INTRODUCTION

After the Great Fire of 1886, Vancouver formed a school board and began building schools. The first being East School which would become “Lord Strathcona” and West School which would become “Sir  William Dawson”. 

West School (also called Burrard St. school) was a four-room wooden structure built in 1888 at the corner of  Burrard and Barclay streets. 

Student population was growing so fast that in 1892 the school board built another building for West School at  Burrard and Nelson. It was an eight- room brick building and in a few years would be increased to sixteen rooms. In 1900 West School became Sir William Dawson School. 

At this point , we should note that in 1905 Vancouver High School moved from it’s Pender and Cambie  location to Oak and 12th ave and in 1910 became King Edward High School. 

This left the West End students with a long trek for their High School Education. 

In 1914, a new building was erected at Burrard and Helmcken and it became the new Sir William Dawson  School. 

With the need for a High School in the West End , the school board did some necessary alterations to the old  Dawson building and in 1914 King George High School was opened. 

The West End now has a High School and the students started classes in an old sixteen-room building that was  considered too obsolete for the elementary students, no lunch room, no auditorium, no gymnasium and a  gravel playing field on a 20-degree slope. 

For an auditorium, K.G. would share the one in the Dawson school building and many years later the school  board would put a lunch room and cafeteria in the basement of Dawson. 

In 1928 the school board would purchase and move a gymnasium to the K.G. grounds that was built in 1923  by the Westly Methodist church. 

For outdoor sports, fields at Brockton point, Athletic Park, and the Cambie Street Grounds were used for  baseball, soccer, rugby and football. 

For the school’s hockey teams, Denman arena was used. 

1963 would be the last year King George High School would occupy these premises. In 1964 classes for King  George Secondary school would start at their new building at Denman and Bidwell streets, still in the West