Our beloved Founder Sir Robert Stanes was born in London on May 13th 1841. His father was James Stanes, a ship – owner of London, a free born citizen of that city. Robert Stanes was educated at Campdon House School, Brighton. He schooled till the age of sixteen, after which he worked in the office of Tolman, Livingston & Co., Ship brokers, London.
At the tender age of seventeen, Sir Robert Stanes set sail for India, on his father’s ship ‘SS Trafalgar’ and arrived in 1858. He immediately launched himself on a successful career as a coffee planter in Coimbatore.
Being convicted by the Holy Spirit after he read Bishop Ryle’s tract ASSURANCE, he at once commenced a Sunday Bible School for the Anglo-Indian children. Unfortunately, many of the children attending this Sunday School could neither read nor write. Moved by this, he started the Day school in November 1862. This was the humble beginning of the Stanes Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School.
It was Robert Stanes who gave to Coimbatore its industrial importance. In the memorable year 1861, he found the climate of Coimbatore suitable for the curing of coffee, and set up the Stanes Coffee Curing works, the first of many of his companies in Coimbatore.
In the year 1870, he married Harriet Huntingdon Harris in England. Mr. Robert Stanes and Mrs. Stanes returned to Coimbatore at the end of 1870. They had six daughters and two sons. In November 1888 he founded the Coimbatore Spinning and Weaving Company Limited and it opened on August 1890, the first in South India and the precursor of the industrialization of Coimbatore District. For the next 15 years the business (Stanes & Co.), the school –work and church services grew.