History tells us that the Portuguese came to the western coast of India about 400 years ago. They spread out far and wide on the cost in places like Goa , Bassein, and Bombay to establish trading centres.

Some of the Portuguese Missionaries came to Thane for the Propogation of the Christian faith. Many local inhabitants embraced the new creed, which gave them solace and comfort and the priest in turn harboured them under the shelter of a House of Worship. Those Missionaries believed that education would enlighten the soul and thus they focused their attention on teaching the Portuguese language, in which they were proficient to the people who flocked to them.

We can picture to our mind a devoted pastor, after his religious duties late in the evening sitting with a batch of children in the flickering light of a candle in the portico of the chapel teaching them the rudiments of the language and then subsequently leading them to the word of the Gospel. This may be the tiny seed thrown on the Thane soil, which by the grace of God, in the passage of time, grew in a small school - the Nucleus of Today's St. John The Baptist High School.

A sketch of the old school building
by Mr. M . B. Pathak (Demolished in 1964)

Years rolled on and in the course of time it seems, the regional language Marathi came to be taught to the boys in the Church School . Slowly and steadily the microscopic minority of the Catholic population might have begun to send their children to this school to study their mother tongue and religion.

From those days of yore to 1899 the student of History who attempts to write an account of the growth of the school is obliged to grope in the dark. At this stage, we have some authentic records to tell us that the Late Rev. Fr. Michael Pereira of Cavel, Bombay, was the first Vicar to start a small school in 1899 under to patronage of the Portuguese Bishop of Daman , since then Bombay was under his jurisdiction. No doubt it was obligatory to teach the Portuguese language, but Fr. Michael introduced the study of the regional language, Marathi too. This was really a boon to the Marathi speaking Catholic of the locality. It is given to understand that Mrs. Clara D'Cunha (mother of Mr. Noel D'Cunha and Mr.Hubert D'Cunha of Cherai) was a student of this school in 1899 and she afterwards was a teacher in the Preparatory class of the Girls school run by the East India Association at Tembi in 1900. This Girl's school was amalgamated with the Boy's Parish school which is the St. John The Baptist High School of today. Senor Francis Rebello from K'villa' was the first Head-master. He was assisted by Mr. Patrick D'Silva and Mr. Mathew D'Silva of Cherai and a Marathi teacher from Naupada.

A connected account of the growth of the school from 1905 to 1936 as published by the "East Indian Souvenir" Bombay is given below:

St. John The Baptist School, Thane, was primarily intended for the teaching of Portuguese, which was the language then in vogue amongst its inhabitants. As years rolled on, however, the necessity for a thorough knowledge of English increased and in 1905 the Archbishop-Bishop of Daman decided to change it into an English teaching school. In 1906, it was registered for Government grant according to the grant-in-aid-code. It then had 61 pupils on the roll and taught up to the third standard.

In 1908, the fourth standard was added and there were a hundred pupils. The classes were till then held in the porch of the church and a small room attached to it. But thanks to the efforts of the Late Monsignor P.H. Henriques, the then Manager and founder of the English school, a new building was raised with a permanent stage and a fairly large hall on the first floor. There were then 143 boys on the roll.

The year 1932 marks the next stage in its career, for the students of the East Indian Girl's School were transferred to the parish school and the number on the rolls stood at 179. In 1933 the fifth standard was added and in 1935 the sixth and there were 194 students in the school. The introduction of the seventh in 1936 raised the school to the level of a high school and only the introduction of the matriculation class was needed to make this complete. This is however only a matter of course as the school now possessed an up-to-date laboratory built at the cost of Rs. 3,500 which was a legacy of the Late manager, Rev. C. A. Pereira and a class library that has been presented by Dr. M. C. Gheewala, and thus all the major obstacles in the way of its progress have been removed. There are at present 218 students on the roll and the scanty accommodation makes it impossible to admit more while the need of a larger and more commodious building was badly felt. The reports of the Inspector of European Schools have always been encouraging. The school has been visited by Lady Brabourne and the Late Archbishop Lima who on the 23rd of February 1936 , opened the laboratory and the class library. On that occasion, he paid a warm tribute of praise and gratitude to the former managers and principals of the school for all that they had done in the past to raise the standard and increase its efficiency - It had always been his desire, he said, to have a high school in Thane and he was sure that under its present management this wish was soon to be fulfilled."

The Late Rev. Msgr. Braz Fr. D'Silva had the school recognized by the Educational department as an English Teaching High School in 1938.

The first Principal of the High School was Rev. Fr. Wilfred Pereira. " The parish gained largely by his sunny personality, his remarkable fluency of speech that spread his fame as a preacher, his brilliancy and his indefatigable energy which found such outlets as the organization of the Thane Catholic Association Study Club and the formation of a highly efficient and talented parish choir." A. P. Pereira. ( St. John's Annual 1957)

Though the results at the Matriculation were heart-breaking, sometime between 1938 and 1947, those pioneers at the helm of affairs moved heaven and earth to bring the school to an ordinarily satisfactory level.

1947 - The year of India 's Independence - saw an energetic young priest the Late Rev. Fr. Stanislaus Pereira directing the affairs at St. John's . His policy of educational reconstruction brought the School to limelight. From then onwards the persistent efforts of an array of brilliant and devoted priests, ably supported by trained and qualified teachers and the unstinted co-operation of loyal and devoted students helped the School to grow slowly and steadily to its present stature of academic, cultural and co-curricular achievements.