Plumtree School

Plumtree School is a boarding school for boys and girls in the Matabeleland region of Zimbabwe on the border with Botswana. Founded in 1902 by a railway mission, Plumtree School boards 500+ pupils. Recently the school announced it will start enrolling girls as of January 2016.

Plumtree School
Plumtree School Crest
Location
Plumtree
,
Matabeleland South

Zimbabwe
Information
TypePrivate/Public, boarding
MottoAd Definitum Finem
(Latin: To a definite end)
Established1902
HeadmasterS.Khumalo
Number of pupils500 (approx.)

Historical background
"Tom Sawyer" 2001

In 1897 a siding on the railway line between Mafeking and Bulawayo was named Plumtree. It lies on the watershed of the Western Matabeleland Highveld at an altitude of 1389 metres 100 kilometres from Bulawayo. During that time, the construction of the Cape-to-Cairo railway was underway and around 1902 the railway had just come through what was then the Bechuanaland Border.

The school was founded by the Railway Mission largely to cater for the children of the employees of the old Cape Government Railways at work on the Cape-to-Cairo railway who were resident alongside the line between Mafeking and Bulawayo. The first classes were held in a rondavel in the garden of Mr. And Mrs. S. J. Smith whose nine children formed the nucleus of the student body. Subsequently, classes were moved to the dining room of the Plumtree Hotel which doubled as the Station Refreshment room. A little later a large room was made available in the customs house.

In 1902 the school moved to the present site. The original 5-acre (20,000 m2) plot was steadily extended so that the school now occupies a one square kilometre site bordering on Plumtree village.

In 2015, the school was granted permission by the government to enrol girls in order to boost lowering enrolment figures. Although a handful of girls were pupils in its founding years, Plumtree School has been known as a boys school for more than a century.[1]

Houses
Gaul House

The school is at the edge of Plumtree. It is divided into four houses and one boarding hall:

House Year built Head of House (2018) Colors
Milner House 1911 L. Kyle         
Lloyd House 1924 Thabo Newson         
Grey House 1926 D. Terrence     
Gaul House 1941 Everson James         
Hammond Hall 1976 N/A N/A

Notable alumni

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/special-forces-obituaries/7913263/Lieutenant-General-Peter-Walls.html

gollark: Oh, and in potatOS Lua you can *also* do: `(1 / " ") * string`
gollark: So you can do roughly the same things fairly easily.
gollark: Lua, sadly, doesn't have string split built in, but does have a ton of weird regexy string manipulation functions builtin.
gollark: In PotatOS Lua you can actually do `string / " "`.
gollark: C: haha no

References
  1. http://www.chronicle.co.zw/plumtree-high-gets-greenlight-to-enrol-girls/
  2. Winch, Jonty (1983), Cricket's Rich Heritage: a History of Rhodesian and Zimbabwean Cricket 1890-1982, Bulawayo: Books of Zimbabwe, pp. 200–201
  3. I.P. Maclaren, ed. (1981), Some Renowned Rhodesian Senior Schools 1892 - 1979, Bulawayo: Books of Zimbabwe, p. 219

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