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Old College

Many questions remain unanswered about the size, the exact position of the early College buildings and the extent of the land on which they stood. It is known that three separate establishments were used as the main school before 1829, the year the present College Main Building was completed.

Old College, now the Ozanne Building, was built in 1760. It was the first purpose-built school on site and for nearly 70 years it provided classrooms and living accommodation for the Master and space for boys’ dormitories.

By [include date?], at English public schools, significant developments were taking place in science teaching. The need for a new approach to science was made urgent when school inspectors threatened not to give the College the approval required by Government Departments and the Army in England. This would have been a disaster for the College most of whose senior boys were in the Army Class.  It led to the conversion of Old College into a fully-equipped laboratory, a project paid for by subscribers and named after Edward Charles Ozanne, (1458), a distinguished Guernsey educationist and horticulturalist. The States also gave a grant on condition the laboratory was made available to other island schools.

The establishment of the Ozanne Laboratory was part of a grand project to centralise scientific instruction for the whole island and especially for workers in such industries as farming and fruit growing: the soft fruit growing industry in the island, melons and tomatoes particularly, was then in its infancy.

Elizabeth College School
Elizabeth College School
Elizabeth College School
Elizabeth College School
Elizabeth College School

FURTHER INFORMATION

The pictures on this page include:

  1. (Main image) Old College, now the Ozanne building, built in 1760. [The artist is thought to be the wife of [include name], the Master standing on the College lawn in the painting].
  2. Plan drawn by John Wilson showing the boundaries of land assigned to the College since the Foundation and prior to the construction of the 1829 building.
  3. The only visible remains of the original friary buildings and the College gateway at the lower end of College Street. Other remnants were probably knocked down when St Julian's Avenue was created in the 1870s.
  4. Edward Charles Ozanne (OE 1458), the Old Elizabethan the Ozanne building is named after.
  5. An 1888 watercolour painting (artist unknown) of the Old College, now known as the Ozanne building.
  6. The Ozanne building is home to the Modern Foreign Languages Department and the Design and Technology workshop.

Edward Charles Ozanne (1850–1929), Jurat of the Royal Court (1897–1905)

[Bio to be added]