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Grand old lady of Mylapore

Last time I wrote about Sister Subbalakshmi Ammal and her great achievements in girls' education. Today i will write about another noble soul who contributed a lot to girls' education.

There was an elementary school for girls in a rented building in Mylapore, Chennai, started in 1869. Called Vizianagaram Maharaja Hindu Girls School. Later it was taken over by a committee in 1904, moved to a new premises in 1910, and still later taken over by Annie Besant in 1918. Annie Besant re-named the school as National Girls School. In 1924 it became a high school.

After Besant left the school, it started decaying. That time there lived one Mr PS Sivasami Iyer - Pazhamaneri Sundaram Sivasami Iyer (07 Feb 1864 - 05 Nov 1946). Born in 1864 to Mr Sundaram Iyer in the village Pazhamaneri, Sri Sivasami Iyer had education in Presidency College and then Law College, Chennai. Later he became the Advocate General of Madras Presidency. He was also the vice-chancellor of Madras Univ (1916-18) and Benares Hindu Univ (1918-1920).

He was a keen educator and he took over a boys' school at Tirukkattupalli village near Pazhamaneri, and named it as Sivasami High School in 1910s. With liberal donations from him, the school grew from a lower school to High School.

Sir Sivasami Iyer took over the National Girls High School in 1930. To fund the school, he sold off his palatial bungalow in Edward Elliots Road, now Radhakrishnan Salai, in Mylapore, to Anantharama Krishnan of Amalgamations Group and donated the entire amount to the School ! He lived in a small rented house thereafter till his end ! (What a noble soul !!). The school grew and was re-named PS Sivasami Iyer Girls High School first and then to the present name "Lady Sivasami Iyer Girls High School." He passed away in 1946.

This historic school completed 142 years yesterday (Monday,10 April 2011).

Another noble son of Mylapore, another great school of Mylapore.

Rajappa
10:00 AM
12-04-2011

Note #1  The school is located in East Mada Street, near Chitrakulam.
Note #2  Sudha and Subha had their education in this school, Mylapore
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Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 2, 2012 at 4:16 PM

    Really a great man. Such persons are hard to find in these days of land grabbers.

    p b mani, mylapore

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMay 19, 2012 at 10:17 AM

    I am proud of Lady SIvaswamy Girls Higher Secondary school after reading this page
    Jayalakshmi.h, mylapore

    ReplyDelete

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