Tale Lovedale

The Lawrence School in Ooty, which celebrates its 150th anniversary next year, stands legacy to the great vision of a British administrator: Henry Lawrence

Sanjay Kapoor Ooty

Tucked away in the graveyard of Lucknow's Residency, which was under siege by Indian freedom fighters during the revolt of 1857, is the tomb of one of the best administrators of the British Raj, Sir Henry Lawrence. The epitaph on the grave is a typical example of British understatement: "Here lies Henry Lawrence who tried to do his duty". Killed by shrapnel during the siege of Lucknow on July 2, 1857 at the age of 51, Lawrence did a lot more than just his duty: fight battles for her majesty's government or giving shape to the administration.

In his young life, interspersed with long years of illness, Lawrence set up two schools — he chose to call them asylums — for children of European soldiers living in India: Sanawar near Shimla and in Mount Abu. After his death, two more were established in Ooty (1858) and Murree (1860). The geographical dispersion of schools from the north to the south clearly showed the control the British government exercised all over India, just a year after the revolt of 1857. One such Lawrence School — in Ooty or Lovedale — celebrates 150 years of its foundation next year.

The misty blue mountains of the Nilgiris provide an idyllic backdrop to a school that still swears by the indomitable spirit of a disease-racked British administrator who helped many of his countrymen survive the siege in Lucknow. The Lawrence Schools in Ooty and in other places are built on campuses that build young bodies in a climate that stimulates young minds. Although Lawrence's legacy is being confronted in post-independent India by blinkered nationalist zealots — his relatives and other descendents of the imperial British army were chased out when they tried to visit Lucknow recently — there is a lot in his persona to inspire the young mind.

The sprawling 750-acre verdant campus of Lovedale's nestling meadows and rolling hills is a good manifestation of an old British administrator's vision of what a good public school should be. The school, with its slate roofs, looks like a Scottish castle without a moat. Its classrooms and assembly halls hark back to architecture of an era gone by, but they instil in a student the importance of history and make them proud of their institution.

These students have lent character to the school motto — 'never give in' — by attaining excellence in their chosen fields. Since 1949, Lawrence School has been under the central government. And like with all government-controlled institutions, it has gone through its ups and downs depending largely on the leadership provided by the headmaster and the school board. Indifferent administration in the past had resulted in the school's 750 acre of land being encroached by unscrupulous elements and politicians. Not long ago, a chief minister of Tamil Nadu had designs on the estate, but an alert headmaster nipped such attempts in the bud when he showed that the land was under the control of the president of India.

The school also suffered from the indifference of the ministry of education. Successive secretaries of education, as chairpersons of the board, never had any time to visit the institution. For many babus in the ministry of education in Delhi, Lawrence School was too far and unimportant. Due to a host of reasons, the school was in dire straits and its academic performance and discipline had begun to dip embarrassingly.

Ooty MP R Prabhu was troubled by such a steady decline of a great institution and lobbied hard with Union Human Resources Minister Arjun Singh to intervene. Singh appointed a tough former bureaucrat, MR Sivaraman, as its chairperson, and the school began to show perceptible changes almost immediately. For the last couple of years, the school has been doing well again and is reaping in profits. It has built a corpus of Rs 13 crore — funds that are being used for expansion and preservation. Its students are making a mark in the sporting arena and headboy Panang is a national level shooter who has done well in international competitions as well. Many parents who had pulled out their wards due to lack of discipline are bringing them back.

Lovedale's turnaround provides a good example of how a good institution can be revived under good leadership. Henry Lawrence would agree with that.