The school is named after Sir Samuel White Baker (8 June 1821 – 30 December 1893), the British explorer, officer, naturalist, big game hunter, engineer, writer and abolitionist.

[2] The school campus, measuring 137 hectares (340 acres), is situated off the Kitgum-Gulu Road, approximately 6 kilometres (3.7 mi), by road, northeast of the central business district of Gulu,[3] the largest city in Northern Uganda (pop:152,276 in 2014).

[5] The school was opened in 1953 by the Governor of Uganda Protectorate, one Sir Andrew Cohen.

[6] When Idi Amin staged his coup d'état in January 1971, the standards at the school began to decline.

This led to a 20-year civil war in Northern Uganda, with the school campus at the centre of it, as the Lord's Resistance Army rebels invaded and ransacked the school, making it near-impossible to teach or learn.