Archive Photo of The Month – January

Each month we share a piece of the School’s history with our Archive Photo of the Month. This month we share the oldest photo we have of a Hutchesons’ School.

The photo below was taken between 1841 – 1876. The School knows this because the school was built in 1841, and it was renovated and enlarged in 1876, with new features added. Speculatively our School Archivist thinks the two gentlemen pictured outside the door are the rector, Thomas Menzies and the school janitor (the janitors wore quite distinctive uniforms then.)

You can just see two passers-by who have walked into shot while the photograph was being taken. Interestingly, above the door it is inscribed ‘Hutcheson’ rather than Hutchesons’.

This was the first Hutchesons’ school to have a playground, ‘an uncovered classroom’ as the educational thinker, David Stowe said. The playground was not only used for the boys’ recreation and drill practice but was also used by local rifle battalions for their drill practice.

The site for the school was chosen because it was on Hutchesons’ Hospital land. It was outside the Burgh of Glasgow, a bone of contention for some who wanted the school to remain ‘a Glasgow school’, but it was a green, open space, with clean air, quite different to the old school in Ingram Street, with its cramped, dirty conditions in the centre of Glasgow.

School Archive:

Committed to the collection, preservation and maintenance of the records of the school, its activities and pupils, the School strives to record the school’s history and memory and hold a range of archive material from class registers and magazines to photographs, trophies and uniforms. Pupils are encouraged at both Primary and Secondary School to engage with archive material, with the aim to provide a dynamic educational resource for the school and wider community.

Would you like to know more about the School’s History? Contact our School Archivist, Ms Devenney at archives@hutchesons.org with any enquiries.