The School House of St. Stephen’s College is not only the oldest surviving school building still providing boarding facilities in Hong Kong, but also one of the very few remaining structures used as part of the Stanley Internment Camp during the Japanese Occupation (1941-1945).
Established by the Reverend Bishop Banister of the Anglican Church and a number of prominent Chinese, including Sir Ho Kai and Dr Tso Seen-wan, who wished to save China through education, St. Stephen’s College first opened on Western Street in 1903. Construction of the present campus in Stanley started in 1928. Opened on 25 March 1930, the School House was the first building completed in the project.
Japan attacked Hong Kong in December 1941 and captured St. Stephen’s College on Christmas Day that year, when they broke into the School House and committed the St. Stephen’s College Massacre. Together with the nearby Stanley Prison Warders’ Quarters, the college was then used as the Stanley Internment Camp during the Japanese Occupation (1941-1945). The school reopened in 1947.
Designed in the late transitional Arts and Crafts style marked by a Modernist influence, the School House is an H-shaped building consisting of an east wing and a west wing connected by a central block. Rough-cast rendering, wide overhanging eaves, arched windows and doorways and arcaded verandahs are typical features of the Arts and Crafts style that can all be seen in the School House.
School House of St. Stephen's College was declared a monument in 2011.