WHAT LED TO THE EVOLUTION OF St. HENRY’S COLLEGE, KITOVU.

I WISH TO CONGRATULATE St. HENRY’S COLLEGE, KITOVU UPON 100 YEARS OF ITS EXISTENCE.

I wish to clarify that as St. Henry’s College, Kitovu celebrates its centenary, it is important to quote the role St. Mary’s College, Lubaga and eventually St. Mary’s College, Kisubi (SMACK) played in inducing its evolution. Below is the correct account, which unfortunately is not covered in the Monitor article of July 13 about the School.

TRACING St. HENRY’S COLLEGE, KITOVU 100 YEAR JOURNEY.

The History of St. Henry’s College, Kitovu is incomplete if no mention is made of its evolution in relation to St. Mary’s College, Lubaga and eventually St. Mary’s College, Kisubi.

Founded by the White Fathers in 1922, with only twenty-two students, St. Henry’s College, Kitovu was meant to relieve St. Mary’s College, Lubaga of its expanding student population pressures.

To cope with the ever - increasing number of students at St. Mary’s College, Lubaga, the White Fathers decided to open feeder schools so that St. Mary’s would specialize in giving higher studies. During this time, 4 schools were founded to feed St. Mary’s School. They are:

1. St. Henry’s  - Kitovu,

2. St. John’s  - Nandere,

3. St. Leo’s School - Virika, and

4. St. Joseph’s School - Nyamitanga.

Ten of St. Henry’s first twenty-two students were from St. Mary’s College, Lubaga, according to a narrative by Stanley Mulumba. The entrants had completed primary four. They were to take their first lessons of English and to learn Carpentry, Tailoring apart from improving their Mathematics, Geography, History and Science. After some three years they would leave the school to take up jobs in Uganda Government departments or proceed to St. Mary’s College, Kisubi where they spent 3 or 4 years and thereafter continued to Makerere or got employed as Clerical officers in the Colonial Government. 

It is through the above arrangement that J . C Kiwanuka RIP and Hon. Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere happen to be both Old Boys of Kitovu and SMACK. J . C. Kiwanuka went to St. Henry’s, Kitovu in 1936, 14 years after Kitovu was founded. Thereafter, he joined SMACK.