King's College in 1920s follows Quinton Stow/ James Jefferis vision as early South Australia Congregational leaders
King's College, Kensington park, Adelaide, teaching staff in 1928 – Back row (from left): G.A. Pledge, D.H. Slee, Miss Harris, Miss I. Robinson, A.P. Muir, Miss D. Stereos. Front: Miss I. Morphett, K.W.A. Smith, J. Bills (headmaster), A.E. McLean, Miss D. Woollaston.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
King's College boys school in the Adelaide suburb of Keninsington Park from the 1920s was in line with the vision of South Australian Congregational pioneer minister Quinton Stow, who started the church’s educational tradition continued by figures such as James Jefferis.
Kings's College had a second coeducational life from 1974 when it amalgamated with Girton Girls School to form Pembroke School – an upmarket independent coeducation and nondenominational day and boarding school for about 1700 students.
King’s College came out of moves in the 1920s to amalgamate the Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian churches. Although that union didn’t happen, a new spirit of cooperation led to the Baptists joining Congregationalists to form King’s College.
King’s College emphasised the academic, physical and cultural rather than faith. Its only clergyman headmaster R.A. Cook (from 1957) eventually had a school chapel built in the 1960s.
First headmaster J.A. Haslam, was the son of a Methodist minister, and later W.N. Oats, a Quaker with strong Methodist background, revived the school, from 1942. Among challenging views, Oats’ vision for King’s to become coeducational wasn't realised for another 30 years.
Coeducation came through the merge with Girton, one of many private girls’ schools started in Adelaide. Lillie Smith, wife of a stock broker whose income varied according to the market, decided, when her children had grown, to have a regular income by buying a Kensington property in 1915 and setting up her school for girls. It flourished for nearly 50 years.
In 2006, Pembroke became the first school in South Australia to be granted an anti-discrimination exempltion to accept more girls than boys to redress a gender imbalance in lower years.
Pembroke School Foundation provided major support for additions such as the Diana Medlin Junior School, John Moody Technology Centre, senior and middle schools’ resource centres and Girton arts precinct.
