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THE SCHOOL BUILDING

The school had its origins as a humble one-class roomed annex to the Victoria Congregational Methodist Church of Jeppestown. Dr. N. Mansfelt, the then Director of Education of the Transvaal, officially opened the Victoria School on the 4th April 1898.

The building soon became too crowded to house all the local children who wished to receive formal education and the Transvaal Education Department took over the small church school. On the 17th January 1900 the pupils attending the school were moved to a cluster of tents on the corner of Corrie and Jules Streets, Jeppe. These tents were to serve as their classrooms for the next four years.

In 1902 the school moved to the corner of Highgate and Jules Streets where it was housed in tents while the new building was being erected. The school was known as the Jeppestown Central School.

 

This building was the forerunner of the present John Mitchell School.

When Mr. John Mitchell was appointed, the school, a proud red brick building on the corner of Jules and Highgate Streets, became known as the Jeppestown Central Government School, with an initial enrolment of 522 pupils.

The cornerstone was laid by Mrs. Fabian Ware on the 31st of May 1904 and the school was officially opened by the acting Director of Education, Mr. H. Warre Cornish on 17th January 1905.

The school building as we know it today, was occupied in December 1970 and officially opened by Dr. L.A. Kotzee, the Director of Education, on the 6th November 1971.

PRINCIPALS

The school’s first acting principal, Mr. G.B. Swords, was succeeded by Mr. C. Burgoyne at the beginning of 1902.

 

Mr. John Mitchell was the first permanent principal of the school. Mr. Mitchell’s appointment in 1905 was the first appointment to be gazetted in the Transvaal.

Mr. Mitchell retired in 1924 and the school was renamed in his honour upon his death in 1927.

 

Messers Young (1925 – 1948), Kelly (1949 – 1963), Descy (1964 – 1970), Scheepers (1971 – 1985), Wolmarans (1986 – 1989) and Cooley (1990 – 1991) followed in John Mitchell’s illustrious footsteps.

On the 21st April 1992 Mr. Robert Rotteveel was appointed as principal and is presently the school’s headmaster. Mr. Rotteveel is a visionary whose democratic and dynamic leadership style has enabled the school to grow, to improve and to be the sought-after school it is today.

The school’s facilities are constantly upgraded and enhanced. The dedicated staff, the SGB, the learners and the parent community being what they are, ensure that John Mitchell School is a warm, friendly and welcoming place of learning and teaching.

 

 THE JOHN MITCHELL SCHOOL BELL

John Mitchell School is proud to have a bell that has a very colourful history!  

 

 The beautiful brass bell’s story begins when it was discovered shortly after World War 1 by a diver who had been commissioned to salvage the cargo from a ship sunk by the German’s in World War 1, off the coast of Portsmouth in England. This diver was an ex-John Mitchell pupil.

Instead, the diver found a 19th century British sailing ship that was sunk by Napoleon 100 years earlier. On this ship he found the bell – it had spent 100 years at the bottom of the sea.

The ex-pupil returned to South Africa, bringing the bell with him and presenting it to the then headmaster of the school, Mr. John Mitchell, who installed it in the former premises of the school.

 

When the school was moved to its present site in the nineteen sixties, the bell was not recovered from the old school which was being demolished – it was only later that it came into the hands of Mr. George Scheepers (the principal from 1971 to 1985), as a result of coincidence, Mr. Scheepers saw a man passing by the school, carrying the bell which he said he had found in the veldt! Mr. Scheepers negotiated with the man who then gave him the bell.

Not knowing that it was in fact the John Mitchell School bell, Mr. Scheepers gave it to a pastor in Zimbabwe who needed a bell for his church. 

 Ten years later, when researching the school’s history for a speech, Mr. Scheepers discovered that the bell he had given away was indeed the John Mitchell School bell! He immediately made attempts to trace the bell and to retrieve it from the Zimbabwe pastor. He was finally successful in early 1982 and went to retrieve it himself.

The bell was then confirmed, by its markings, to be the original John Mitchell School Bell and it was re-erected in a bell tower which stands in the Foundation Phase block of the present John Mitchell School building!