Christian Brothers College
Catholic boys' school founded by the Christian Brothers in July 1953, on the Old Esigodini (Essexvale) Road in Matsheumhlope; motto Viriliter Age, 'act manfully'.
CBC, to everyone who went there, was founded by the Christian Brothers, a Catholic teaching order of Irish origin, in July 1953. It stands on the Old Esigodini Road (the old Essexvale road) in Matsheumhlope, on the south-eastern side of the city. It was Bulawayo’s Catholic high school for boys. Over seventy years it has sent its boys into cricket, rugby, writing, law and public life.
Its motto is Viriliter Age, “act manfully.”
Old boys
Among the school’s best-known former pupils are the novelist Alexander McCall Smith, author of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency; the poet and novelist John Eppel; the journalist Graham Boynton; David Coltart, lawyer, former Minister of Education and Mayor of Bulawayo; the cricketer Charles Coventry, who once held the record for the highest individual score in a one-day international; and the golfer Tony Johnstone.
What the photographs show
The photographs in this set show the school around 2006: the front gate and its sign, the classroom blocks, the staff room, the library, the Design and Technology classrooms, a statue of Mary, the squash and basketball courts, the cricket nets, the swimming pool, and boys in school uniform.
What we don’t know yet
Nearly everything from the inside. We have no CBC magazines in this collection, no list of headmasters and no first-hand accounts. When did the first Brothers arrive, and where did they teach before the Matsheumhlope buildings were ready? When did the school open to boys of every race? If you were at CBC, as a boy, a Brother or a lay teacher, we would like to hear what you remember, and copies of old school magazines would be especially welcome.
Sources
- Wikipedia, “Christian Brothers College, Bulawayo”: founding date, location, motto, notable alumni.
- Association of Trust Schools, CBC listing.
30 photographs of Christian Brothers College →
Do you know more about this? Corrections, photographs and your own account are all welcome, and a correction is published on the page with the date it was made. Send something in.