Whitney Institute Middle School - Definition

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Near the Post Office is Whitney Institute School, standing between the road and its beautifully situated playing field. For more than fifty years this school has been an educational center for the central and eastern parishes and has been of inestimable value to the community.

The idea for the building of a schoolhouse was launched during the winter of 1878 when a general meeting of parishioners unanimously endorsed the proposal, and Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Pearman offered about a third of an acre of land for the site. The plan was taken up enthusiastically; some gave building materials, others gave money, and many who were unable to give either of these gave willing labor. So the building went on, until by August 1880 the walls were finished and ready for the roof.

Then came the great hurricane of 1880 long remembered as one of Bermuda’s most disastrous storms which in a few hours overturned the walls and destroyed all the self sacrificing work and effect of the preceding months. For a short time nothing was done, but then people got their second wind and it was decided to make a fresh start. At this juncture Mr. & Mrs. William Whitney made the first of many generous contributions which completely altered the financial aspect of the undertaking. Thus when the schoolhouse was completed in 1883, it was the wish of everyone that as a tribute to these to these benevolent people the building should be named the Whitney Institute.

Among the headmasters of the school the first one, E.C. Pfeiffer is remembered because, although his stay was short, he left Bermuda with a bee in his bonnet to walk around the world encumbered with nothing but a suit of clothes made of newspapers.

His successor was Reginald Fessenden, a man of outstanding genius, whose subsequent work in the virgin field of radio science brought him recognition as one of the great inventors of our age. Fessenden remained at the Whitney Institute only two years, but he kept a lifelong affection for Bermuda and in his later years returned to make his home at Wistowe, Flatts.

In the early nineties James McLaughlin, an Ulsterman, became headmaster, a position which, except for a short period when he was assistant editor of the Royal Gazette, he continued to hold until his death in 1929. Mr. McLaughlin was an outstanding teacher independent, thorough, and farseeing, so that under him, notwithstanding some disagreements with bureaucratic authority, the Whitney Institute made stead progress.

Today the school is being well maintained. In 1939, for the first time, the Rhodes Scholarship was won by a Whitney Boy James Outerbridge an event which was rightly regarded as a red letter day in the school’s history.

When the school was enlarged in 1900, the tower was altered to house a clock once on the estate of William Pitt which was given by J. Scott Pearman in memory of his father, John W. Pearman.

The verandas on the new wing were given by Mrs. George Tucker in memory of two of her sons, who were killed in the Great War, 1914 – 1918. This was but one of many kindnesses shown to the school from its beginning by the Rev. and Mrs. Tucker, the former having been rector of the parish for many years.

In 1932 it became possible to purchase the property north of the school. This gave a house for the headmaster and land for one of the finest playing fields in the colony.

The old church, which stood in the graveyard, was of the cottage type, and Old Devonshire Church is said to be an exact replica of it. Like that of Devonshire Church the bell hung from an old cedar in the year; and for many years, the story goes, the bell had no tongue, and the sexton, sally Socco, rang it by striking it with pestle. This old bell, it is interesting to recall, was cast at Nantas in 1711 and was brought from the West Indies late in the century by a ship captain who gave it to the church; it still survives as the school bell at the Whitney Institute.

By his will his fortune went in part to his niece, Mrs. William Whitney, who with her husband became not only the chief benefactor of the Whitney Institute School but also bequeathed Mont Clare to Smith’s Parish as a rectory and substantial endowments to the churches of Hamilton and Smith’s Parish.

Monticello also belonged to the Whitney’s and was regarded as their summer home, while Mont Clare was reserved for the “winter palace”; thus twice a year, as the seasons changed, the household solemnly moved across the lawn. Taken from the Whitney Institute Archives as written by William Zuill Sr. 1946