HANNAH Dudley never imagined that her legacy would live on until today.
Ms Dudley was a Methodist mission sister who arrived in Fiji on August 24, 1897 to serve as an educationist in the Fijians of Indian descent community.
Little did she know, this service would go a long way in terms of educating all other races who have called Fiji home.
Ms Dudley was born in 1864 in Morpeth, New South Wales, Australia and for some time, served as a mission sister in India. It was because of her work in India that she was able to relate well to the Fijians of Indian descent community and started a school from the verandah of her home in Suva.
When she arrived in Fiji in 1897, there wasn’t any house provided for her, but Ms Dudley was determined to answer the calling in her life, which was to assist Fijians of Indian descent in reading and writing English and Urdu.
From the verandah of her rented room, she educated about 40 children whose parents came to Fiji to work as indentured labourers.
With the growing number of students, the verandah of her room could not accommodate everyone, so they moved their classes under the famous baka tree that is still standing in front of Dudley High School located at Eden St in Toorak in Suva.
Some years later, Ms Dudley was able to build a house which was called Dudley House and continued to provide classes out of Dudley House, which later was known as Dudley House School.
First local principal for
Dudley High School
The first Form 3 stream was established in 1945 and around this time, the school still had European teachers at the helm of leadership.
In 1964, four schools under the Methodist Church of Fiji were amalgated and provided education for all Fijians, particularly children from underprivileged families.
The first local principal of the school was Jagdeesh Sahay who was first posted to the school in 1969 as an english and social studies teacher.
Mr Sahay, 76, now resides in Australia and last Friday was in Fiji to be part of the school’s 120th celebrations.
He was promoted to principal of the school in 1976 and held the post until 1993.
“When I first came here to teach, there were just about 18 staff and the school number was a little over 200 students, over time it increased tremendously, and by the time I left, there were 53 staff,” Mr Sahay said.
“One reason why Dudley High School stood out from other schools because it was faith-oriented and students were taught to be true Christians.”
He said the spiritual faith of the school had remained intact in a very turbulent society.
Mr Sahay said most of the students he taught had made names for themselves in the local scene with some becoming medical doctors, professors both abroad and locally, pilots as well as politicians.
He said because most students were from poor background, the teachers worked hand in hand to assist these students financially.
“I grew up in a sugarcane farm community in Lautoka, and I knew what it was like to live in poverty, so whenever I can assist, I would assist these students by buying them food for lunch,” he said.
Mr Sahay remembers clearly any student’s perception of being called into the principal’s office.
“Any student who was up to mischief was sent to my office, and the first thing in the mind of the student was receiving the belt or cane, but I never used this approach,” he said.
“I believed that students needed to be nurtured well and if given the proper words of advice, would excel well academically and will have a brighter future.”
He said he remembered a student who was a very troubled boy while in school; Mr Sahay said the boy was now a church minister.
Recollection of a former scholar
Former politician Marieta Rigamoto attended Dudley High School from 1957 to 1962.
Ms Rigamoto was also present at the 120th celebrations and was the eldest former scholar to be present at the celebrations.
During her days at the school, the principal was Ms Phyllis Furnival.
Ms Rigamoto said her father, who was a teacher at that time, was posted to Delana Methodist High School, and the church decided that she stayed on as a student at Dudley High School.
“I had no choice but to stay here,” she said with a laugh.
“It was quite challenging for me because I was a boarder and the first thing I had to do was adjust my eating habits from staple diet of cassava, dalo and other Rotuman food to eating Indian dishes.”
She said the challenges faced during those days only made her stronger.
She jokingly shared that at times, she would run away to Rotuman families living along Toorak to ask for food.
“The menu at the boarding facility was dhal and rice or roti for lunch, and because most of the boarders were vegetarian. I had to become vegetarian too,” she said.
“Sometimes I would run away to other Rotuman families, or to a iTaukei family that used to be our neighbour before my father was posted to Levuka to ask for cassava or dalo because I was always hungry.”
Ms Rigamoto said the facilities at the school back in her days were not as modern as the current ones, but students in those days were keen to learn and become someone in life.
“I pay tribute to missionaries who sacrificed their time to travel to Fiji to help educate locals. Most of the teachers at the time were missionaries, and they instilled in us great life lessons based on Biblical teachings,” Ms Rigamoto said.
“Their teachings were really based on the school motto, ‘From within out’, which simply means everything you do should be from within yourself.”