Titchfield High Celebrates 220 Years

This year marks the 220th anniversary of the founding of Titchfield High School in Port Antonio, and a year long series of events have been planned in celebration of that milestone.
Titchfield, which was established in January 1786, is the fifth oldest high school in Jamaica and is predated only by William Knibb Memorial High School in Trelawny, Mannings High School in Westmoreland, Ruseas High School in Hanover and Wolmers’ Boys’ School in Kingston.
The events, which will be staged from January to December of this year, will be held under the theme ‘Posturing for Tomorrow’s Excellence through Reflections and Celebrations’, and include an anniversary church service at the Port Antonio Anglican Church today ( January 22), an open day and an exhibition to be held at the school during education week in May, a reunion dinner to be held in July and the premiering of a documentary in September, highlighting the history of the school and its achievements over the years.
Speaking with JIS News Andrew Edwards, Chairman of Titchfield High School’s 220th Anniversary Committee, said a special effort had been made to incorporate past students of the school, community members and institutions with track records of commitment to youth and nation building into the planning of the activities.
Expressing confidence that the occasion would bring about a renaissance of the school’s legacies while emphasising those that were still relevant to the 21st century, Mr. Edwards said they would also enable the members of the school community to reflect on the past in order to recreate and modernise its image of prestige and dominance in and out of its classrooms.
Informing that a major objective of the celebrations was the creation of a sense of pride and belonging among the past and current students of the school, Mr. Edwards said he was hopeful that when the celebrations came to an end, they would have been able to bring about a number of positive achievements for the school, including the igniting of the Titchfield community locally and abroad.
He also expressed the hope that the activities would bring about improvement of the physical environment of the school, the restoration of the rich legacy of the school and significant improvement in financial support for the institution in order to better enable it to meet its academic and co-curricular objectives and needs.