Kintyre Technical College opened with a roll of 18 boys on 29 November 1915 at Keil House, Southend, near Campbeltown in Argyll.
[2] The school took a lease on Helenslee House, a 50-acre (20 ha) site on the banks of the River Clyde.
In 1941, due to the school's high vulnerability during the Clydeside Blitz, including the destruction of nearby industrial centres such as Clydebank (only 16 buildings were left undamaged) and conflagrations at the Bowling Oil Refinery and the Tate & Lyle Sugar Refinery at Greenock, the school had to be evacuated and relocated in the safer surroundings of Balinakill House, Kintyre for the duration of the war.
[4] In 1983, with 73 boarding and 48 day pupils enrolled, the school's finances were in a poor position and a fundraising campaign was needed for it to stay open.
[8] The school was used as a set in an episode of the TV Detective show Taggart which aired in 1988.