Waterford School was opened on a mountainside at the edge of Mbabane in 1963, after founding headmaster Michael Stern spent 6 years teaching in South Africa, first at an all black school (St. Peter’s, which was closed in 1956) then at an all white school (St. Martin’s, on the same site as St. Peter’s, where he was the founding headmaster), under the Apartheid Regime. Michael Stern came to South Africa to teach in 1955 after responding to an article written by Father (later Archbishop) Trevor Huddleston called, “And the Church Sleeps On” but he became increasingly dissatisfied and frustrated with the pervasive environment of racial intolerance. In 1961, after several years of St. Martin’s work camps in the then British Protectorate of Swaziland, and after it was clear that Michael could not teach and live his ideals in South Africa, he committed himself to the idea of a multiracial school in Swaziland. Waterford was established in clear and expressed opposition to the South African Apartheid regime and its laws of racial segregation.

Michael Stern was not alone in his efforts to make Waterford a reality. His colleagues Gordon Milne, Deon Glover and Jim & Jean Richardson left St. Martin’s to join him in Swaziland. Gifts of service and skill were also made, the most famous being architect and parent Amancio (Pancho) Guedes, who offered to design the school for free, and Stanley Kaplan, a consultant engineer, whose combined efforts allowed the physical structures of campus to be built despite little funding. Not only did a school need to be built, but the founders of WK wanted all students who qualified academically to be able to attend regardless of their ability to pay, making funds for bursaries a necessity. Early fundraisers were Christopher Newton Thompson, chairman of the school’s Executive Council, which later became the Southern African Trustees, and South African businessman Clive Menell, a friend of Michael Stern’s. In 1963, Michael Stern established the Waterford School Trust in London, with chairman Dr. Eric Abbott, Dean of Westminster. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Wolfson Foundation and the Anglo-American Corporation were early donors, with Harry Oppenheimer, Chairman of Anglo-American, funding the science laboratories (which are still used today). Friends of Waterford also established a ‘Fifty Club’ in Johannesburg, for those who were willing to give £50 for the initial costs. All of these efforts allowed what seemed a crazy idea discussed over a campfire to become a reality. Despite the school’s early successes, many local and international observers deemed this diversity as ‘sick’ and ‘unnatural’. To those who supported racially segregated education, and society, Waterford was a threat to their convictions. During the early days, this animosity was displayed through slashed car tyres, increased tension with neighboring schools and the taunting of white students, who, as Tony Hatton put it, were learning “at a young age that racial prejudice produces a special sort of viciousness towards those of the same colour but different mind.”   Over the next couple of years, the school grew exponentially, and with it, support for it’s ethos and mission. In 1967, King Sobhuza II Ngwenyama of Swaziland granted Waterford School the name Kamhlaba “Wherever you are in the world, the earth does not distinguish who you are. You live in it whatever your colour, whatever your religion, whatever your race. You live in it and it does not try to ostracise you or show any difference as to what you are. And this is the meaning of Kamhlaba.” And from then on the school was known as Waterford Kamhlaba. During the same time of Waterford’s founding, another movement in education was beginning in the UK, United World College movement (UWC). At a time when the Cold War was at its height, the aim of UWC was to bring together young people from different nations to act as champions of peace through an education based on shared learning, collaboration and understanding. And in 1981, the two movements came together when Waterford Kamhlaba joined the UWC movement, becoming Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa (UWCSA).