Few of the present members of the school are familiar with the history of Tal-Handaq. We reveal it here in this final Tal Handaq school magazine, from an account which appeared in the midsummer 1953 edition by Cdr A J Bellamy. We are indebted to Capt M F Law, MA, Royal Navy, some time Head of Mathematics and later Headmaster of the school, for a continuation of the school's history.

I am frequently asked by visitors to the school as well as by parents, how and when the Royal Naval School came into existence. The service population of Malta contains a considerable number who received their early education at the school in pre-war days (two old pupils are now on the teaching staff) but for the majority who know nothing of our history, this excursion into the past may be of interest.

The education of the children of people whose work takes them away from the UK has always been a problem. In many colonies the answer lies in private schools. Long ago, however, the Admiralty realised that not everyone could afford private school fees, and some sort of provision was made by them as long ago as 1880, when a 'Dockyard School' was started in an old Dining Hall, just inside the main gates of the Yard. Here some 30 to 40 children, mostly Maltese or Anglo-Maltese were taught the rudiments of arithmetic and English. The Dockyard Officers who were sent out from England continued to send their children to private schools and in those days few naval people brought their families to Malta. Most of those early pupils neither spoke nor understood much English when they entered the school, but they were taught so well that many won their way to good positions in the professions or in Government Offices.

Even fifty years ago there were problems concerned with the growth of the School. By 1904 it had outgrown its room in the Dockyard and new premises (an old prison!) were taken over in Prison Street, Senglea. About this time one of the school staff (and later its Headmaster) was Naval Schoolmaster W Candey. In fact, the Education Service of the Navy has always provided the school's head and, until recently, all the male teaching staff.