Highbury's Digital Archives were first created in 2020, following a generous donation from Mr Chris Brown, Class of 1971, whose son Ross Brown had just completed Grade 7 in 2019. It all began with a conversation in our Highburian Museum in 2019, talking about 'what if' there was a fire/flood/theft at our school museum which houses many original and one-of-a-kind documents which tell the captivating story of Highbury Preparatory School, since 1903.  Chris also recognised that many of his fellow Old Boys are not able to visit the museum and yet would love to be able to access the School Magazines from their years and other memorabilia. He is passionate about preserving and sharing history relating to the World Wars too, and Highbury's War Roll of Honour tells so many stories that should be remembered. 

We therefore embarked on the creation of a Digital Archive with the dual objectives of preserving and sharing our history. Africa Media Online, who are experts in digital archive creation based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, were contracted to start by digitising our School Magazines from the earliest edition (1927) up to 1991, and our War Roll of Honour, as searchable PDFs.  Being searchable means that it is far easier to find all documented references to a Highbury boy or teacher. We have created this Google Site as a way to store and share these PDFs.

There are so many more documents in our Highburian Museum that we would love to digitise and add to this archive. Examples include our founder, Mrs Sibella McMillan's diaries, letters written by boys back to their parents, photograph albums, scrapbooks of newspaper clippings, and our more recent school magazines from 1992 to current day.  If you would like to make a donation to enable any of these projects, we would be delighted. You can contact marketing@hps.co.za

We hope you enjoy browsing through our new digital archives.