Pickering College
| Pickering College | |
|---|---|
Bene Provisa Principia Ponantur "Let well planned foundations be laid."
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| Address | |
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16945 Bayview Avenue Newmarket, Ontario, L3Y 4X2 Canada |
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| Coordinates | 44°02′49″N 79°27′07″W / 44.0470°N 79.4520°WCoordinates: 44°02′49″N 79°27′07″W / 44.0470°N 79.4520°W |
| Information | |
| School type | Independent |
| Founded | 1842 |
| Headmaster | Mr. Peter Sturrup |
| Grades | JK through 12 |
| Enrollment | 300 – 400 day students, 100 boarders (2006) |
| Colour(s) | Blue and Silver |
| Website | www |
Pickering College is an independent, co-educational school for children in grades from Junior Kindergarten through grade 12. It is located in Newmarket, Ontario in Canada on a 17-hectare (42 acre) property on Bayview Avenue. The school accepts both day students and boarders (Grade 7 through Grade 12 only).
Pickering College is the second oldest independent school in Ontario, behind Upper Canada College (UCC). However, Pickering's main building, Rogers House (built 1909), is older than UCC's current main building, which was condemned and rebuilt in 1960.
Pickering College is also the site of the Quaker Archives and Library of Canada which are housed in the Arthur Garratt Dorland Reference Library.
The roots of Pickering College trace far back into the 19th century in Bloomfield, a significant Quaker settlement near Picton at West Lake, in Prince Edward County. There, on property (lot 13, concession 2, Military Tract) purchased by Israel Bowrman, a Quaker, a school (or seminary) was eventually established.
It is said that around this time Joseph John Gurney, a prominent Quaker Englishman (considered a 'minister', in the Quaker sense of the term), and brother of Elizabeth Fry, herself a noted advocate of social and prison reform, offered the sum of 500 pounds to the Religious Society of Friends for the establishment of a school there, if they could raise a similar amount.
It is not immediately clear when the building that eventually became the West Lake Boarding School (and still stands today as a private residence) was actually erected. Mr. Bowrman mortgaged the property in 1830, and it is possible these funds were used to build what might have originally been intended as a house, later converted to a school. In either case, in 1841 the building began official use as a school, welcoming first only girls, and later, in 1842, with the construction of a wood framed building to the east, boys.
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