One of the College's earliest students, Cecil Mead studied at the school for 10 years before winning one of the three scholarships offered by the University of Adelaide. Following an arts degree, Mead undertook medical studies and served at the Royal Adelaide Hospital before further studies in London.
Mead was a deeply religious man and took up a position in Bengal with the Baptist Mission. Thus began a 28-year association with that part of India. He worked as a doctor before answering a call to work in education with the outcaste people living in the swamps of Orakandi, an area accessible only by boat.
Mead was highly praised for his work at Orakandi, which included the establishment of medical facilities, a school, and a home for widows and orphans, whose status in the community was particularly low. Cecil Mead returned to Adelaide because of ill health in 1921 and taught in the anatomy department of Adelaide University. A tribute by a classmate in the Chronicle stated 'I doubt if any man of us has done a work of greater heroism, or one which has a wider reach for the uplift of the human race'.