Hamilton Academy
Hamilton Academy was a boarding and day school in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland. It was founded in 1588 as a boy's school and was open for nearly four centuries. In the late 19th century, the school began admitting girls.
The school was described as "one of the finest schools in Scotland" in the Cambridge University Press County Biography of 1910, and was featured in a 1950 Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association magazine article series on Famous Scottish Schools.
Having joined the state sector, the school closed in 1972, as a result of the coming of comprehensive schools in Lanarkshire. It was replaced by the new Hamilton Grammar School, which took over its site and most of its pupils and staff.
History and building
1588–1714
No longer existing as an independent institution, Hamilton Academy had a history going back to 1588 when it was endowed by The 1st Marquess of Hamilton, an extremely powerful Scottish nobleman.File:Duchessanne.jpg|thumb|Anne, Duchess of Hamilton, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Hamilton Collection, Lennoxlove|left
The school, then known as the Old Grammar School of Hamilton, stood near the churchyard adjoining Hamilton Palace until, in 1714, Anne, 3rd Duchess of Hamilton, great-granddaughter of the founder, re-located the school to a new building on the newly named Grammar School Square also in the lower part of the town, and presented this to the Town Council of Hamilton. The Statistical Account of Lanarkshire of 1835 notes of this school building that it "is a venerable pile, near the centre of the town, containing a long wainscotted hall, emblazoned with the names of former scholars, cut out in the wood, as at Harrow."
In 1847 this old school building on Grammar School Square was sold for £253 and survived until its demolition in 1932. A plaque commemorating the site of the Old Grammar School of Hamilton was commissioned by pupils of Hamilton Academy and unveiled by the academy's rector, David Anderson MC, on 21 March 1932 at a public ceremony in the presence of academy pupils and teaching staff; the provost and members of the town council, and members of Hamilton Civic Society.
1848–1900
The town council were sole managers of the school until, in 1848, the school re-located again, to larger premises on the town's Hope Street, with Rector's residence and accommodation for boarders, built by the heritors of the Parish of Hamilton, the town council and subscribers, the school then coming under the management of a Directorate chosen of these three parties. The Report on Schools in Scotland, 1868, notes that Hamilton Academy was unusual in this respect, being "a parochial, burgh and a proprietary school combined." In 1866 the Subscribers passed their interest over to the town council who, along with the heritors, managed the school until in 1872 management was transferred to the newly elected School Board of the Burgh of Hamilton under the terms of the Education Act 1872, under the terms of which Act the school was also confirmed as being a 'higher-class school.'By 1900 the school had not only outgrown the Hope Street building, but the building was also subsiding. Robert Gibson MP recalled during a House of Commons debate that during his time at Hamilton Academy, the junior department had had to be evacuated due to rapid subsidence of that part of the Hope Street building. The school was therefore re-located to temporary accommodation in a building newly erected by the school board as 'Woodside School', until such time as the question of the academy's increasing requirements could be addressed. The school's old site on Hope Street being considered too small, a site for a new Hamilton Academy building was secured on Auchincampbell Road.
1910–1972
At a cost of around £40,000, construction of the new building began in 1910 to competition-winning designs by Cullen, Lochhead and Brown the competition entries being assessed by George Bell, president of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Institute of Architects.In 1911 Hamilton Academy's 'prep' school relocated to its new, separate smaller building behind the main edifice, before completion, in 1913, of the new senior school building in the French Renaissance style and of red freestone from Corncockle Quarry in Dumfriesshire. The main building, with separate entrances for girls and boys, was arranged over three storeys, with additional basements, providing accommodation for rector's office, board room, offices, classrooms, six laboratories, workshops, art rooms and gymnasia. Of particular note were the Central Hall, the large lecture hall and library, with reading rooms for girls and boys respectively. In addition, a domestic science block was erected in the same style to the south of the main building and near the girls' school entrance.
A feature of the wood-panelled Central Hall, rising two storeys with gallery to an arched ceiling, was the six large stained glass windows with figures representing Literature, Science, Art, Music, Technology and Gymnastics.
This new Hamilton Academy building was officially opened on 22 September 1913, a programme and souvenir of this event being published by the Hamilton Advertiser newspaper. This building remains and is a 'listed building,' category 'B.'
Following the First World War a handsome memorial to masters and former pupils who had fallen in that 1914–18 war was erected in the Central Hall which also housed the girl and boy school Dux medallists commemorative boards.
In 1934 plans were instigated to extend the school's junior department to accommodate up to 500 pupils, and on 3 August 1939 plans were passed that would have seen alterations to the main building to create two new luncheon rooms, further staff rooms, offices and two new libraries; and a new annex to include two new gymnasia. Due to the outbreak of the Second World War in September, these plans were not followed-through. Earlier in 1939 the local Air Raid Precautions committee had announced that it had been arranged that in the event of war and air raids, Hamilton Academy would be used as a first-aid post in case of emergency.
On 19 February 1954 a war memorial, commemorating the one schoolmaster and 68 former pupils who had fallen in the Second World War, was unveiled at the school by its former rector David Anderson, who had himself been awarded the Military Cross for gallantry in the Great War.
Hamilton Academy continued at the 'new' Academy building from 1913 to 1972, when it closed down as an independent institution. Most pupils in the last intake to the former Hamilton Academy are still surviving, the school roll in 1971–2 session being 1025. What would have been Hamilton Academy's quadricentenary was celebrated in 1988 by a reunion in Hamilton of remaining former pupils and staff.
Intake and education
Intake
Hamilton Academy was a senior and junior fee-paying day and boarding school. The Statistical Account of Scotland, 1792, states that the school "has had, for a long time past, a good reputation, and, besides the youth of the place, a great many boarders at a distance have been educated at it," and the Statistical Account of Lanarkshire, 1835, mentions that "many of are from foreign climes, and from all parts of Britain." The 1871 Census and the school's registers 1848–1900 list, among others, pupils from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Paisley, Bridge of Weir, Stewarton, England and Australia. Becoming a Scottish selective day school in the 1900s, Hamilton Academy was to form, as the 'County School', the top-most layer of a four-layer public education system, drawing its pupils from the top stream on a competitive 'Eleven Plus' examination basis from across the whole County of Lanarkshire. The selective nature of the school meant that most children in Hamilton did not attend Hamilton Academy, on the other hand, Hamilton Academy students often had quite long journeys to get to and from school each day.Although bursaries to allay fees in attending Hamilton Academy's senior school could be won on a competitive basis and were much sought after, following the end of the Second World War fees were phased out. Thereafter the criteria for selection rested solely on academic ability, selection being made from potential pupils from across the whole County of Lanark - the old County of Lanark being, in terms of population and wealth, the most important county in Scotland and comprising a larger area, including most of the city of Glasgow, than the sum of the subsequent late twentieth century local authority areas.
Given the size of the school's catchment area, places at Hamilton Academy were at a premium. Due to its unique academic position in Scotland as the 'County School' of the country's most populous and wealthiest county and the size of its student roll, the Bulletin newspaper reported in its issue of 23 November 1959 that "... there was only one school in Scotland – Hamilton Academy – that had sufficient pupils to qualify its headmaster for such a responsibility salary," and this was noted again in a House of Commons debate on teachers' salaries, 24 February 1960, when Margaret Herbison MP advised that "in the whole of Scotland only the rector of Hamilton Academy qualified for the top grade of teachers' salary."
The Hamilton Academy 'prep' school continued to operate until 1952.
Education
Academic
The county-wide selective intake and the academic bias of the teaching meant that Hamilton Academy achieved excellent results in competitions. In his obituary article on former Hamilton Academy pupil Sir John Inch, Sir Tam Dalyell, former Father of the House of Commons, described Hamilton Academy as a "remarkable school" with "a formidable academic reputation" and mentions the large annual intake from Hamilton Academy to the University of Glasgow with which the academy had a particularly long and sustained relationship; a yardstick as measure of its achievements year-on-year being the number of University of Glasgow scholarships won by its students. It usually beat all other schools, by this measure at least. Between 1940 and 1950, Hamilton Academy headed the annual Glasgow University Bursary list on three occasions. Leading the Glasgow University Bursary list again in 1958, in 1959 the Glasgow Evening Times newspaper noted that "Hamilton Academy have scored a triumph by securing 16 places in the first 100. Last year they led the field with 13 places in the first 100. Next best are Hutchesons' Boys Grammar School, Glasgow, with eight places, and St. Aloysius' College, Glasgow, follow with seven."Topping the Glasgow University Bursary List in 1964 and again in 1965, the Evening Times wrote that Hamilton Academy's "reputation is among the highest in the country." In 1966 the same newspaper reported that "for the third year in succession Hamilton Academy has gained the highest number of places in the Glasgow University Bursary Competition. The Academy's old rivals Hutchesons' Boys' Grammar School came second," and in 1967 the Glasgow Herald noted that "Hamilton Academy – with the highest number of pupils for some years now in the first 100 places in the Glasgow University Bursary Competition – has an extremely high and far-flung academic reputation." In 1969 Hamilton Academy pupils took five of the top ten places in the Glasgow University Bursary List.
Such were the school's achievements in university entrance examinations that as late as 1988, Hamilton Academy was remembered by Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove as " one of the best records in the whole of Scotland." In session 1948–49 the Snell Exhibitioner from the University of Glasgow to Balliol College, Oxford, was a former pupil of the Academy as were, among others, Matthew Baillie, Snell Exhibitioner in 1779, and Sir Edward Hamilton Wallace, Snell Exhibitioner in 1893.
From numerous endowed funds, as an academic incentive the school awarded boy and girl Dux medals, the Blacklock Bursary ; subject-specific medals, and Memorial Prizes, including the Dr. James S. Dixon Bursary, endowed by former pupil James Stedman Dixon.
On his return from Africa in 1864, the celebrated missionary and explorer David Livingstone presented the awards at the school's prize-giving ceremony of that year. His speech was to inspire Hamilton Academy pupil Frederick Stanley Arnot who was later to follow on Livingstone's missionary work in central Africa.