“Reader, if you seek his monument, look about you.” - Christopher Wren the Younger

 

These immortal words can be found over 7,000 kilometres away beneath your feet at the grave of Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Paul’s Cathedral. His son wrote these words for him in 1723 shortly after he passed away and were echoed by longtime staff member Graham Anderson in September 1997 on Founder’s Day. Graham believed that should an inscription ever be created to honour Christopher Windley Lonsdale, the founder of our school, that these words should be engraved as Shawnigan Lake School is the ultimate monument to our founder’s dream. 

 

As we rapidly approach the end of our 110th year, and the end of this series of articles, I want to focus on the last 30 years of change that have shaped Shawnigan into what it is today. The beginning of these last three decades started with a monumental deal that saw our school campus expand by 35 acres and increased the total area to 168 acres of land. When you think that when Lonsdale founded the School in 1916 the original school property was an almost miniscule 2.5 acres by comparison, the growth in area by 1997 was astronomical. That original area that Lonsdale founded his dream on still forms the core landmass of our school including the Main Building he had rebuilt after the school he had spent a decade creating burned down on a cold December day.

 

As the school area grew, so did the number of Houses on campus. Renfrew House was opened in 1997 and was swiftly followed by Duxbury House in 1999. The former's name paid tribute to the road our School has been on since 1916 and the later was named after Frank Duxbury who served this school faithfully as a history and French teacher in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s. The latest House to join the crowd is Samuel House, which opened in 2024 and houses all of the School's incoming Grade 8 students. This isn’t to say there hasn’t been great change for the other Houses on campus. The purchase of Hartl Farm, the land just behind Lake Omar that comprised the monumental 35-acre purchase, became home to the new Lonsdale’s House and Strathcona House where they still sit today.

 

These students from the last 30 years represent the endurance of Lonsdale’s original dream to create a school that would help mold young people who, at their core, were good and decent and who valued hard work. Twenty-thirteen saw the commemoration of Lonsdale’s eternal legacy on campus with the unveiling of his statue at the end of the main school driveway. He is a sentinel forever guarding and forever welcoming new people into the School he created from scratch. We were lucky enough that three Old Boys who knew Lonsdale were able to come to the unveiling and mark the remembrance of their original headmaster some 60-odd years after they had said their goodbyes as graduates. Quite poignantly, Stuart Milbrad, Head Prefect from 1948, closed his reflections on the day with the words all prefects recited to Lonsdale after they had finished their nightly rounds: “For the last time, sir, everyone present and correct.”

 

As no epoch in this School's history can pass without struggle, the School faced a massive challenge just as the rest of the world did in 2020. Unlike before, when the School knew how to find a new Headmaster or rebuild what had been lost to fire, the COVID-19 pandemic was new for everyone, and the School had to adapt quickly. After Spring Break of March 2020, the School closed its gates and no students returned to campus for the remainder of the year with academics shifting towards an online approach. But Shawnigan is a boarding school through and through, and for kids to not be on campus was unimaginable in the long term. The School adapted and when it was allowed, the campus became a quarantined bubble that kept the student body safe from a disease many were struggling to grapple with. The lengths staff went through to keep students safe and to try to create as normal an environment as could be managed were practically herculean in effort. But from this struggle was born a host of innovation which led to programs like the now much loved Soul Seeking projects students take on every year, families coming together at the Houses on Closing Day to celebrate the success of their children, Remembrance Day services being held outside, and the enshrined knowledge for this generation of students that Shawnigan will adapt when needed and support you throughout times of hardship.

 

The final three Heads that have helmed this School, one for each decade, Simon Bruce-Lockhart, David Robertson, and now Richard Lamont, have helped to steer this beloved institution into the present. They have actively sought to keep this little piece of wilderness that Lonsdale found intact and even today you can feel as though you have found yourself on a bit of land that exists out of sheer determination. Lonsdale’s original ambition to craft well rounded young people is still echoed today by the core four values the School stands by: Curiosity, Compassion, Community, and Courage. Each of these are attributes Lonsdale valued and which he built the foundation of his school on; a foundation holding firm even to this day.

 

I couldn’t say if Lonsdale ever thought his school would grow from merely 10 pupils to 113 by the time of his death or that by the 110th anniversary of his school’s founding that it would have grown to some 540 students. I couldn’t tell you if he ever thought the School would grow from its original 2.5 acres, leased from a grieving father who saw the value in a good education, to an area of over 270 acres where students are encouraged to learn not just in the classroom but on the land that has shaped generations of alumni. None of this I could tell as those answers lie with a man whose legacy has outlived him by 74 years and counting. What I can tell you is that one of the last alumni to have known Lonsdale in person, and who valued this school until his final days, was correct when he quoted Christopher Wren the Younger 19 years ago on Founder’s Day. It is good to stay curious about our history, and I encourage you to find answers to whatever questions may come to you. More than anything I encourage you to take a walk through your memories or even a walk around a school that has shaped so many of our lives and to remember, dear reader, that if you seek his monument or his legacy, all you must do is look around at the life you live and the School you love.