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160th Founders Day

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Pa Akintola Passes at 104

History of C.M.S. Grammar School

One of the major consequences of the advent of European missionaries and the subsequent exploration of the interior regions of Nigeria was a rise in the establishment of churches and schools by the missionaries. The missionaries had projected that if evangelism was to witness success and progress, education of the citizenry was inescapable. Thus began the founding of many elementary schools, under the auspices of the C.M.S. Mission and in line with that exploratory pattern. One of the leaders, Henry Venn favored and encouraged the education of Africans for the African mission under a familiar climate. One of the products of that campaign was Thomas Babington Macaulay, an African and a Nigerian who was spotted and picked from Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone and sent to England to train as an Anglican priest at the C.M.S. Training Institute Islington in the United Kingdom; where he studied Literary Arts; and King's College, University of London where he obtained a Bachelor's degree in Arts. Determined to carve a niche for himself as a major player in the education of Africans, Thomas Babington Macaulay was ordained, next to The Revd. (later Bishop) Samuel Ajayi Crowther in 1854. He returned on graduation to Nigeria and was posted to the Abeokuta Training Institute in Ake, under the Revd. Robert C. Paley where he rose to become the Headmaster on the death of Rev. Robert Paley after only three months.

Formation and the "early" days

The C.M.S. Grammar School located in Bariga, a suburb of Lagos in Lagos State, is Nigeria’s oldest secondary school. Founded on the 6th of June, 1859 by the Church Missionary Society. For decades it was the main source of African clergymen and administrators in the Lagos colony. The seed funding for C.M.S. Grammar School, Lagos was made possible by James Pinson Labulo Davies. J.P.L Davies was a 19th century African merchant sailor, naval officer and influential businessman who in April 1859 provided Babington Macaulay with £50 to buy books and equipment needed for the school. With the seed funding, Macaulay opened C.M.S. Grammar School on June 6th, 1859.

In 1867, Davies contributed another £100 toward a CMS Grammar School Building Fund. Other contributors to the CMS Building Fund were non Taiwo aka Taiwo Olowo who contributed £50. Saro contributors also included men such as Moses Johnson, I.H Willoughby, T.F Cole, James George, and Charles Foresythe who contributed £40. The CMS Grammar School in Freetown, founded in 1848, served as a model. The school began with six students, all boarders in a small, single story building called the ‘Cotton House’ on Broad Street. The first pupils were destined to be clergymen. The curriculum included English, Logic, Greek, Arithmetic, Geometry, Geography, History, Bible Knowledge and Latin.

The first principal of the school was the scholar and theologian Babington Macaulay, who served until his death in 1878. He was the father of Herbert Macaulay. When the British colony of Lagos was established in 1861, the colonial authorities obtained most of their African clerical and administrative staff from the school.

Motto: Nisi Dominus Frustra (Without God we labor in vain)