The History of Maseru Prep School
The Anglican Diocese of Bloemfontein helped to establish a school for the children of European officials, traders and missionaries active in the Maseru area of the British colony of Basutoland about 1890, in addition to their other missionary work. Deaconess Maria Burton was the first teacher to be identified with the school. She travelled from Bloemfontein in 1893, changing from the post cart at Ladybrand to a " spider " carriage for the journey to Maseru via horse drawn ferry over the Caledon River.
Sister Maria established the school, subsidized by the Basutoland government, in a private house or cottage. During the next fifteen years she also raised funds for the establishment of the first Anglican Church (St. James) and the Basotho Anglican Girls School (St. Catherine's). Sir Godfrey Lagden (Resident Commissioner 1890-1901) sent his children to "The European School of Maseru", writing that he paid Sister Maria £1.10 for six weeks schooling. E.B. Sargant's "Report on Education in Basutoland 1905-6" also mentioned the school, by now housed in "a small iron building" located close to the site of the present Maseru United Church. It was thought to have been one of the prefabs brought to South Africa by the British Army during the Anglo-Boer war. The so called "tin tabernacle" was sold to the forerunner of the Maseru United Church when the Government built a small sandstone school on what is now called Old School Road. Even in these early days the extent of government subvention and control over the school's independence was a "grey area", and it remains so to this day.
In 1932 the school changed its name to Maseru Preparatory School. This continued to the mid 1950s when the present title of Maseru English Medium Preparatory School was adopted, the Colonial development Fund having financed a "handsome new European School" on the Caldwell Road site. However, even today, the school is still most frequently referred to as Maseru Prep!
Amongst other important events witnessed by children at the school was the
Royal Visit of 1947, the 1962 "Winds of Change" visit of Harold
Macmillan and Independence in 1966. The first Basotho children were admitted
in 1962 and the numbers have risen to become the largest single group of
children by a long way, despite 20 odd nationalities being still represented.