The School in the Trongate - 1648-1795
Archibald Edmiston, an orphan, became the School's first pupil in 1643, but pupils would not be taught in the Hospital building until 1648. Until then they were sent to the small private "adventure" schools which provided the scattered and stuttering elementary education then available in the city. Then, with the appointment of the first Hutchesons' teacher, John McLay, a Hutchesons' School began, in the "basement" (what we would now call the ground floor) of the single wing projecting from the rear of the Hospital building in Trongate, the schoolroom looking into the courtyard.
McLay had been tested on his "singing of the psalms", as was then a main part of a Scottish teacher's duties. The School was unusual in teaching pupils both to read and write, because it was thought then enough for the poor to be able to read, in particular their Bible ( the main impulse behind the drive for national schooling begun by the Reformation). A "lesson" meant memorisation of Bible passages which would then be chanted by the pupil to the Master at his desk, while the others chanted their lesson into memory. It was a long, noisy day, from dawn till dusk.
17th century Glasgow . Mid-century, the city held around 8000, had almost doubled in size in the past 100 years, and would expand to 12,000 by the end of the century.
The School was then a small place in those early years, with only 9 pupils in 1649. Huchesons' Hospital survived many difficult times,of famine and of plague, as well as the looting of central Glasgow by the Highlanders of the Marquis of Montrose in. 1645. The stonebuilt Hutchesons' Hospital building in the Trongate - then at the heart of Glasgow - survived the devastating fire that destroyed much of the city in 1652. It survived, too, the city's shifting alliances in the civil war of Cromwell's time before peace and monarchy was restored in 1660. It even survived becoming bankrupt in 1654, after the Town Council, who had been given management of the the institution in the Founders' Wills, expropriated the Hutchesons' fortune before relenting, cancelling all debts and funding the Hospital through rental from Hutchesons' land in the Gorbals. In all this tumult, the School was forced into closure twice, but was dereminedly resurrected by the Council.
By the end of the period in the Trongate, the School was an established, respected and integral part of Glasgow's expanding and diverse educational provision, which is exactly what the Founders' had wished for in their respective Wills. In 1793, the Statistical Account of Scotland recorded:
"Hutcheson's Hospital....under the management of the Magistrates, Council and Ministers, clothes and educates 48 boys, for a course of four years, during which time, 32 of them have an annual pension of L.3 each, and all of them, at leaving the school, are completely clothed, and bound apprentices to different trades."