{"id":876604,"date":"2026-09-24T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=876604"},"modified":"2026-09-23T17:15:31","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T15:15:31","slug":"the-124-year-old-school-that-started-as-a-cigar-factory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/education\/876604\/the-124-year-old-school-that-started-as-a-cigar-factory\/","title":{"rendered":"The 124-year-old school that started as a cigar factory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

King Edward VIII School (KES) in Johannesburg began in temporary classrooms in an old cigar factory before becoming one of South Africa’s premier schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KES was founded in 1902 following the Second Anglo-Boer War, when the Transvaal area was in dire need of schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school was initially named “The Government School for Boys” and was also known as the “Johannesburg High School for Boys”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of Gauteng’s acclaimed schools were founded around this time, as the area began to expand rapidly, including Pretoria Boys High School and St. John’s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1904, the school had outgrown its home in the cigar factory, prompting a move to a new location in Barnato Park, and it changed its name to Johannesburg College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This new school building was originally a mansion designed for mining magnate Barney Barnato, but the premises did not last long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school would move for a third time in 1911 to Houghton Ridge, where the school remains today, after it outgrew its Barnato Park premises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This move came shortly after the death of King Edward VII, and the school was given permission to change its name in honour of the royal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, KES is a high school, teaching grades eight to twelve, with King Edward VII Primary School (KEPS) being closely attached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly, the primary school was founded before KES as St. Augustine’s, which opened on the site of a Swiss Mission Church in Doornfontein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the school is known to have been operating in 1902, it is believed to have been founded earlier, but nobody knows when or by whom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Augustine’s was founded separately from the high school, but became its official feeder school in 1906.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1909, St. Augustine moved to its current location alongside KES, after an agreement was reached for the primary school to be allocated part of the new grounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The primary school was also given permission to use the King Edward VII name at the time, placing KES in loco parentis of KEPS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KES today<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since its humble beginnings in a Johannesburg cigar factory, KES has grown into a major name in South African education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school has over 1,000 pupils from grades eight to twelve, and boasts high levels of achievement across several sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SA school sports placed KES 16th in the country in its combined rugby rankings and 9th in its combined hockey rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school’s first teams are also ranked in the top five in the country for cricket and basketball, and in the top 20 for soccer and water polo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Academically, the school also performs at a high level, with its most recent matric cohort achieving 309 distinctions among 231 candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KES also had four matriculants achieve eight distinctions, with an overall pass rate of 98.27% and a bachelor’s pass rate of 83.12%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school offers boarding for all grades, although it was originally introduced in the 1920s for learners whose parents had been killed in the First World War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original boarding house, Buxton, was used from the 1920s until 1963, when it was demolished and rebuilt on the same site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new building, which kept the original name, is now used as the main boarding house for the school’s higher grades, accommodating 175 learners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KES also has two other boarding houses, the School House for grade eights and the Donald Gordon House for grade nine learners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grade eight School House is the oldest of the three boarding establishments at KES, having been opened in 1937.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Since 1937, School House has always prepared boarders for the most important developing years in their high school careers and has done this with pride,” KES said on its website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Photos of King Edward VII School<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since its humble beginnings in an old cigar factory, King Edward VII School has grown into one of South Africa’s premier education establishments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":876660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2103137648382448024","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2215233759297023","_sma_instagram_post_id":"17908274391539769","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26526],"tags":[26608,26607,26606,22715],"class_list":["post-876604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-barnato-park","tag-keps","tag-kes","tag-king-edward-vii-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876604"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":876663,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876604\/revisions\/876663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/876660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}