On 30 January 1882, the Rev. Robert S. Caseley was elected President of the College for the ensuing year.
The Robb Scholarship was founded. Mr Robb had, to the effect, given a cheque for £150 to found a scholarship of the annual value of £12.12.0. Even when, on 20 October, the Committee had to decide that 'the new day scholars who enter the College after next Christmas and who are over ten years of age, pay £3.13.6 per quarter', the scholarship covered most of the £14.14.0 yearly fees.
The Colton and the Longbottom Scholarships were altered from £12.0.0 to £12.12.0, and no boy was allowed to take the same scholarship a second time.
The first winner of the Robb Scholarship was C.S. Mead (his sister Lilian Mead played a unique role in the history of Prince Alfred College, being the first female student to enrol and complete matriculation in 1883, enter the University of Adelaide and complete a Bachelor of Arts Degree).
The number of students was still growing; 'attendance has been the highest yet reached, the average number present for the four terms being 360, or 50 more than last year'. (Mr F. Chapple, B.A., B. Sc., Headmaster of the College).
Fortunately, despite delays, about which the Council complained to the Architect, the New Wing was finally completed and occupied by mid-winter. This gave nine additional classrooms and rooms were made available for other purposes; the boarders now had a library, a common room, studies for the senior boys and small bedrooms away from the dormitories for the little boys. The decision of naming the New Wing the Colton Wing would be taken on 24 January 1883.
For this bigger, more convenient school, a new prospectus was designed.
In the Main Building, at last completed, teaching was going a-pace: there were more boys in the higher classes, boys stayed longer at the school, an increasing number taking the whole course, including Latin.
Speech Day took place in the Town Hall, on the afternoon of the 18th of December. The 'Captain of the School', who was the top academic student of the VI th Form, was W.A.E. Tucker. That morning, the matriculation results had been published in the newspaper for the first time. A St. Peter's boy took the first place, but, in the list of 23 successful candidates, there were twelve Prince Alfred College names.
Sports were going well; the first eleven lost only one cricket match - that was against the Old Scholars - and at football, our team lost none. Rowing was added to the list of sports, 'thanks to the public spirit and practical sagacity of the Mayor (Mr E.T. Smith) and the Adelaide Corporation in forming the Torrens Lake'. The first race took place after Speech Day on that same 18th of December 1882. The story of Rowing had started. It would not be without interruptions or without disappointments, but the beginning was there.
This was the last time that Sir William F. Drummond Jervois was to preside over Prince Alfred's Speech Day; he had arrived in the Colony in 1877 and had now been appointed Governor of New Zealand. From 1877 to 1882 he attended six of our Speech days, and it is fitting that to him should go the last words for 1882: 'I do most heartily wish the College success ... May it go on as it has done from the beginning up to the present time, and I think I may say, specially during the last five years, and may the College increase in number and quality until we have higher education spread throughout the length and breadth of the land.'
In 2022 we are 153 years young and now with around 1150 enrolled, we have forged an enviable path in the history of Independent Schools in South Australia.