Cape Town - Trafalgar High School in District Six has been declared a national heritage site.
The school has an unparalleled record in South Africa’s history – in the field of education and its strident opposition to the apartheid system when many of its students and teachers were jailed and banned.
The school was nominated to the South African Heritage Resource Agency (SAHRA) for national heritage status by the Trafalgar Alumni Association which campaigned for it across social media platforms and in newspapers and on radio.
Trafalgar High Alumni Association executive committee member Warren Ludski, who matriculated in 1966, said: “Our organisation is thrilled by the news. We think it is thoroughly deserved because of the school’s status in the history of District Six, Cape Town generally, and South Africa.
“Its contribution across a number of fields is immense. Our school provided community leadership through the strength and politically correct thinking of our teaching staff since it was established in 1912. Some paid a heavy price for shaping the future of their charges to think freely and independently.”
Among its many illustrious alumni is the first Justice Minister of democratic South Africa, Dullah Omar, as well as advocate Ben Kies and Judge Siraj Desai.
“In the field of science and mathematics, we had giants such as Walter Parry, and in the arts, we had the likes of ballet dancer Johaar Mosaval and jazz pianist Dollar Brand pass through our famous portals.
“The school also nurtured a long line of political and trade union activists such as Cissy Gool and Rahima Moosa, and international writer Alex La Guma,” Ludski said.
SAHRA’s Ben Mwasinga said that in the 10 years the agency had been processing heritage status nominations, this was the first time there had not been one objection in the community consultation period which was part of the process.
The national heritage status covers the school as an institution as well as the building and its immediate environs, such as the cobbled street – Birchington Road – on which thousands of students have walked since about 1916 when the building was erected.
Trafalgar’s first years were in a cramped building in Chapel Street.