It was declared a National Monument under old NMC legislation on 26 May 1978. National Cultural History and Open Air Museum, Pretoria. Pretoria Boys High School, also known as Boys High, is a public, tuition charging, English medium boys high school located in Brooklyn, Pretoria, South Africa, founded in 1901 by The Rt Hon. Lord Milner. Its academic performance places it among the best secondary schools in rankings nationally, as well as in all of Africa. Notable alumni includes two Nobel Prize laureates, 18 Rhodes scholars, several government ministers and members of parliament, 8 judges of the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa, as well as numerous prominent intellectuals and high-ranking sportsmen.
The school enrols around 1500 pupils, including 300 boarders, from South Africa and beyond, managed by about a 100 full-time staff.
Pretoria Boys High Coat of Arms
Its neoclassical red-brick style main school buildings date from 1909, maintaining provincial heritage site status. The school grounds also includes a second campus, Pollock Campus, as well as sporting and recreational facilities. Three boarding houses are located on the school grounds: Rissik House and Solomon House are part of the original school complex completed in 1909, while School House was built later.
The antecedent of the current school is the historic Staats Model School, built 1896-1897 by the government of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (later Transvaal) in central Pretoria. This school was not in operation for very long owing to the outbreak of the Second Boer War in 1899. At the time, the building served as a prison, where notably Winston Churchill was briefly imprisoned.
Its sister school is Pretoria High School for Girls, founded in 1902.