St. Xavier's Institution


St. Xavier's Institution, at Farquhar Street in George Town, Penang, Malaysia, is the oldest Catholic Lasallian school in Malaysia. While it has a history dating back to 1787, the present-day institution, named after St. Francis Xavier, was only established in 1852.
This secondary school has been an all-boys school since its establishment, although girls are now admitted for Form 6. In addition, the school is renowned for producing several notable Malaysian and Singaporean personalities, including Wong Pow Nee, Karpal Singh, Cecil Rajendra and Hon Sui Sen. Students of the school are colloquially known as 'Xaverians' or 'La Sallians'.
To this day, St. Xavier's Institution maintains its historical rivalry with Penang Free School, another premier school in George Town which holds the honour of being Malaysia's oldest school. The school has two suburban feeder primary schools at Pulau Tikus and Air Itam.

History

The history of St. Xavier's Institution stretches all the way back to 1787, soon after the founding of George Town by Captain Francis Light. Light invited Bishop Arnaud-Antoine Garnault, a French Catholic priest, to George Town as Bishop Garnault and his Eurasian followers were fleeing political persecution in Siam. After arriving in George Town, Bishop Garnault, who was proficient in Malay, set up a Malay school at Church Street.
The Malay school was subsequently relocated into a brick house built by Jean-Baptiste Boucho of the Paris Foreign Missions in 1825 and converted into an English school. It was called the Catholic Free School, in opposition to Penang Free School which had been established by Protestants in 1816.
In 1852, three members of the De La Salle Brothers took over the administration of Catholic Free School upon invitation by Jean-Baptiste Boucho. The school was renamed as St. Francis Xavier's Free School after St. Francis Xavier, a Spanish Catholic missionary who is revered to this day for his extensive missions in Asia in the 16th century.
St. Francis Xavier's Free School was moved to its present grounds at Farquhar Street with the completion of a new school building in 1858. With this relocation, the school was finally renamed as St. Xavier's Institution. This building was expanded several times over the years, before it was replaced by a grander Baroque-style double-storey building in 1895. A third storey was added in 1901 and a wing was constructed in 1908.
During the Japanese occupation in World War II, the Imperial Japanese Navy used the school building as a Marine barracks. As a result, the school building was completely destroyed by American bombers in the later years of the war.
With the main building wiped out, school sessions were resumed after the war at the adjacent school field, with temporary attap sheds serving as classrooms. In 1954, the current school building was completed at a cost of about $2 million.
Notably, the last La Sallian Brother principal of St. Xavier's Institution, Paul Ho, was also the last member of the De La Salle Brotherhood in Malaysia to serve as a school principal. His retirement in 2009 marked the end of a long-standing era of La Sallian Brother principals in Malaysia.

Affiliation

To this day, St. Xavier's Institution maintains its association as part of the network of Lasallian schools throughout Asia. The affiliated schools in Southeast Asia include St. John's Institution in Kuala Lumpur, St. Michael's Institution in Ipoh, and St. Joseph's Institution in Singapore.

Feeder schools

St Xavier's Institution operates two feeder primary schools in the suburbs of George Town. St. Xavier's Primary Branch School at Pulau Tikus was opened in 1962, while St. Xavier's Primary School at Air Itam was launched much later. While the schools are not closely associated with each other, most pupils go on to continue their secondary studies in St. Xavier's Institution. Regular annual tours are also organised by the schools which usually bring the students of the two primary schools on a "day tour" in St. Xavier's Institution.

Notable alumni