The red-brick site at 27 Station Road had been built in 1900 to house the Sidcup High School for Girls and Kindergarten, although additional office space was added in 1930 to convert it into the boys school. In July, the Secondary Education Sub-Committee began advertising to find a headmaster for the school, and in the following Spring appointed Welshman C. R. McGregor Williams (1889–1954), who had formerly been the headmaster of the recently closed Uckfield Grammar School, Sussex. The son of a tailor, McGregor Williams was born in Newport and educated at Newport High School and Cardiff College, University of Wales, where he gained a degree in modern languages. Having fought for the British Army at the Battle of the Somme, he later taught at what would become Varndean School in Brighton. He spent his spare time studying for an MA with a thesis on Molière's religious philosophy from the University of Wales and in 1926 obtained a doctorate on the poetry of John Payne from the University of Paris.