It was 1920, and Kandy had a problem. Plague had swept through the city like an uninvited guest that wouldn’t leave, and it had scattered Girls’ High School across four different locations.
Kindergarten and Standard 2 shifted to Trinity College. Standards 3 and 4 moved to the YWCA opposite the police station. The senior girls landed at the YWCA by the lake. The school that had been built on one campus was now sprawled across an entire city, and someone had to hold it together.
That someone was Jennie Calverley.
She could have made excuses. Many would have. Instead, she did what extraordinary people do: she adapted.
At first, she cycled between the three locations, riding from one makeshift classroom to another, supervising lessons, checking on students, making sure the education didn’t stop just because the city around them was terrified. Kandy wasn’t used to seeing women on bicycles rushing through the streets on official business. It caused a sensation. But Calverley kept riding.
Then came the practical moment that changed everything. Cycling wasn’t cutting it anymore. The distances were too far. The days were too long. So she made a decision that would have been radical in 1920: she invested in a scooter.
For a woman in early 20th-century Kandy—a quiet hill station where traditions ran deep—riding a motorized scooter was more than transportation. It was a statement. It was proof that when something matters enough, you don’t let circumstances dictate your limitations.
Jennie Calverley on her scooter became a symbol of something the school would come to embody: adaptability without apology. Commitment that doesn’t bend when things get difficult.
By October 1920, the plague had passed. The students came home. The school returned to Katukelle. But the lesson remained: real education doesn’t stop because of external chaos. The person leading it just finds a faster way to show up.
Years later, when people remembered the plague years at Kandy High School, they didn’t remember the disruption first. They remembered Jennie Calverley—the administrator who made the choice to serve with ingenuity instead of resignation, who saw a scooter not as a luxury, but as a tool to do something that mattered.
That’s the kind of story that travels through generations of school girls. Not because of what was easy, but because of what someone chose to do when easy wasn’t an option.
This epitomizes the pioneering spirit that has defined Girls’ High School, Kandy, from its inception. The school didn’t just survive disruption—it showed students what resilience actually looks like.
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