Archive Photo of The Month

Hutchesons’ Grammar School has a long and illustrious history, and the School Archive holds a wealth of material spanning our unique, evolving identity and history.

Each month we will share a piece of this history with our Archive Photo of the Month.

This month we share the ceremonial ‘mallet’ that was used when the foundation stone was laid for the new school in Kingarth Street.

The Girls’ School was originally in Elgin Street (now Turriff Road) but by 1903 conditions were becoming cramped. A new school was proposed and the architects Messers Thomson and Sandilands were commissioned to design the new school. (Thomson was the eldest surviving son of Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson.) The laying of the foundation stone on 3rd April 1911 was a big event and the press were also in attendance along with the girls and staff of the school. This mallet would have been ceremoniously used to tap in the foundation stone and a ceremonial silver trowel (also held in the school archive) was presented to the then Baillie by the contractors.

In 1912 Hutchesons’ Girls Grammar School moved to the new site in Kingarth Street and was opened by Lord Balfour. The school was lit by electricity, something the boys’ school didn’t have until 1927, and was built on the new ‘hub’ model, with rooms on two levels, around a central hall. The building had 22 classrooms, 3 art rooms, 4 science rooms, 2 music rooms, a gymnasium, a dining hall for 150, a library and playing fields for hockey and tennis.

One famous pupil who attended the school, when it first opened in 1912, was Madge Easton Anderson, who went on to be the first female solicitor in Scotland and the first woman to practice law in the UK. Madge advised the school on their appointment of the first female principal of the Girls’ school, as the school had been given erroneous legal advice telling them they couldn’t hire a female in that post. The first female Principal, Margaret Kennedy, was appointed in 1927.

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.