Queen's Royal College, Port of Spain

Still regarded as the bastion of secondary school education Queen's Royal College is the oldest secondary school in the city. The college is noted for its famous German Renaissance architecture and tradition of multi-faceted education which continues to produce some of Trinidad and Tobago's leading thinkers, athletes, artists and politicians.

The foundation stone of the building was laid on 11 November 1902 by Courtney Knollys, who was the acting Governor of the day. The structure was designed by Daniel M. Hahn, who was Chief Draughtsman of the Public Work Department and a Old Boy of Queen's Royal College, during the period when the school was housed at the Princess Building. Constructed at a cost of 15000 British pounds, the original building accommodated six classes for 30 boys each.

The lecture hall could hold over five hundred persons at a time. Notwithstanding the German origin of the plan, a legacy perhaps of Mr Hahn's student days in Berlin, the design of the interior is very definitely tropical with a delightfully aristocratic touch from the days when European school architecture was austere. QRC was not free at some point but after a couple years it became free.