 The school admitted some boys from S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia, when the latter had to vacate its premises during World War II.When the free education system was introduced in the late 1940s, the Methodist mission had to decide whether the school should opt out of it and retain its independence as a feelevying school, or join the national education in which the state would pay the teaching staff and relieve its students of the need to pay fees.Some elite schools on the island opted out, but few missionary schools could afford to forgo the advantage of having the salaries of the staff covered; Kingswood was one of them.