every year, but they were mainly depended on boxes of work sent from England. These were sent yearly to Miss Cooke [. . .] and the articles sent being always thoroughly good and suitable, they commanded a steady sale to the English residents at Singapore. These sales were always conducted in a quiet, business-like manner, Miss Cooke never allowing lotteries nor anything that could by anyone be considered inconsistent with her Christian principles.

^[18]

Miss Cooke was actively involved in the school until her passing in 1895 (Great, 50).

Miss Gage-Brown took over principalship in 1897, and was succeeded by Miss F. Abel in 1911. Miss Annie Tolley took up the reins in 1918, and her ability to speak the Fuzhou language, having spent some time in China, “enabled her to spread the love of God to the native Chinese, minister to the orphans and educate them”.^[19]

Miss Ada Fearon succeeded Miss Tolley in 1925, and was succeeded by Miss Elsie Thackrah in 1928. Miss Thackrach is known for “modernis[ing] the school by training the girls for wider service to the community, in business, in nursing, teaching and other professions. She also modernised the kitchens and the dining room and made domestic life easier for everyone”.^[20]

Miss Mabel Lane was principal from 1930-1938, and is noted for being “another firm disciplinarian”.^[21] Janet Lim, a former mui tsai, is recorded as writing in her memoirs that it could not “have been easy to teach and train so many orphans from so many different walks of life”, although the students at the time thought she was “very severe” when being punished.^[22]

[edit] 1938-1957

Miss Jessie Kilgour, of Girl Guiding fame, was principal from 1938-1948 and was responsible for seeing the school through the tumultuous period that was the Second World War. It is recorded that although falling bombs destroyed three of the buildings, “the school remained a place of hope and salvation for many” and “was used as a transit centre for evacuees, including missionaries from China, the Philippines and nearby countries who stayed there until they were shipped home”.^[23] Miss Kilgour is noted for having “the gift of personal sympathy and understanding which she combined with stern discipline”, and later earned an Order of the British Empire (OBE) “for her work in Singapore”.^[24]

The school in 1938 appeared “‘an insignificant, old-fashioned school’ facing closure because of insignificant funds from the missionary society”.^[25] The missionaries sought “grant-in-aid from the Department of Education of Singapore”, which would only be granted if Miss Kilgour “added a graduate” and “agreed to the existing teachers taking the Singapore Teacher Training”. Additionally, the Department required the school to accept qualified non-Christian staff; the missionaries “feared that this would reduce the Christian foundation of their work, but were obliged to agree” and later found that the non-Christian staff “were as loyal” to the school “as anyone could be”.^[26] Thus in 1939, the C.E.Z.M. School “became a Grant-in-Aid school, a day school for girls of all races”.^[27]

Miss Inge succeeded Miss Kilgour in 1948 and is known as “the principal who helped to further modernize the school”, doing away with “long white stockings” and introducing basketball, which was well-received by the girls.^[28] In 1949, the school was re-named ‘St Margaret’s School’ by Bishop Wilson, after Queen Margaret of Scotland. Miss Inge also found herself having to “continue the rebuilding of the school in the aftermath of the war” while “coping with the rising number of students”, which eventually culminated in the idea of “having a separate secondary school for St Margaret’s”.^[29]

[edit] 1957-2004

In 1960, the secondary section moved to Farrer Road. A teacher

then recalls it as such: We were in the midst of a jungle. When we opened, we wondered who’d come to this school. There were birds as well as snakes. A cow used to trot in during the classes and litter the place. [. . .] Only the front block with the hall, office and canteen existed. It did not have the facilities to teach Science; girls who were interested had to study this subject at the Science Institute at Serangoon Road

.^[30]

The move was “an act of faith”, as a later principal puts it, as “having no funds available for the purchase [in 1958], an overdraft had to be taken from the bank”.^[31] Floods also being common in Singapore then, particularly in the Farrer area, the school took to stocking each classroom with canned food, should the need for the girls to stay overnight arise.^[32]

Mrs Martha Holloway, principal from 1957-1965, was “the principal who, aided by Archdeacon Robin Woods, implemented plans to separate the primary and secondary sections” of the school.^[33]

Mrs Kon Tong Thye, who succeeded her, had been teaching at St. Margaret’s since 1947 and continued to teach there until 1972 after Mrs Liza George succeeded her.

Mrs Liza George, who held principalship from 1967-1990, was very supportive of co-curricular activities in the school, and raised funds to build the gymnasium, “making St. Margaret’s one of the first schools at that time to have such a facility”.^[34] Mrs George also granted the badminton team with “an incentive trip to Lake Toba” in 1983, and “rewarded the school’s tennis team, which won the National School Championship, with a trip to Australia” the year after, such trips “far from the norm then”.^[35]

Mrs Tan Lee Lee, principal from 1990-1998, “introduced level camps, a drop-in center, a full-time counsellor and other programmes to extend the girls’ education beyond mere intellectual pursuit”^[36], in keeping with the founding mission of the school. It was also she who “set in motion plans to expand and re-build the school at the existing Farrer site”, moving the school temporarily to Commonwealth Avenue in 1997.^[37]

Mrs Caroline Lee succeeded Mrs Tan in 1998, and has been described as “confident, focussed and far-sighted”.^[38] St. Margaret’s Secondary returned to a renovated campus at Farrer Road on 2nd December 2000, with “former principals and alumni arriv[ing] in vintage cars symbolising the gracious past” and Mrs Lee, “her staff and student representatives” “riding pillion” onto the new campus on “eight Harley Davidson motorcycles”, with a teacher being quoted as saying that “it signifie[d] [their] verve and energy”.^[39] A “surprise guest” at the occasion was Dr James Hudson Taylor III, the great-great-grandson of Mrs Dyer.^[40]

The school was officially opened on 26th July 2002, with the celebrations including “an outdoor mass display”, “a musical depicting the history of the school” and the launch of a time capsule by DPM Tony Tan, containing “items significant to [the] school and the school life of [the] teachers and students”.^[41]

[edit] 2004-present

Mrs Lee passed away after suffering a stroke in her office in 2004, and was deeply mourned by staff, students and parent volunteers alike.^[42] Students were “encouraged to express their feelings/gratitude/goodbyes for Mrs Lee on cards/notes which were displayed in a prominent location in the school” as part of the school’s attempt to help them “manage their grief after such a loss”.^[43]

Mrs Marion Tan took over principalship in 2005.

[edit] Christian Culture and Work among the Community

Founded by a missionary, St Margaret’s has always emphasized the importance of character building, alongside and perhaps even over and above academic results. The practice in the early years of starting the school day with Scripture and prayer has continued to this day, with daily morning devotions and bi-weekly chapel sessions marking time in the ebb and flow of school life. The school also starts the week with the principal speaking from the Bible on Monday mornings, and the singing of a Christian song. Closely linked with St Andrew’s Cathedral, St Margaret’s holds its annual Prefects’ Commendation ceremony and its Thanksgiving service there.

The culture of contributing to the community that characterized St Margaret’s in its early years continues to thrive today. Many of the earliest alumni of the school later became missionaries alongside their husbands in places such as China, Corea and Sumatra, while others stayed in Singapore to contribute in myriad ways to the spreading of the Gospel and the serving of the community. Even the school garden, in the days of Miss Cooke, was put to use in serving the community; Walker writes that “[t]he choicest flowers found their way to many an invalid lady or woman, while [. . .] they were always freely supplied to the patients in the hospital wards. It might almost have been called a consecrated garden, so freely was it used for others”.^[44]

Today, students continue the tradition of serving the community with such schemes as the Self-Initiated Community Involvement Project scheme, with currently more than half of the school being involved in such projects, above and beyond the mandatory Ministry of Education requirements regarding community service in Singapore schools. Even before the school stepped in to officially encourage such initiatives, socially-aware students were already involved in their own projects, such as the Child Abuse Awareness Club which was set up by a then-Secondary 2 student in 1999.^[45] It was even noted in the press that in the Miss Teen Community Award 2004 competition, the school “dominated” with three nominees on the judges’ Top 10 list, while “no other school could come up with more than two nominees in one category”.^[46]

The “St Margaret’s Spirit” of “commitment, of caring, of a common legacy and common values shared”^[47], appears to be what marks the school in the minds of many of its students, with the motto “Charity, Patience and Devotion” having guided the growth of the school and the development of each girl from its founding.

[edit] School Uniform

Admittedly, another notable feature of the school is its students’ polka-dotted uniforms. While it has been subject to varying degrees of mockery by students of other schools, St Margaret’s girls have remained loyal to their unique uniform, with this being most evident in 2006, when a Straits Times article polled 80 secondary school students and listed the uniform as “top of the uncool poll”, resulting in students “com[ing] out strongly to defend” their distinctive uniform in a remarkable show of solidarity and loyalty. ^[48]

In the early years, the girls had no uniformed wear, although in the 1930s and 1940s it became compulsory to wear “anything white”, be it “a sari, a Malay outfit, the Chinese sam-foo or an English frock”.^[49] In 1946, a white blouse and green pinafore was introduced as the official school uniform. Prefects wore a green skirt and matching green tie, which later became the mandatory uniform for all students. However, this green-and-white outfit “did not distinguish St Margaret’s students from those of other schools” as such uniforms were common, and in 1974 Mrs Liza George held a contest to choose a new uniform. Miss Lim Kah Pheck, the then-secondary school art teacher, won the competition with her design of a polka-dotted one-piece dress that came to distinguish St Margaret’s girls.^[50]

The uniform was at first semi-fitted, with a polka-dotted top, kick-pleated green skirt and a tie buttoned on with press studs, although in 2001 the school began selling straight-cut, looser-fitted uniforms alongside mandatory school socks. By 2007 there were three types of socks--regular, ankle and sports--and a new, stiffer collar and knotted tie for a ‘smarter’ look. The school crest also reverted to its original form of a metal badge pinned near the bottom of the tie, replacing the sewn-on cloth crests that had dominated ties a few years prior.

[edit] References

E. A. Walker. Sophia Cooke ; or, Forty-Two Years’ Work in Singapore. London: Elliot Stock, 62,Paternoster Row, E.C. 1899. Great is Thy Faithfulness: The Story of St Margaret’s School in Singapore. Singapore: St Margaret’s Secondary School, October 2002.

Jagtiani, Reema. “Our uniforms are not uncool.” Straits Times 10 September 2006.

Ng, Jane. “School, alumni mourn 'mother' of St Margaret's.” Straits Times 8 May 2004.

“School dominates community service Top 10 list.” Straits Times 14 July 2004.

St Margaret’s School Magazine 1971-1972, Singapore: St Margaret’s Secondary School, 1972.

St Margaret’s School Magazine 2002, Singapore: St Margaret’s Secondary School, 2002.

“St Margaret’s Secondary School.” Updated 25 January 2008. <http://www.stmargaretssec.moe.edu.sg/mission2.htm>. Cited 15 April 2008. Wong, Dawn. “St Margaret’s moves back to new home.” Straits Times 3 December 2000.