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| Lawrence school, Sanawar, HPKasauli Castle |
This boarding school in Himachal Pradesh, is located in the picturesque Kasauli Hills, District of Solan. The founder of this school is Sir Henry Lawrence, a distinguished British military officer of that time and he was ably assisted by his wife Honoria. Brig. Gen. Lawrence died in the Siege of Lucknow during the Indian Rebellion of 1847. He is remembered in the Indian subcontinent as founder of the four Lawrence Military Asylums. Sanawar is about an hour's drive from Chandigarh, Punjab and six hours from New Delhi. The school is set on a serene land covering 139 acres in the mountainous, heavily wooded terrain with pine, deodar and other conifer trees.
The nearest railway station is Sonewara.
The name "Sanawar" is the name of the hill (height 1,750 metres MSL) where the school stands.
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| Henry Lawrence en.wikipedia.org/ |
The school was established by Henry Lawrence with a view to providing education for the orphans of British soldiers and other poor white children. It was founded on 15 April 1847 as Lawrence Military Asylum with 14 girls and boys initially under the care of Lawrence's sister-in-law Mrs. George Lawrence and in 1853, the school had 195 pupils. Later in 1858 the name was changed to Lawrence Royal Military School and finally to the present name. Between 1848 and 1858, the Cholera outbreak impacted this school that saw the death of 13 students. In its wake, sanitation got a special priority at schools.
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| ..Corridor, Lawrence School Sanawar Justdial |
The foundation of the school was laid on 25 August 1925 and the building was named after Field Marshal William Birdwood (13 September 1865 – 17 May 1951). This school building is built in Gothic style and is made of gray granite. The construction cost of the of the buildings was paid by Lawrence and other British officers, with a major contribution from Gulab Singh, the first Maharajah of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Military officer Hodson, who later became famous for Hodson's Horse, took care of the construction of the school's first building and is still commemorated by the annual Hodson's Run.
In the early days, the school admitted some Anglo-Indian children but Lawrence wanted to give preference to those of "pure European" parentage, as they were more susceptible to suffer from the heat of the plains.
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| Parker hall & library. Lawrence School Sanawar Flickr |
This school did something extraordinary which other schools would think twice before attempting or withdraw from it in the middle. It created a world record in May 2013 by becoming the first school in the world to have sent a team of seven students on an expedition to climb Mount Everest. The motto of the school "Never Give In" is quite appropriate. and it embodies the spirit of the school. Rudyard Kipling's reference in Kim, " Send him to Sanawar and make a man of him" brings out the kind of training the students used to get here in those days.
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| Headmaster's house, Lawrence school, Sanawar, HP> flickr.com |
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lawrence_School,_Sanawar
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