Kearsney College is a private boarding school for boys in Botha's Hill, a small town that lies between the provincial capital of Pietermaritzburg and Durban, the largest city of KwaZulu-Natal, a province in South Africa. Kearsney's badge was designed by the then headmaster, R H Matterson, and the chaplain, the Rev. W H Irving, in about 1923. The greyhound is taken from the arms of the Founder, Sir James Liege Hulett. The scallop shells and the dividing chevron are from the arms of the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. The pheon, or arrowhead, is taken from the badge of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where Matterson studied. The motto "Carpe Diem", traditionally at Kearsney translated "Seize the Opportunity", comes from the Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus, known as Horace, (Odes 1, xi, 8). Kearsney College takes its name from a small Kentish Village and owes its existence to the foresight and generosity of Sir Leige Hulett who gave his family home on Natal's North Coast near Stanger to the Methodist Church. Although remotely situated, the school opened with 11 boarders and two day scholars in August 1921. The mid-1930s was a difficult time in Kearsney's history.