Sir John Adamson Secondary School

Sir John Adamson High School is located in Winchester Hills, a suburb in southern Johannesburg, Gauteng. The school teaches grades 8 to grade 12. The school's motto is "Laetus Laborum" which means "Let Cheerfulness abide with Industry".

F R Miller, in her Masters Thesis - The History of a Johannesburg Primary School 1902 - 1937 - writes as follows regarding the establishment of the school:

There seems to be no certainty regarding the exact date of the establishment of the school. Addressing a commemorative concert at the school in 13 April 1923, the second headmaster E J Butler reported that "as near as he could determine the school was this month 21 years of age.

It would seem that even then the unrecorded earliest years of the school's history had faded into oblivion. Based on the date of the anniversary concert, and annotations appearing on official records and detailed hereunder, Butler and his successors accepted as a matter of course that the school opened in 1902.

On 28 July 1922 Butler made this entry into the log book: "Received verbal information today that the school was originally opened by Miss Bennett, that she after a few months left the school in charge of Miss Wood and Miss Joubert. Shortly after that Mr Newby was appointed. Date uncertain."

There is no record of who provided Butler with this information, nor who the Misses Bennett, Wood and Joubert were. The first entry into the log book is dated 28 July 1903, but no mention is made of the previous fifteen months or so. A note in the first Admission Register states "School opened in tent, Hay and De Villiers Streets by Miss Bennett later congregational Church hall. Following on this note there appears a pencil-written date "20/4/02"........tradition has resulted in an acceptance that the school was founded, sans fanfare and formality, in 1902.

During the course of 1902, 102 pupils (fifty-seven boys and forty-five girls) were enrolled at the school....[and]...accommodated in a marquee. The first headmaster, G Newby, noted that he had to send home pupils in sub-standards and Standard II and III because "the marquee was swamped by rain...continued all the week consequently was unable to use marquee at all."

During 1903 and 1904 a more suitable school building was constructed by the Transvaal Education Department. It was designed to accommodate 250 children, was a zinc and wood building, and was erected at a cost of 2071.10 pounds.

By 1909 the situation at Turffontein might be described as "critical" with over five hundred children occupying a building originally constructed for two hundred and fifty, and on the 1909 - 1910 estimates of the TED, provision was made to construct a new school building for six hundred pupils, which would be adequate for the current enrolment. The estimated cost of the building was 11,075 pounds and its completion was waited with considerable anticipation.

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