User:CatrionaMorton/History of The Royal High School

History

The Royal High School is, by one reckoning, the eighteenth-oldest school in the world. Historians associate its birth with the flowering of the twelfth-century renaissance. Building on a tradition of teaching by the Augustinian Order at Edinburgh Castle, the school first enters the historical record as the seminary of the Abbey of Holyrood, founded for Alwin and the canons by David I in 1128. However if also considered as a castle body on the continuity of its personnel, the school might be said to predate the abbey by a century.

The Grammar School of the Church of Edinburgh, as it was known by the rectorship of Adam de Camis in 1378, grew into a church-run burgh institution providing a Latin education for the sons of burgess families, many of whom pursued careers in the Church. In 1505 it became the first school in Great Britain to be designated a high school. In 1566, following the Reformation, Mary, Queen of Scots, transferred the school from the control of the Abbey to the Town Council, and from about 1590 James VI accorded it royal patronage as the Schola Regia Edimburgensis.

In 1584 the Town Council informed the rector, Hercules Rollock, that his aim should be 'to instruct the youth in pietie, guid maneris, doctrine and letteris'. As far as possible, instruction was carried out in Latin. The study of Greek began in 1614, and geography in 1742. The egalitarian spirit of Scotland and the classical tradition exerted a profound influence on the school culture and the Scottish Enlightenment. A former pupil recalled:

“ I used to sit between a youth of ducal family and the son of a poor cobbler. But what I conceive was the chief characteristic of our School as compared with the great English Schools was its semi-domestic, semi-public constitution, and especially our constant intercourse at home with our sisters and other folks of the other sex, these too being educated in Edinburgh, and the latitude we had for making excursions in the neighbourhood. ”

The turn of the nineteenth century was for Edinburgh a golden age of literature, bringing the Royal High School worldwide fame and an influx of foreign students: 'Walter Scott stood head and shoulders above his literary contemporaries; the Rector, Alexander Adam, held a similar position in his own profession.' By the end of the Napoleonic Wars, an old scholar remembered, 'there were boys from Russia, Germany, Switzerland, the United States, Barbadoes, St. Vincent, Demerara, the East Indies, besides England and Ireland.' The Royal High School was used as a model for the first public high school in the United States, the English High School founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1821.

Greek ceased to be compulsory in 1836, and the time allotted to its study was reduced in 1839 as Mathematics became recognised. The curriculum was gradually broadened to include French (1834), after-hours Fencing and Gymnastics (1843), German (1845), Science (1848) Drawing (1853), Military Drill (1865) English (1866), gymnastics as a formal subject and Swimming (1885), Music (1908), and History (1909). In 1866 classical masters were confined to teaching Latin and Greek. A modern and commercial course was introduced in 1873. A school choir was instituted in 1895.

Through the centuries, the school has been located at many sites throughout the city, including the Vennel of the Church of St. Mary in the Fields (c. 1503 - c.1516), Kirk o' Field Wynd (c. 1516-1555), Cardinal Beaton’s House in Blackfriars Wynd (1555–1569), the Collegiate Church of St. Giles or St. Mary in the Fields (1569–1578), Blackfriars Monastery (1578–1777), Infirmary Street (1777–1829) and the famous building on Calton Hill (1829–1968), Jock's Lodge – now the Royal High Primary School (1931–1972). Royal High moved to its current site at Barnton in 1968. In 1973 the school began to admit girls and became a co-educational state comprehensive.

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  Cardinal Beaton’s House, Blackfriars Wynd (1555-1569)
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  Blackfriars Monastery (1578-1777)
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  Infirmary Street (1777-1829)
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  Calton Hill (1829-1968)
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  Barnton (1968-present)

Alumni and Former Pupils

Further information: [[:List of alumni of the Royal High School (Edinburgh)]]

The Royal High School clubs of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were class clubs, formed by cohorts of old boys who had studied for four years under one master before being taken under the rector's wing in their fifth. The names of some of the last class clubs are immortalised in the school prizes they endowed, such as the Boyd Prize (1857) now awarded to the Dux of Form I, the Macmillan Club Prize (1865), a gold watch now awarded to the Dux in English, and the Carmichael Club Medal (1878), now given to the Dux of Form III. However, because the traditional cohort system was governed by independent masters with separate student followings, the club classes did little to foster a common school spirit.

Thus, even after 1808, when fourteen former pupils of Dr. Alexander Adam banded together as the first High School Club and commissioned Henry Raeburn to paint a portrait of their master as a gift to the school, the old independence resurfaced again, in 1859, when the five surviving members handed over the priceless masterpiece to the Scottish National Gallery. The school instituted legal proceedings against the club, but in the end had to make do with a Cruickshank copy of the original, presented in 1864.

Today the Royal High School has three flourishing former pupils' clubs in the United Kingdom. The present Royal High School Club was founded in 1849 under the presidency of the Earl of Camperdown. The first annual report, dated July 1850, contains the original constitution, clause IV of which states: 'The objects of the Club shall be generally to promote the interests of the High School, maintain a good understanding, and form a bond of union among the former Pupils of that institution.' Known in the beginning, like its predecessor, simply as the High School Club, it adopted its full name in 1907. Since 1863 the club has given an annual prize at the school games. It also pays for the framings of engravings of former pupils and other art works which decorate the walls of the school.

The Royal High School Club in London was founded in 1889. On the occasion of its seventieth anniversary dinner (1959) the Scotsman reported: 'We believe the London Club is indeed the oldest Scottish School Club in existence in London – among the members are No. 111 HRH The Prince of Wales, Sandringham.'

The third former pupils club in the UK is the Royal High School Achievers Society.

The Royal High School (Canada) Club was formed in Winnipeg in 1914, and after lapsing into inactivity because of the war it was revived in British Columbia in 1939. The Royal High School (India) Club was formed in 1925 to help former pupils in the east; it disbanded in 1959. The Royal High School (Malaya) Club flourished between the two world wars and was revived in the 1950s.

For many years the school maintained a boarding facility for pupils from outside Edinburgh. The boarders ranged in age from six to eighteen. The House, as it was known, was located at 24 Royal Terrace and in later years moved to 13 Royal Terrace. When the boarding house was closed the records of all boarders, the artefacts such as the board with the names of head boys, and the memorial to boarders killed in the 39-45 war, were all lost.