This educational institution, started in 1810 as an elementary school, is one of the oldest in Kolkata. It was attached to the Church of Our Lady of Dolours at Baithakkhana, Sealdah. In 1855 the school came to be known as St. John Chrysostom’s School in honour of the Archbishop Primate of Goa who visited it. It sent up students for the Lower Primary Examination.In 1902 St. Ann’s Orphanage was inaugurated. It incorporated the already existing school and got recognized as an Upper Primary School. Although Bengali was the medium of instruction great attention was paid to the teaching of English.From 1913 boys were trained for the Junior Cambridge Course. English became the medium of instruction. In 1920 the school was accorded recognition as a High School by the University of Calcutta. The first batch of students for the Matriculation Examination was sent up in 1922. Fr. Lawrence Rodriques S.J took charge of St. John Chrysostom High School at 126, Bow Bazar Street in the early 1930’s. It was a boarding and a day school. The place was very congested. There was no playground. The ground floor of the school building was occupied by a printing press. On the first floor were the classrooms and on the second floor, the boarding. Fr. Lawrence felt the need for developing and expanding the school. So he began to look for a better place and found a plot of land in Ballygunge, belonging to St. Xavier’s College, on sale. With the permission of the Archbishop of Calcutta he bought this land with the money he gathered by organizing raffle on Sundays. On a crisp winter morning of January 1937, St. Chrysostom School was shifted from Baithakkhana to Ballygunge Circular Road and rechristened St. Lawrence High School. As the first group of teachers and students entered the compound of this newly built school they could not but be overawed by the sheer size of the new school building, the beautiful flower garden, the large play ground and the imposing row of tall eucalyptus trees along Ritchie Road. The School in its new location got a new patron “St. LAWRENCE” and a new motto “LIKE GOLD IN A FURNACE” which was changed to ‘‘For God and Country’’.