Gilbertfield House School was an academy at Hamilton, Lanarkshire, which between 1863 and 1878 prepared boys for entrance to universities, the Civil Service and commerce. Among its pupils were the statesman Bonar Law, the philosopher John Henry Muirhead and the sons of David Livingstone.
Hamilton is a town in South Lanarkshire, in the central Lowlands of Scotland. It serves as the main administrative centre of the South Lanarkshire council area. It sits 12 miles (19 km) south-east of Glasgow, 35 miles (56 km) south-west of Edinburgh and 74 miles (120 km) north of Carlisle. It is situated on the south bank of the River Clyde at its confluence with the Avon Water. Hamilton is the county town of the historic county of Lanarkshire.
Her Majesty's Home Civil Service, also known as Her Majesty's Civil Service or the Home Civil Service, is the permanent bureaucracy or secretariat of Crown employees that supports Her Majesty's Government, which is composed of a cabinet of ministers chosen by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as well as two of the three devolved administrations: the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government, but not the Northern Ireland Executive.
Andrew Bonar Law was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1922 to 1923.
Gilbertfield was established in 1863 at the private initiative of John Adams “to supply a want hitherto felt in Hamilton and its neighbourhood” [1] and occupied premises which he had recently bought and enlarged on High Patrick Street. He conducted this fee-paying establishment in tandem with his headmastership of St John’s Grammar School, a Free Church foundation in Hamilton with over 400 pupils. Many of his private students had previously attended St John’s and proceeded to Gilbertfield for higher education, but he also attracted (and offered boarding for) boys from families based further afield including continental Europe, India and the Caribbean. [2] Pupils were generally between the ages of 12 and 15 years. Their number was never large: in the 1872-3 session the total was 54. [3]
The Free Church of Scotland was a Scottish denomination which was formed in 1843 by a large withdrawal from the established Church of Scotland in a schism or division known as the Disruption of 1843. In 1900 the vast majority of the Free Church of Scotland joined with the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland to form the United Free Church of Scotland. The House of Lords judged that the minority continuing after the 1900 union were entitled to all the assets. While the denomination clearly had a starting date, in their own eyes their leaders had a legitimate claim to an unbroken succession of leaders going all the way back to the Apostles.
A boarding school provides education for pupils who live on the premises, as opposed to a day school. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now extend across many countries, their function and ethos varies greatly. Traditionally, pupils stayed at the school for the length of the term; some schools facilitate returning home every weekend, and some welcome day pupils. Some are for either boys or girls while others are co-educational.
The school was advertised as an “English and Classical School” and an “Establishment for the Board and Education of Young Gentlemen” where “pupils are prepared for the Universities, the Civil Service Examinations, and Commercial Pursuits”. [4] From the outset it had English, Classics, Modern Languages (“French and German read and spoken daily”), Mathematics, and Writing Departments, taught painting and drawing, and provided instruction in dancing, deportment, gymnastics and fencing. [5] Drill, under ex-army instructors, was an important element of the school regime. [6]
A military parade is a formation of soldiers whose movement is restricted by close-order manoeuvering known as drilling or marching. The military parade is now almost entirely ceremonial, though soldiers from time immemorial up until the late 19th century fought in formation. Massed parades may also hold a role for propaganda purposes, being used to exhibit the apparent military strength of one's nation.
Some of the school’s masters were resident, and others visited regularly; most were graduates or held institutional qualifications. John Adams himself was an Edinburgh University prizeman who had been on the teaching staff at Moray House. He kept abreast of best practice in education, regularly visiting the leading teaching colleges and major public schools in England and Scotland. [7] He was a first cousin of the missionary-educationalist John Fordyce, whose two sons [8] were pupils at Gilbertfield at the same time as Adams’ elder boy. [9]
John Fordyce (1819–1902) was a Christian missionary, evangelical minister and administrator who launched the female education initiative in India known as the Zenana Missions. He has been credited with introducing the rickshaw to India.
Early examination success for the school came when its pupils John Mackintosh and John Wallace Kidston were placed high in the Edinburgh University Local Examinations of 1865. [10] Kidston and his brother William Hamilton Kidston were cousins of Bonar Law, and the quality of education they received at Gilbertfield resulted in Bonar Law being placed there in 1871. [11] He won prizes for Greek and English in 1873, [12] and Adams recorded him as being “a boy of great mental power”. [13] Law’s fellow prizeman in Greek in 1873 was William Lewis Robertson, who served as General Secretary of the Presbyterian Church in England, 1918–30, and was its Moderator in 1931.
William Kidston was a Scottish international rugby union player. He could play as a half-back or three-quarters.
Among other siblings who attended Gilbertfield were John Henry Muirhead and his three gifted brothers [14] and David Livingstone’s sons Thomas, who captained the school’s cricket eleven, and Oswell, who won numerous academic prizes. [15] Livingstone himself was present at the school’s 1865 prize-giving when he addressed the pupils, telling them to “Fear God, and Work Hard”. This was his last public speech in Scotland, [16] credited by Frederick Stanley Arnot as the inspiration for his own missionary work in Africa. [17]
David Livingstone was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, and pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, an explorer in Africa, and one of the most popular British heroes of the late 19th-century Victorian era. He had a mythical status that operated on a number of interconnected levels: Protestant missionary martyr, working-class "rags-to-riches" inspirational story, scientific investigator and explorer, imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader, and advocate of British commercial and colonial expansion.
Frederick Stanley Arnot was a Scottish missionary who did much to establish missions in what are now Angola, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
By the early 1870s, particular emphasis was given at Gilbertfield to the teaching of Classics and arrangements were in hand for awarding annual Classics scholarships at examinations to be overseen by Glasgow University professors. In 1872 it was reported that “owing to the school’s increasing prosperity, large additions have been made to the schoolrooms, which are now more than ever admirable in their internal arrangements, perfect in ventilation”. [18] But in 1874, against the background of the Hamilton School Board proposing to make Hamilton Academy the “Higher Class School” of the Burgh under the 1872 Education Act, Adams elected to withdraw from his role at Gilbertfield and transferred the conduct of the school to William Wood, formerly of Dollar Academy. [19] Wood ran the school from the Gilbertfield House premises for four years. [20]
In 1878 Wood removed the school to premises in Douglas Street, Hamilton, where he was joined by D. G. Kinmond, also formerly of Dollar Academy, and as joint-headmasters they styled this new establishment “Clydesdale College (formerly Gilbertfield House School)”. [21] In the following year Wood left Hamilton to keep a School for Young Ladies in London, and by 1887 Clydesdale College had closed and Kinmond was teaching at Circus Place School in Edinburgh. [22]
The Dean Cemetery is a historically important Victorian cemetery north of the Dean Village, west of Edinburgh city centre, in Scotland. It lies between Queensferry Road and the Water of Leith, bounded on its east side by Dean Path and on its west by the Dean Gallery. A 20th-century extension lies detached from the main cemetery to the north of Ravelston Terrace. The main cemetery is accessible through the main gate on its east side, through a "grace and favour" access door from the grounds of Dean Gallery and from Ravelston Terrace. The modern extension is only accessible at the junction of Dean Path and Queensferry Road.
The Belfast Royal Adacemy is the oldest school in the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is a co-educational, non-denominational voluntary grammar school situated in north Belfast. The Academy is one of 8 schools in Northern Ireland whose Head is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference
The Church of Saint Andrew and St Paul is a Presbyterian church in downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 3415 Redpath Street, on the corner of Sherbrooke Street. It is in close proximity to the Golden Square Mile, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Concordia University as well as the Guy-Concordia Metro station.
John G. Mossman was one of a number of English sculptors who dominated the production and teaching of sculpture in Glasgow for 50 years after his arrival with his father and brothers from his native London in 1828. His father William Mossman (1793–1851) was also a sculptor, and a pupil of Sir Francis Chantrey. He was trained both by his father and under Carlo Marochetti in London.
The High School of Glasgow is an independent, co-educational day school in Glasgow, Scotland. The original High School of Glasgow was founded as the choir school of Glasgow Cathedral in around 1124, and is the oldest school in Scotland, and the twelfth oldest in the United Kingdom. On its closure as a selective grammar school by Glasgow City Corporation in 1976, it immediately continued as a co-educational independent school as a result of fundraising activity by its Former Pupil Club and via a merge by the Club with Drewsteighnton School. The school maintains a relationship with the Cathedral, where it holds an annual service of commemoration and thanksgiving in September. It counts two British Prime Ministers, two Lords President and the founder of the University of Aberdeen among its alumni.
John Glencairn Carter Hamilton, 1st Baron Hamilton of Dalzell (1829–1900), was a Scottish soldier and politician.
The Rev. Dr. Robert Blair DD VD was a Scottish minister and a Gaelic scholar.
Hamilton Academy was a school in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland.
William Brodie was a Scottish sculptor, working in Edinburgh in the 19th century.
William Cotton Oswell was an English explorer in Africa and other areas.
The 1873–74 Home Nations rugby union matches was a single international friendly held between the England and Scotland national rugby union teams. With no other recognised rugby union teams in Britain or the rest of the World, the encounter between Scotland and England represented the only possible match that could be arranged, and would continue as such until 1875, when Ireland formed a national team.
Rev Prof Islay Burns DD (1817–1872) was a 19th century Scottish theologian and writer.
Rev William Arnot (1808–1875) was a Scottish minister and theological writer.
Very Rev Dr David Brown DD LLD was a Free Church of Scotland minister who served as Moderator of the General Assembly 1885/86.
James Lyall was a Presbyterian minister in the early days of Adelaide, South Australia.
Very Rev Dr Robert Buchanan DD (1802–1875) was a 19th century Scottish minister and historian who served as Moderator of the General Assembly to the Free Church of Scotland in 1860/61. He was one of the leading figures in the Disruption of 1843.
Very Rev Dr Alexander Neill Somerville DD (1813–1889) was a 19th century Scottish minister and evangelist, who served as Moderator of the General Assembly for the Free Church of Scotland 1886/87. Glasgow University called him "Missionary to the World".
Rev Prof Allan Menzies DD (1845–1916) was a Scottish minister remembered as a religious author and translator. He was fluent in both English and German.