The School in Crown Street 1841-1876
By 1839 the roll stood at 120 which prompted the decision to build a new school in Crown Street, Gorbals The location was described as "possessing quietness of situation, good air and a roomy open site'. Gorbals was still in the country, although Dixon's Ironworks (Dixon's Blazes) was already established there, quite close to the school. But there was little else, although residential housing would follow before the Gorbals became a byword for tenement-living and poverty.
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new building was opened in 1841 and was in use until 1960. As Glasgow industrialised and mushroomed in size, the Gorbals was transformed by immigration from the country, Ireland and Central Europe. Education too was in a tumult. Teaching by monitors was under attack, initially and notably by the great reform-minded industrialist Robert Owen, as producing mere memorisation without understanding. The need to educate the vast numbers of poor children in the unprecedented growth of industrialsing cities created huge problems and intense discussion. The new Hutchesons' school was built on the then novel principle of separate classrooms and, by including a playground, showed the architect and Patrons influenced by the work of progressive theorist David Stow, whose Glasgow Normal Seminary for the training of teachers was a leader in new methods. Stow saw the playground as an "uncovered classroom", integral to a child's development.Once again, the School showed itself to be leading the way.
Some argued that a Hutchesons' School in the Gorbals, then outside Glasgow's boundaries, was inconsistent with the Founders' wishes to educate Glasgow children. But building went ahead and the School was opened on the day of the colourful annual procession of Glasgow Charity Schools, led by the City Fathers with the masters in their gowns and the boys in their annual issue of new clothes.
Before 1841, the boys went back to the Hospital for a celebratory dinner of plum pudding, tart, toddy, beer and fruit.The Dux Medallist ate "seated into a Big Chair.....facing Hutcheson Street, covered with green branches, with oranges all around". In 1841, however, the boys, told to "go upstairs and see the grand dinner there", assumed that meant it was theirs to eat ......but it wasn't, it was for the guests. The great ones took the boys scoffing their dinner as a great joke and while the boys were thumped by the master's walking stick they were also allowed to eat the dinner meant for them.
The Hutchesons' pupil now aimed for life as a clerk rather than a craftsman. The pupils then were "mostly the children of respectablre labouring people." The roll rose to 175 by 1861 when the first great name in the history of Hutchesons' education, Thomas Menzies, was appointed headteacher. Menzies' predecessor, John McArly, was the first to be called headteacher. Menzies brought new methods - trained in the Normal College, he introduced whole-class teaching of a sort recognisable to our eyes, based on the teacher commanding the attention of all at any one time.
The curriculum now included geometry ("mensuration"), book-keep
ing and "drawing". Latin was introduced as a voluntary class before school began (at 9.30am), and by 1875 French, Greek and Drill. Everywhere, explanation not memorisation was the rule.There was a timetable, an idea which had to be explained to the Patrons (periods lasted an hour, as today).Ranking by place-taking happened daily, a dux prize was awarded now to the first in each class and attendances announced to "stimulate emulation".The School was now prepared for the next shift in national aspiration, towards econdary education, for all, and already had a curriculum of a secondary nature. But more subjects, secondary as well as elementary education, and the demand for places, meant Crown Street had to change. Menzies also wanted a re-modelled Crown Street to educate girls.
Hutchesons' Hospital "Educational Department" Regulations 1867
The card, enjoining the boys not to use "bad words" and be off the street by dark, was proof of identity when the annual distributions of clothing and money were made.