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Coordinates: 0°0′0″N 0°0′0″E 0, 0

Diocesan Girls' School

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    • 1 Jordan Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
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  • Official Website: [1]
• History & Memorable Moments
  • Pre-war

It was originally named Diocesan Native Female Training School in 1860, when it was founded at Bonham Road and Eastern Street on Hong Kong Island. The school was set up by Mrs. Smith, wife of Bishop Smith the first Bishop of Victoria who was sent by the Society for the Promotion of Female Education in the East, a sub-society of the London Missionary Society. At first, it took only girls. In 1866, it was renamed Diocesan Female School. In 1869 the School had to confine its service to orphans and destitute Chinese girls due to financial problems. Later, it became the Diocesan Home and Orphanage and accepted boys as well. ^[1]

The School first received government financial assistance in 1878 and was placed under the Grant-in-aid scheme, officially limiting its intake to girls only. The boys were to continue their study at the newly founded Diocesan Boys' School. ^[1]

In 1913, the School finally moved to its present site in Kowloon, formerly a rice paddy field. In the 1920s, the school motto, Daily Giving Service, was adopted. During the Japanese occupation in World War II, the School was taken over as headquarters of the Japanese gendarmerie until it was re-opened in September 1945 by Ms. Gibbins, then headmistress, who was interned at Stanley camp during the occupation. Immediately upon her release, Gibbins hurried back to reclaim the School premises despite difficulty in crossing the harbour, thus saving the building from being looted by angry residents. ^[1]

• Post war

In the 1950s, with the closure of the adjacent town-gas depot, the school was able to expand. The old Edwardian edifice was pulled down and three school blocks were constructed to accommodate the enlarged student body. The School embarked on a large scale school expansion project and two extension blocks were opened respectively in 1993 and 1996. A new phase of expansion has been completed and was opened officially on the 12th of January, 2007. ^[1]

Recently, the school celebrated her 145th Anniversary, and a musical production "The DGS Girl" was staged at the Shatin Town Hall, telling the history of DGS through the life of a group of girls: Mary Jean, Annie, Catherine, Sandra and Jaqueline. ^[1]

They go by the school motto, "Daily Giving Service" (an adaptation of the motto was coined by former Headmistress Dr. Joyce Symons for DGJS to be "Daily Giving Joyful Service". ^[1]

DGS has most joined the Direct Subsidy Scheme in Hong Kong in 2006. ^[1]

• Donations controversy

In 1976, the school dispatched application forms for its Primary school together with a solicitation for "voluntary donation of HK$1,000" towards the construction of a new Primary School building. This caused a huge amount of consternation among the public, and fuelled the debate about the corrupt recruitment practices of elitist schools[1]. Symons had responded that the solicitation had been cleared by the ICAC, and in addition that the school had sent out the solicitations "inadvertently". The school was forced to dissociate the request for donations from applications. ^[1]

The controversy also contributed to demands that the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, of which Symons was the sole representative of the education sector, be made more representative of the sector. ^[1]

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