Blaze the trailblazer

Kingswood College, Kandy has many firsts to its name. Kingswood started rugger and was the first boys' school to have women teachers. It was the first to introduce school bands, the first to send a delegate led by Francis Rajapakse to a World Jamboree in Paris. The concept of Traffic Units in the country came from Kingswood College when a senior prefect Sanaraja Banda Senaratne mooted the idea for a school traffic Unit way back in the 1950s.

Kingswood College was founded in 1861 by Louis Edmund Blaze, a student of Trinity College who graduated from an Indian University. Blaze's idea was not examination success, but to equip an individual to face the world and society. Kingswood was first established as a private school but became a Government school when the schools' take-over Bill was passed in Parliament.

Louis Edmund Blaze's aim was to make Kingswood different in outlook, ideals and teacher-pupil relations and to instil in the pupils pride in the knowledge that they would be known as 'Gentlemen of Kingswood'.

Blaze was the first to obtain the B.A. degree from the University of Calcutta from Trinity College. He taught at the Boys' School of Lahore for a short time after graduation. When leaving this school he was presented with a souvenir. Its cover was designed by Rudyard Kipling's father and bore the inscription "To L.E. Blaze Esq: Captain...Semper..Parata.. first in the field and the last to leave".

Blaze's grandfather Hendrik Carl Blaze arrived in Sri Lanka as the third mate on board the ship "Amphitribe". He had three children including Henry Blaze, who was the father of Louis Edmund Blaze. The Wesleyan Methodist Conference in England appointed him as a teacher to the Methodist Mission school at Bentota in 1821.

Henry Blaze then became the Headmaster of the Government Boys' school, Payagala in 1826 and married a schoolteacher Margaret Caroline de Joodt the same year. Their eldest son Louis Ezkiel was L.E. Blaze's father. Blaze took to journalism at the age of 15 when he was a student of Trinity College and became the founding Editor of the fortnightly school magazine, the " Gleaner " which he commenced on May 15, 1876.

He went on to become the Editor of the journal 'Ceylon Independent', but his journalistic career was short-lived. He was also an author of Ceylon History, which books are used for reference even today. He founded Kingswood College on the style of British public schools borrowing the name from Kingswood of Bath. The school song was also borrowed from the same school, but its first paragraph was changed to "Hill throned where nature is kind............. He initially started classes with just eleven pupils at No: 11, Pavillion street, which is now Deva Veediya. The school celebrated its 146th anniversary on September 29.