It was the only Chinese school to retain its all-male students only tradition in Penang. It was a hub of educated Chinese intellects, and was known to harbor radical political thoughts, from both the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party during the Chinese Civil War. In the 1930s, the students of the school, as a response of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and China, held anti-Japanese protests and demonstrations. During the Japanese occupation of Malaya, their past anti-Japanese sentiment resulted in retaliation by the Japanese occupation government, mostly in the form of forceful disbandments of classes, manhunts and a purge of its former staffs and alumni.
The school reopened in 1946 following the end of the Second World War, and achieved its present academic peak during the 1950s and early 1960s, under the tenure of headmaster David Chen (1898–1952), a Chinese education reformer, as the leading Chinese institution of higher education in Southeast Asia. The teachers within the school were noted poets, leading intellects and university professors. Numerous graduates later became educators, Olympic athletes, ministers and important politicians of both Singapore and Malaysia.
Chung Ling High School became a public-school under the British colonial government in 1956. The school founded a separate privately funded institution in 1962, later known to be the Chung Ling Private High School (Chinese: 锺灵独立中学). In 1967, the school was the first Chinese school in the country to introduce pre-university courses (Form 6). Computerization of the administration in the school was launched in 1983, the first in the country. In 1984, the school was split into two, forming the Chung Ling Butterworth High School (Chinese: 北海锺灵中学), where it was set up in Butterworth for students based in Seberang Perai.
Chung Ling High School has been categorized as a public school for students of excellent grades. It is designated as a Cluster School of Excellence since 2013, a recognition for the academic performances of the school, and one of four Chinese "controlled-schools " (admission-only under invitation) in Penang.