Durban High School

Durban High School (D.H.S.)
Location
Durban High School (D.H.S.)
125 St. Thomas Road Durban, Kwa-Zulu Natal South Africa
Coordinates
Information
Type	All-Boys Public School (state)
Motto	Deo Fretus (In God We Trust)
Established	1866
Locale	Urban
Head Master	Mr Leon Erasmus
Grades	8–12
Number of students	1000
Houses	Swales, Grice, Langley, Campbell and Payne and Blackmore
School colour(s)	Navy blue and Oxford gold
Newspaper	The Herald
Boarding houses	Blackmore
Website	www.durbanhighschool.co.za

Durban High School is an all-boys public school in Durban, South Africa.

DHS opened its doors in 1866 in two rooms and with seven pupils in Smith Street. From there it moved to a disused granary in Cato Square in 1880, just after the Zulu War, and then to the Old Hospital on the foreshore. In 1895, it moved up onto the healthier Berea to its present site, where it flourished. The ten acres plot was granted to the School by the Durban Town Council. The first enrolled student was a boy called Eben Coates and he was also the first Head-boy. There is also a related primary school: Durban Preparatory High School. The school has approximately 1000 enrolled students, all boys, and includes a small boarding establishment and over 75 teachers. The headmaster is Mr. Leon Erasmus. It is the oldest standing school in Durban and one of the oldest in South Africa.

Houses

There are six houses:

• Swales – Old Gold
• Grice – Turquoise
• Langley – Red
• Campbell – Green
• Payne– Oxford Blue
• Blackmore (the boarders' house) – White

Blackmore House is a home for over 140 boys. The boys' needs are catered for by food provision and dormitories with a maximum of 6 boys per dorm. The boys can go home most weekends and return on Monday mornings.

Sports

A wide range of sports and activities are offered including climbing, golf, fishing, surfing, chess, football, basketball, and hardball as well as the more traditional athletics, cricket, hockey, and rugby which have been played at the school for over 100 years. The school has produced over 125 international sportsmen in sports ranging from rugby and cricket to golf, badminton, baseball, surfing and powerlifting. Countries represented include France, New Zealand, England, Scotland and the USA. More than 30 old boys have played international cricket, six of whom were Wisden Cricketers of the Year. Five old boys played in the 1960 Lords test against England and four in the first two tests against Australia in 1969/70.

Notable people

Staff

• Izak Van Heerden. School, Natal, Springbok and Argentina rugby coach.POW in Germany with another DHS teacher, Bill Payn. Taught at DHS for 39 years. Izak died at the school in 1973.
• 'Skonk' Nicholson,renowned schools rugby coach.Coached seven Springboks including Joel Stransky and Butch James, both world cup winning fly-halves when he coached the first XV at Maritzburg College. Coach of 14 unbeaten College teams. DHS First XV rugby, First XI cricket and head prefect. Natal School's Rugby.

Alumni

Politics

• Dr Ernest George Jansen MP, Governor-General of the Union of South Africa (1950–1959).
• Sir Gavyn Arthur. Former Lord Mayor of London. Another DHS boy to end up at Harrow School. Appointed a High Court Judge in 2008.
• Sir Albert Robinson MP. Read law at Stellenbosch and Cambridge universities. Served as High Commissioner to Britain for the Central African Federation.
• Alec Erwin, MP. Minister of Trade and Industry(1996-2004). President of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development(1996-2000).
• Senator Charles Clarkson OBE. SA Minister of the Interior (now known as Home Affairs) 1943-1948.
• Leif Egeland. Ambassador to Sweden and the Hague. SA High Commissioner in London. Dux 1918.
• Rupert Ellis-Brown, Mayor of Durban. Represented SA in Sailing at the 1924 Summer Olympics – Monotype (Paris) and in Sailing at the 1928 Summer Olympics (Amsterdam).
• Dennis Shepstone, Administrator of Natal Province. Chancellor of the University of Natal.
• Radclyffe Cadman, MP. Leader of The New Republic Party. Administrator of Natal. MA(Cantab), LL.B. Royal Navy in WW2.
• Nigel Wood, MP.

Academics

• Sir Aaron Klug, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1982. Scientific advisor to the British Government. President of The Royal Society, governor at the Scripps Research Institute, USA. Dux 1941
• Dr Trevor Wadley, invented the Tellurometer in 1957, the Wadley Loop and an Ionosonde. Awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal in 1970.
• Dr Percy Deift. Professor of Mathematics at Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University. Awarded The George Polya Prize, 1998. Named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1999. Ph.D-Princeton University. Dux 1962
• Dr Mervyn Susser, member Royal College of Physicians(Edinburgh). Sergievsky Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University New York,USA.
• Thomas John I'Anson Bromwich. Professor of Mathematics, Queen's College, Galway, Ireland. Fellow of the Royal Society. Senior Wrangler, Cambridge 1897.
• Professor Dudley Goodhead, OBE. Director of the Medical Research Council's Radiation and Genome Stability Unit, Harwell UK. D.Phil, Oxford. Chairman of CERRIE. Dux 1956. Presented with the Gray Medal in 2011,The Weiss Medal (UK), Failla Medal (USA), Bacq & Alexander Medal (Europe).
• Dr Alan Gelb, Rhodes Scholar, Director of the World Bank Washington D.C. D.Phil, Oxford.
• Dr Ian MacKenzie. Ph.D McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Professor of Physics.
• Dr John Bradford, Order of Canada 2013. Professor of Forensic Psychiatry University of Ottawa and Queen's University, Canada. Victoria Jubilee Medal.
• Dr David Bourne. Switched from a career in nuclear physics to become a chief research officer in Infectious Disease Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cape Town.
• Dr Ian Robertson, US sociologist and author. Former NUSAS president and anti-apartheid campaigner. Studied at Natal, Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard universities.
• Professor Phillip Tobias, palaeoanthropologist. Doctorates in medicine, genetics and palaeoanthropology. Nominated three times for a Nobel Prize. Dux 1942.
• Dr David Papineau, King's College London. Professor of the Philosophy of Science. Ph.D-Cambridge. Dux 1963.

Business

• Stephen Bradley Saad, founder and CEO of Aspen Pharmacare, Africa's largest pharmaceutical manufacturer. First XV rugby.

Past presidents of NUSAS

• Phillip V. Tobias, 1948 President of the National Union of South African Students.Professor of Palaeoanthropology at Wits.

Military

• Major Edwin Swales. Victoria Cross, Distinguished Flying Cross. SAAF and RAF. Pathfinder Master Bomber.
• Paddy Roberts. Lawyer and WW 2 Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot. Commercial BOAC pilot. Turned to songwriting and singing, writing numerous UK hits and film scores. Won five Ivor Novello Awards.

Arts and media

• Roy Campbell, poet, author and adventurer.
• Fernando Pessoa, Portuguese poet, translator, publisher and philosopher. Won the Queen Victoria Memorial Prize for English, aged 14, for best paper in English, in 1903. One of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of Portugal's greatest poets. Poet Laureate of Portugal. Antero de Quental Award, 1934.
• Marc Raubenheimer, concert pianist.Won the Paloma O'Shea International Piano Competition in 1982.Killed in the Barajas Airport tragedy in 1983 aged 32. Acclaimed in Austria, Switzerland, Germany,London and New York.
• Noel Langley novelist and playwright. Wrote the film scenario for The Wizard of Oz.
• Jack Cope, author.
• Marius Gabriel Cipolla novelist, writes as Marius Gabriel. Has written numerous romance and mystery novels. Wrote and illustrated the children's book Smartypig.
• Victor Stiebel. London fashion designer. Studied architecture at Jesus College, Cambridge.
• Howard Carpendale. 'Schlager' singer, sold over 25 million records in German speaking countries. Won Goldene Europa Award in 1978 and 1987. First XV rugby,First XI cricket and Natal School's athletics.

Sports

Cricket

All represented South Africa except where noted:

• Hashim Amla. SA test captain. World Cup 2007, 2011 and 2015. His 311 not out in the first test at The Oval in 2012 is the highest by a SA batsman in test cricket. Wisden Cricketer of the Year 2013. Quickest SA batsman to score 20 test centuries and the fastest batsman from all countries to score 6000 runs in ODIs.
• Lance Klusener, "Zulu", ICC 1999 World Cup Man of the Tournament despite SA not playing in the final, Wisden Cricketer of the Year 2000. Took 8/64 in India's second innings on debut in Kolkata in 1996. Klusener's World Cup batting average of 124 is the highest for any batsman and 16 higher than the second best.
• Barry Richards. Broke Don Bradman's record for the number of runs in a season playing for South Australia, 1970/71. Scored 325 runs not out in a single day against Western Australia. In ten first class matches he scored 1538 runs at an average of 109.86. Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1969. Scored 80 first class centuries. His average of 79.14 in World Series Cricket was 23 higher than the second highest average. In his first season in County Cricket he scored 2395 runs, more than anyone else in the country.Test umpire Dickie Bird rated him the best batsman he ever saw. Don Bradman selected Richards as an opening batsman in his World XI. Named 'Leading cricketer in the world', for 1973 by Wisden.
• Hugh Tayfield. Took 9/113 in England's second innings at The Wanderers in 1957. Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1956. Bowled 137 consecutive balls in the Durban Test in 1957 against England without conceding a run. This is still a test record. Wisden considers his 9/113 the finest performance by a bowler in test matches. First XV rugby.
• Jon Kent.
• Nummy Dean, SA test captain.
• Nevil Lindsay.
• Geoff Griffin. Only South African to take a hat-trick in a test match (Lords 1960). First XV rugby, Natal School's Athletics,Natal U19 rugby, Rhodesia hockey.
• Trevor Goddard. SA test captain and opening bat and Test cricket's most economical bowler (av 1.64/over). Provincial football.
• Richard Snell. World Cup 1992.
• Lee Irvine Highest First XI batting average at DHS in a season. Scored 1310 runs at an average of 68.95 in 21 innings. School First XV rugby and School Athletics.
• Tyron Henderson, First XV rugby.
• Mike Rindel.
• Jack Siedle. Holds the record, set with another old boy JFW Nicolson, of the highest opening stand in provincial cricket in South Africa of 424 runs.
• Imraan Khan. Opened the innings in the third test against Australia in Cape Town in the absence of SA captain Graeme Smith (2009). Not the Pakistan captain.
• George Shepstone, Maritzburg College, DHS and Repton School.
• Colin Wesley. First XV rugby.
• Dennis Gamsy,wicketkeeper. First XV rugby.
• Jonathan Fellows-Smith. Rugby Blue, Oxford University(1950s).
• Richard Dumbrill
• Sid Pegler
• Herbie Taylor. SA captain. Attended the Prep school(D.P.H.S.), when it was part of DHS, and Michaelhouse. Military Cross in WW1. Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1925.
• JFW Nicolson, Rhodes Scholar. Holds the record, set with another old boy, I J 'Jack' Siedle, of 424 runs for the first wicket in provincial cricket in SA. Nicolson made 252 not out. Head Boy, captain of cricket and rugby.
• JAJ Christy.
• Nick Compton (represented England). Toured England with the DHS first XI captained by Hashim Amla. Averaged 99.60 for Somerset in county cricket in 2012. Tests for England beginning 2012. Wisden Cricketer of the Year 2013. Hilton College and Harrow School (England) also.

Rugby

• Greg Rawlinson, New Zealand – All Blacks, Position – Lock/second row.
• Alistair Hargreaves, South Africa- Lock. Captained the SA U19 team that won the U19 World Cup in 2005. Captain of Saracens in English Premiership .
• BJ Botha. South Africa – Springboks, Position – Prop. World Cup Winner, Rugby World Cup 2007.Kloof High School also.
• Antonie Claassen, France- flank/8th man. SA U19. Head Prefect. His father Wynand captained the Springboks.

Athletics

• Clarence Oldfield, Silver medal 4 × 400 m relay in 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium.
• Sydney Atkinson. Gold medal 110m hurdles, 1928 Summer Olympic Games in Amsterdam, silver in the same event in 1924 Olympics in Paris.

Surfing, swimming, and lifesaving

• Shaun Tomson, 1977 IPS World Champion Surfer.
• David Weare, international surfer. The All African Champion Surfer in 2004 and 2008.
• Leandro Jorge. Swam for Mocambique in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Golf

• Rory Sabbatini. Won the World Cup of Golf in 2003 partnered by Trevor Immelman. Finished second in the 2007 Masters Tournament. Represented SA in World Cup from 2002 to 2009 and Presidents Cup(2007).
• Derek James. Represented SA in the Eisenhower Trophy in 1982.

Tennis

• Vernon Kirby, SA Davis Cup. Runner-up 1931 and 1937 French Open, Men's Doubles.
• David Adams, SA Davis Cup. Won two Grand Slam mixed doubles titles.
• John Yuill, Professional tennis player. 1974 SA Davis Cup Team.
• Victor Gauntlett, SA Tennis.

Hockey

• Geoff Abbott, SA.

External links

• Official website
• Almanac's Top African Schools
• DHS Prep School