Diocesan Native Female Training School

Diocesan Native Female Training School (DNFTS, Chinese: 曰字樓女館) was a school under the Anglican Church of Hong Kong in the 19th century, founded in 1860 and closed down in 1868. Its premises now belong to today's Bonham Road Government Primary School(般咸道官立小學). In 1869, another institution called Diocesan Home and Orphanage (DHO, later renamed Diocesan School and Orphanage, and now known as Diocesan Boys' School) was founded in the same place. Due to the obvious differences in founding groups, vision of education, personnel arrangement and students’ background, DNFTS has been regarded only as a forerunner, and called ‘the First Foundation’ by DHO and later DBS. Using 1869 as its founding year, DBS calls itself ‘the Second Foundation’. As for Diocesan Girls' School, founded in Rose Villas near DSO in 1899, it claims to be the successor of DNFTS and traces the founding year back to 1860.

In 1860, DNFTS was co-founded by the Society for the Promotion of Female Education in the Far East (FES) and Lady Lydia Smith, the wife of the first Bishop of Victoria, with Lady Robinson, the wife of the governor, as the patroness. The school aimed to provide Christian education to the local females. The students were trained to be teachers of English and missionaries, and supposed to be future Christian wives of the graduates of St. Paul's College, Hong Kong, the largest school under the Anglican Church. In those days, the converted male students of St. Paul’s usually faced the problem of marrying ‘heathen’ women. It was expected that the founding of DNFTS could alleviate this difficult situation.

Around 1860, DNFTS appealed for teachers to serve in. Ms. Susan Baxter, an English lady, responded the call and left for Hong Kong in April. On arrival she learnt that the local ladies’ committee had already appointed a teacher to the position she hoped to fill, and the mission of DNFTS was somewhat different from her expectation, so she set up several vernacular schools herself. In 1862, Ms. M.A.W. Eaton was appointed as the superintendent of DNFTS, while a concrete house was built up in a paddy field by the Bonham Road in the same year. Teaching, boarding and all the activities were accommodated there.

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