Korodredre,Davuilevu Sukulu, Lelean Knights, Blues,Home of the Brave
Lelean Memorial School is the largest school in Fiji. It was established in 1943 and is run by the Methodist Church of Fiji and Rotuma. It is co-located at the Davuilevu Methodist Compound with the Davuilevu Theological College and the Young People's Department, which runs training for Methodist catechists.
Overlooking Fiji's largest river, the Rewa, the school gate faces the Rewa Bridge that was funded by the European Union and opened in 2006. Directly across the river is the village of Nausori and the old sugar town of the same name. The school roll for 2023 is 1,400. Lelean Memorial School caters for students in the Tailevu, Naitasiri and Rewa provinces but it also accepts those who apply from other parts of Fiji.
History
In late 1942, the Pacific Campaign of World War II was at its peak and the Colonial Authority was issued a command that all urban schools should close and surrender their compounds for use as military camps for forces fighting the Japanese threat. At that time, William Ewart Donnelly, a missionary teacher from New Zealand, was principal of Toorak Boys’ School or the Suva Methodist Boys' School — renamed the Suva Methodist Primary School in the 1970s or 1980s. Donnelly served as a teacher and General Secretary of the Students’ Christian Movement in the early 1930s and early 1940s and remained principal of Lelean from 1943 to 1945, when he returned to New Zealand.
Other overseas teachers immediately left Fiji to await the end of the war elsewhere. But Donnelly, the determined missionary principal, sent a circular to all members of the senior classes of Classes Six, Seven, and Eight of Toorak Boys School, inviting volunteers to accompany him to continue their education. After consultation with the heads of the Methodist Church, he received permission to use the Principal's residence at the Davuilevu Technical School, in Nausori.
As a result, he and 50 volunteers from Toorak Boys School, met at the Principal's residence 3 March 1943. Their first classrooms were the two master bedrooms with the long verandah on the east side of the structure serving as the library. There were only two classes and the only teacher in addition to Donnelly was Semesa Sikivou.
During the 1943 Methodist Church Annual Conference, Donnelly received permission to expand his school along the same ridge and as a result, the boys themselves, with his guidance, built three large bures, where the teachers staff quarters presently stand. The conference also directed him to name the new facility Lelean Memorial School in memory of the Reverend Charles Oswald Lelean, an Australian missionary who served in Fiji for 36 years. For 20 of those years, 1914 to 1934, Rev. Lelean held the position of Senior Superintendent of the Davuilevu Mission and principal of the Methodist Theological College.
Under Donnelly's guidance, the Lelean school created its motto, “Seek wisdom and spiritual understanding”.
Charles Oswald Lelean (O.B.E) was born in 1867 in Tasmania, Australia and died at the age of 72 on 14 September 1942. He had spent a considerable part of his life being a missionary in Fiji. Rev Lelean served in Fiji for 36 years.
History of the Leleans
For many years the Lelean family believed that their name was French and that their ancestor could have been a Huguenot who fled France following the St Bartholomew's Day massacre. Research carried out in the 1960s by Leonard Lelean and Ronald Lelean Sharman however suggests that the name is much older than the time of the Huguenots, and may well derive from a Cornish place-name, Leighlean, meaning 'a flat, muddy place.
Other variants of the name are Lalean, Le Lean and Le Lane.
Rev Charles Lelean's great-great-great-grandfather, James Lelean was a contemporary of the great English evangelist, John Wesley. Rev Wesley had referred to Mr James Lelean as the kind farmer who showed him kindness amongst a hostile mob when he visited Mevagissey, Cornwall in 1753. John Wesley then presented James Lelean and his wife Mary with his silver buckles in thanks. The buckles are now in the Wesley Museum, City Road, London.
C.O Lelean's grandfather, John moved to Australia in the 1800s.
The Leleans in Fiji
Rev C.O Lelean married Edith Annie Shoebridge in April 1897 in Bushy Park, Tasmania, daughter of William Ebenezer Shoebridge and Anne Benson Mather. They had one daughter, Ella Lelean. Edith Lelean died in Fiji on 15 May 1906.
The early Methodist missions in Fiji served as education centres where students were taught to read and write as well as a rudimentary knowledge of medicine. This laid the foundations of formal education in Fiji. Fijian Methodist Ministers and Catechists were not only instrumental in spreading the Christian Gospel, but were also very effective in showing Fijians the benefits of literacy and proper hygiene.
Rev C.O Lelean spent twenty years of his service in Fiji as Senior Superintendent of the Davuilevu Mission and principal of the Methodist Theological College from 1914 to 1934.
He succeeded Reverend William Bennett as principal of the Fiji Methodist Theological College which was moved from Navuloa to Davuilevu in 1907.
Charles Lelean's nephew, Rev Arthur D. Lelean, worked as a missionary in Fiji from 1918 to 1936.
Lelean Memorial School
When, due to the military needs of the Pacific Campaign of the Second World War, a school for boys was moved from the Toorak Boys School in Suva and established in 1943 at the Davuilevu, Methodist Church of Fiji and Rotuma compound by Mr William Earnest Donnelly of New Zealand, the Davuilevu Council instructed Donnelly to name it the Lelean Memorial School after Reverend Charles Oswald Lelean. Rev C.O Lelean had impacted numerous lives and generations of Fijians through his long and dedicated service and was a much loved minister.
Lelean has won the coveted Deans Trophy for the FSSRU Under-19 competition, 13 times and drawn five times since it entered the competition in the mid-1940s. It was the first school to have won all the Fiji Secondary Schools' Rugby Union (FSSRU) Competition trophies on offer in 1952. That record has since been equalled by Ratu Kadavulevu School in the 2017 FSSRU Competition. Lelean last held the Deans Trophy in 2014. Their previous victory in the Fiji secondary schools' competition was in 2010 after winning the Deans finals for the third consecutive year since 2008. Lelean also takes part in athletics, netball, soccer, hockey and cricket. The Fiji Rugby Union has established a High Performance Gymnasium at the school's Rugby Academy which is also used by the Tailevu Rugby Union, Naitasiri and Rewa Rugby Unions.
Articles about people, places, things, and concepts related to or originating from Fiji, include:
RoTeimumu Vuikaba Kepa is a Fijian chief, former Member of the Parliament of Fiji, and former leader of the Social Democratic Liberal Party. She was the first Fijian woman to serve as Leader of the Opposition. She previously held the position of Deputy Prime Minister in the Qarase-led Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua (SDL) government from 2001 to 2006. As the paramount chief of the Burebasaga Confederacy, she holds the title Roko Tui Dreketi.
Semesa Koroikilai Sikivou, CBE was a Fijian academic, politician, and diplomat.
Tomasi Kanailagi was a Fijian Methodist minister and political leader. He served as President of the Methodist Church of Fiji and Rotuma from 1999 to 2001, and in the Senate of Fiji from 2001 to 2006.
Matuku is a volcanic island in the Moala subgroup of Fiji's Lau archipelago. Located at 19.18° South and 179.75° East, Matuku covers an area of 57 square kilometers. It has a maximum elevation of 385 meters. Matuku is part of a group of islands known as Yasayasa Moala.
Pita Kewa Nacuva is a Fijian politician and former Fiji rugby union international. He served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from June to December 2006, when a military coup deposed the government and resulted in the dissolution of Parliament. Previously, he had served in the Cabinet as Minister for Tourism.
Joeli Nabuka is a former Fijian politician, who served in the House of Representatives from 2002 to 2006. He represented the Ba East Fijian Communal Constituency, which he won for the ruling Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua Party (SDL) in a byelection early in 2002, to fill the vacancy caused by the death in an automobile accident of his brother Epeli Seavula, also of the SDL.
The Methodist Church of Fiji and Rotuma is the largest Christian denomination in Fiji, with 34.6% of the total population at the most recent 2007 census.
Walter Lawry Waterhouse MC was an Australian agricultural scientist, a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and Clarke Medallist.
Queen Victoria School (QVS) is a school in Fiji. It was established in 1906 in Nasinu to provide education to the sons of Fijian Chiefs. It later moved to Nanukuloa in Ra when World War II broke out; then the school was moved to Lodoni where the two schools QVS and RKS operated side by side before eventually moving to its current site at Matavatucou, Tailevu. It then accepted students from Fijian villages based on their results in a secondary entrance examination.
William Earnest Donnelly was a New Zealander who became a teacher and General Secretary of the Students’ Christian Movement in New Zealand, in the early 1930s and early 40s. He volunteered for service in Fiji and he served as principal of the Methodist Church's Toorak Boys' High School in Suva.
Sailasa Naucukidi was a Fijian Methodist-Wesleyan missionary who volunteered to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to New Britain, Papua New Guinea in 1876. In 1878, he was martyred and his remains cannibalized. His remains along with other Fijian martyrs lay buried atop the Vunela Fijian martyrs cemetery Kabakada, East New Britain.
RatuIlaijia Varani was a chief of Viwa, Bau Island, Tailevu in Fiji in the mid-to-late 19th century.
Joeli Bulu (Siaoeli Pulu) (c. 1810 – May 7, 1877) was a Tongan missionary who had become a Christian in 1833. He was one of a band of teachers who came to Fiji in 1838, and pioneered the work of the Christian Church in this group. He served the Church in Fiji for almost four decades. Many others were great in the same way. Paula Vea, another dynamic Christian missionary was a contemporary of his.
Davuilevu, the name of the site of three Methodist Church of Fiji institutions: Davuilevu Theological College, the Bible School for Catechist training, and Lelean Memorial School. It can be translated as "the large conch shell."
Josua Mateinaniu was a preacher and catechist (teacher) in the Methodist Church of Fiji and Rotuma. A wanderer and a sailor at first, he drifted in his travels to Tonga, where he became a Christian.
The Deans Trophy is the most prestigious and oldest sports award among Fiji Secondary Schools sporting competitions. The boys rugby union annual competition was first introduced in 1939 and is the oldest tournament in the Fiji Rugby Union (FRU).
Dudley Hign School is a coeducational high school on Toorak Hill, Suva, Fiji that is run by the Methodist Church of Fiji and Rotuma. It is named after missionary sister, Hannah Dudley who dedicated her life to taking care of Indian women and orphans that were victims of the vicious indentured system that brought labourers from India to Fiji by the colonial government. The indentured system brought thousands of Indians from India to Fiji under degrading conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Reverend Paula Nayala Niukula was a minister of the Methodist Church of Fiji and Rotuma in Bemana, Ruwailevu, Nadroga, Fiji.
Wilson Fagamaniua Inia was a Fijian educator and politician. He was a member of the Senate from 1970 until his death.
References
Colin George, History, Australian Defence Force Academy, UNSW. Awarded by, University of New South Wales – Australian Defence Force Academy. School of History, 2000. Raicakacaka,'walking the road' from colonial to post-colonial mission, the life, work and thought of the Reverend Dr. Alan Richard Tippett, Methodist missionary in Fiji, anthropologist and missiologist, 1911-1988.
Garret, John, To live among the stars, Institute of the Pacific Studies; 1985
Tippett, A.R., 1954, The Christian (Fiji 1835–1867), Auckland Institute and Museum, Auckland
Baleiwaqa, Tevita, 1996, ‘Josua Mateinaniu/Ko Josua Mateinaniu’, in Thornley and Vulaono 1996:20–30
Kanailagi, Tomasi, 1996, ‘The Life and Work of Rev John Hunt/Ko Jione Oniti’, in Thornley and Vulaono 1996.
Meo, Jovili, 1966, ‘Methodist Education/Na Vuli e na Lotu Wesele’, in Thornley and Vulaono 1996:160–76.
Thornley, Andrew, and Tauga Vulaono, 1996, Mai Kea Ki Vei: Stories of Methodism in Fiji and Rotuma, 1835–1995, Methodist Church of Fiji and Rotuma.
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