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HISTORCAL BACKGROUND – MURRAY GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL

Murray Girls’ High School was formerly known as Coast Girls’ Secondary School. It was later changed to Murray girls in order to honour Lady Marjorie Murray (Headmistress of the school), for her contribution to the Education of girls for over thirty years in Taita land.

The school started as a Mission Center in 1905 by a missionary from Bulgaria by the name Rev. V. Verbi. He had found a site suitable for a school because one of his ambitions was to establish a school beside his missionary work. In the same year, Verbi built a missionary house which currently serves as the Principal’s residence. According to history the house is the oldest modern missionary house in East- Africa.

The following year, in 1906 Verbi built the school church, which is still used today as a class room due to high student enrolment and inadequate infrastructure.

Between 1913-1925, Verbi built two classrooms and a workshop for technical work. Those classrooms are in still use to date for teaching and learning.

In 1927, a two roomed house was built to serve as dormitories for girls. It later became a technical Intermediate school before becoming a formal grammar school. The school was then formally inaugurated by Mr. Lomas in January 1960. In brief, the church gave birth to the school.

Between 1937-1941, the school buildings were reconditioned as girls’ school and became an intermediate technical school and the first course of one year elementary Home craft was done.

The aim of this course was to raise and enhance home craft skills in homes and to provide an academic outlet for the bright, progressive girls. So from the beginning Murray Girls has pur- sued a two-track policy on girls’ education: Practical training for life after school and an Aca- demic outlet for girls wishing to pursue an Academic career.

The first principal was Mrs. Arthur Philip, who started the course in 1941 with 23 girls of whom 16 were from Taita and 5 were from other areas of the Coast. So Coast Girls’ school as it was then, can be considered as one of the pioneer schools in girls Education in the country.

In 1942, Miss Bodger took over as principal assisted by Mrs. Murray in Home craft Education. This means that the Home-science Department has a long History at Murray Girls’ high school. 15 students of the 1941 class were inducted for teacher training course for two years. In 1943, these pioneers students made History when they graduated as teachers.

In 1943, Miss Murray became the Acting Principal assisted by the first girl for lower primary the Late Agatha Nimrod from Taita and Zilla David from Lower Coast (a 1941 pioneer stu- dent).

In 1944, Miss Lawrence took over as Principal assisted by Miss Murray. The following year, in 1945, standard five was started with about 30 – 40 girls. The school was growing and later be- came a fully-fledged formal grammar school.

In 1946, only a year after the end of the 2nd World War, the Teacher Training course was re- started. 13 Teacher trainees did and passed the teachers examination becoming fully qualified teachers. In the same year two new dormitories were built to accommodate the growing student population.

In 1947, Miss Murray became the Acting Principal and in the same year 16 students from the school sat for KAPE for the first time. Eleven (11) girls passed and graduated.

Miss Bourne took over as principal in 1948. In that year, 11 students sat KAPE and 6 passed their examinations.

Miss Swin Field Wells enrolled 12 girls for teacher training course.

In 1949, there was massive improvement in infrastructure. Four new classrooms were completed, while other existing buildings were given a face-lift. Those buildings are still in existence to date and are being used currently for classrooms though old, cracked and dilapidated. In the same year, 14 students sat for KAPE and passed their examinations One of the students from the school called Agatha Nimrod proceeded to join Kikuyu Girls High School (later to be known as Alliance Girls.) Agatha later joined Makerere University to pursue her undergraduate degree. as the His- torically, she is the first girl from Taita and from Murray Girls (formerly known as Coast Girls Sec- ondary School) to have pursued and completed her undergraduate studies at a University .

The school’s role as pioneer in girl’s Education was greatly enhanced by Agatha’s Achievement as one of the first graduates of Makerere University. In the same year, in 1946, two of Agatha’s classmates went for a course at Embu and later came back to teach at Coast Girls School (currently Murray Girls.)

In 1951, Miss Murray was appointed the Principal of Coast Girls School while Miss Wells was ap- pointed Principal of Teacher Training.

In 1952, there was a big improvement in the enrolment. 81 girls enrolled in the girls school and 17 in the teacher training.

In 1957, Miss Murray retired after 30 years of Educational service in Taita-Taveta at Coast girls

school.

In 1957, Mr. Lomas was appointed Principal. In 1959, the school started implementing plans for the conversion of Coast Girls Intermediate School to be the first co-educational African Secondary School for the Coast Province.

In 1958 it was changed to full-fledged girls’ boarding with one stream and granted a sec- ond stream in 1975.

In 1978 the school started an extra stream for form 5 and 6.

In 2015 the school expanded to four streams, then five streams in the year 2018 and seven streams in 2021.