|
|
|
|
Royal High School (Edinburgh)
|
| |
|
| |
The Royal High School (RHS) of Edinburgh can trace its roots back to 1128, and is one of the oldest schools in Scotland. It is a co-educational state comprehensive school, administered by the City of Edinburgh Council. It serves about 1200 pupils, largely from the north-west suburbs of the city, in the EH4 postcode: Barnton, Cramond, Davidson's Mains, Blackhall, Cammo, Silverknowes, some areas of Muirhouse and Clermiston. It was last inspected by Her Majesty's Inspectors in April 2007.
The Royal High School's national profile has at times given it a flagship role in public education, piloting such experiments as the introduction of the Certificate of Secondary Education, the provision of setting in English and mathematics, and the curricular integration of European studies and, formerly, the International Baccalaureate.
The Latin tradition on which the school was established almost a millennium ago also endures: it is the only state school in Edinburgh to offer classical studies as a course option to those in their third year of secondary study; it is one of the few in Scotland to provide a classical education.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Royal High School (Edinburgh)' Start a new discussion about 'Royal High School (Edinburgh)' Answer questions from other users |
Encyclopedia
The Royal High School (RHS) of Edinburgh can trace its roots back to 1128, and is one of the oldest schools in Scotland. It is a co-educational state comprehensive school, administered by the City of Edinburgh Council. It serves about 1200 pupils, largely from the north-west suburbs of the city, in the EH4 postcode: Barnton, Cramond, Davidson's Mains, Blackhall, Cammo, Silverknowes, some areas of Muirhouse and Clermiston. It was last inspected by Her Majesty's Inspectors in April 2007.
The Royal High School's national profile has at times given it a flagship role in public education, piloting such experiments as the introduction of the Certificate of Secondary Education, the provision of setting in English and mathematics, and the curricular integration of European studies and, formerly, the International Baccalaureate.
The Latin tradition on which the school was established almost a millennium ago also endures: it is the only state school in Edinburgh to offer classical studies as a course option to those in their third year of secondary study; it is one of the few in Scotland to provide a classical education. It is also unusual in teaching geology as a subject.
The incumbent rector is George Smuga. He is currently working with the Scottish Government to reform the national curriculum, and in his absence the senior depute, David Simpson, is acting head.
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:
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. The prefect system was established in 1915. The Royal High School remained a boys-only, selective school until 1973, when it began to admit girls and became a co-educational state comprehensive.
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), the famous building on Calton Hill (1829-1968), Jock's Lodge – now the Royal High Primary School (1931-1972), and its current site at Barnton, to which it moved in 1968.
Image:Blackfriars_Wynd.jpg|Cardinal Beaton’s House, Blackfriars Wynd (1555-1569)
Image:High School, Blackfriars 1578.jpg|Blackfriars Monastery (1578-1777)
Image:High School, Infirmary Street, 1777.jpg|Infirmary Street (1777-1829)
Image:High School, Calton Hill, 1829.jpg|Calton Hill (1829-1968)
Image:Royal High School, Barnton, Edinburgh.jpg|Barnton (1968-present)
Academics
In their last report on the Royal High School of April 2007, HM Inspectors found ‘very high levels of attainment at all stages’, ‘motivated pupils who took a pride in their school’, and ‘a very positive school ethos’. Pupils scored highly in national examinations, consistently outperforming those in comparator schools as well as the Edinburgh and national averages.
130 university entrants from the Royal High School or 30.1% went to one of the ‘Sutton 13’ top UK universities in the five years between 2002 and 2006, second among Scottish state schools and colleges. In 2006 the Royal High School’s ranking for Higher grades was joint third in the Edinburgh state school league tables (joint seventeenth nationally in the state school rankings).
Arms
The Royal High School's armorial bearings derive from the shield of the city arms, and antedate the Act of Parliament on the subject in 1672. Their simple early form can be seen on a carved stone formerly set above the principal entrance to the school at Blackfriars in 1578. The pediment from the 1578 building was incorporated into the Regent Road building in 1897.
The present design was matriculated by the Lord Lyon in 1920. The description reads: 'Sable, a castle triple towered and embattled argent, masoned of the first, windows and doors open gules set upon a rock proper. Above the shield is placed a helmet befitting its degree with a mantling sable doubled argent and in a scroll over the same this motto Musis Respublica Floret (The State Flourishes with the Muses).' The W.C.A. Ross memorial crest displaying the school arms was unveiled at the main entrance at Barnton in 1973.
Uniform
The school uniform is black and white, derived from the municipal colours of Edinburgh.
The school badge features the school motto and the embattled triple-towered castle of the school arms. Prefects are presented with a silver badge (gold for school captain) to pin on their blazer. A select few 5th-formers are also awarded this badge.
Sports and games
The Royal High School boasts many venerable sporting clubs. The RHS Cricket Club was formed in 1861. The RHS Rugby Football Club was formed in 1868. The RHS Golf Club was formed in 1876. The RHS Athletic Club was formed in 1920. These clubs were pioneered by former and attending pupils, who originally played their games together. Among the celebrated student founders of cricket and football at the school were Taverner Knott and Nat Watt, who undertook their labours with the encouragement of Thomson Whyte, reportedly the first master to take a serious interest in sport at the school. The sporting clubs were formally integrated into the school body when, in 1900, at the request of the club captains, two masters undertook the management of cricket and rugby.
The school's annual games date from the early 1860s, following the acquisition of Holyrood Field for use as a cricket field in 1860. At first the organisation of the games was undertaken by the masters, but at the request of the rector, Dr. James Donaldson, the burden was assumed by the Cricket Club, which carried it until the outbreak of the First World War.
The nations system was introduced in 1912 by a later rector, Dr. William J. Watson. This has continued to the present day. On joining the school every pupil is allotted membership in one of four school houses, known as nations, named after the gentes or primordial peoples from the infancy of the Scottish state: Angles, Britons, Picts and Scots. Siblings are usually members of the same nation. The nations originally competed against each other in athletics, cricket and rugby, the champion nation being awarded the school shield for the annual session.
Conceived as a character-building exercise, the annual games and nations system were intended to foster a team spirit and encourage physical activity among all pupils. Within each nation, masters were appointed to committees to develop Under 15 and Under 13 cricket and rugby teams, and to broaden participation beyond the First XI and XV by training pupils of every level of ability. The competitive scheme proved popular with pupils and teachers and has since been expanded to encompass a wide variety of games, sports, and other extracurricular activities, held throughout the year. Nation badges were introduced in 1928.
Today the nations compete for the Crichton Cup. This was first presented as a trophy for the inter-nation squadron swimming race in 1914 by J. D. Crichton, whose sons were at the school. In 1920 it was transferred to the nation championship in scholarship and athletics combined.
Earlier generations of Royal High Scholars had played their own schoolyard game, known as clacken from the wooden bat used by players, and as late as the 1880s 'no High School boy considered his equipment complete unless the wooden clacken hung to his wrist as he went and came', but the rise of national games, especially rugby, the grant of Holyrood Field for cricket in 1860, and the construction of a gymnasium and swimming bath in 1885, meant the ancient Royal High Schoolyard game was extinct by 1911.
Former pupils clubs
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.
European partnerships
Since the United Kingdom's accession to the European Union, the Royal High School's historic association with the City of Edinburgh has led it to cultivate international relationships through regular musical exchanges with sister cities on the Continent such as Florence (from 1975) and Munich (from 1979), and with other schools such as the Theodolinden-Gymnasium, Munich (from 1979), the Lycée Antoine-de-Saint Exupéry, Lyon (from 1991), and the Scuola di Musica ‘Giuseppe Verdi’, Prato (from 1993). In 1992 the school was awarded a European Curriculum Award by the British Government in recognition of its contribution to the development of European awareness in education.
Publications
The official school magazine is Schola Regia. This is a vox discipuli that enables pupils to air their views and showcase their literary and artistic talents. It features news and creative input from all sections of the school community, including regular club reports and interviews with famous former pupils. The journal is produced by an editorial committee of student volunteers, usually with the assistance of a teacher from the English department. It is partly financed by commercial advertising and is published in the autumn. The Malcolm Knox Prize is awarded annually for the best contribution.
The first, short-lived, school magazine was published in 1886. Like its successor, it was subsidised by the school club. The maiden issue of Schola Regia appeared in 1895 and the present series began in 1904. The magazine’s archive is both a repository of irreverent anecdotes about school life and a valuable source for history in a larger sense. The wartime volumes contain many letters from former pupils serving at the front.
The Royal High School also publishes an Annual Report at the end of the school session in July. As the school’s main publication of record, it contains future session dates, a staff list, the rector’s report, a programme for the commemoration day ceremony, a list of awards, and a roll of pupils. The rector's report was first published in 1846.
School song
The Royal High School song is Vivas Schola Regia (1895).
Rectors
- 1128 Nominees of the Abbots of Holyrood
- 1519 David Vocat
- 1524 Henry Henryson, MA
- 1530 Adam Mure, MA
- 1545 Sir John Allan
- 1546 William Robertoun
- 1568 Thomas Buchanan, MA
- 1571 William Robertoun (again)
- 1584 Hercules Rollock, MA
- 1596 Alexander Hume, MA
- 1606 John Ray, MA
- 1630 Thomas Crawford, MA
- 1641 William Spence, MA
- 1650 Hew Wallace, MA
- 1656 John Muir, MA
- 1660 John Home, MA
- 1665 David Ferguson, MA
- 1669 Alexander Rutherford, MA
- 1672 Alexander Heriot, MA
- 1679 Archibald Guillane, MA
| 1680 William Skene, MA 1717 George Arbuthnot, MA 1735 John Lees, MA 1759 Alexander Matheson, MA 1768 Alexander Adam, LLD 1810 James Pillans, MA 1820 Aglionby-Ross Carson, LLD 1845 Leonhard Schmitz, PhD, LLD 1865 James Donaldson, MA, LLD (later Sir James) 1882 John Marshall, MA, LLD 1909 William J. Watson, MA, LLD 1914 John Strong, CBE, MA, LLD 1919 William King Gillies, MA, LLD 1940 James J. Robertson, MA, BD (later Sir James) 1942 Albert H. R. Ball, MA 1948 David Stuart M. Imrie, MA, PhD 1965 Baillie T. Ruthven, MA 1972 Farquhar Macintosh, MA 1989 Matthew M. MacIver, MA 1998 George M. R. Smuga, MA |
Calton Hill building
Main article: New Parliament House, Edinburgh
The A-listed Old Royal High School building was erected between 1826 and 1829 on the south face of Calton Hill as part of Edinburgh's Acropolis, at a cost to the Town Council of £34,000. Of this £500 was given by HM The King 'as a token of royal favour towards a School, which, as a royal foundation, had conferred for ages incalculable benefits on the community'.
It was designed in a neo-classical Greek Doric style by Thomas Hamilton, who modelled the portico and Great Hall on the Hephaisteion of Athens. Paired with St. George's Hall, Liverpool, as one of the ‘two finest buildings in the kingdom’ by Alexander Thomson in 1866, it has been praised as 'the architect's supreme masterpiece and the finest monument of the Greek revival in Scotland'.
After the school relocated to larger modern premises at Barnton in 1968, the vacated building was considered by the Scottish Office as a home for the Scottish Assembly and renamed New Parliament House.
Popular culture
Among the Royal High School's innumerable appearances in literature are the stories related in the Gentleman's Magazine, Walter Scott's Autobiography, Lord Cockburn's Memorials, Captain Basil Hall's Log Book of a Midshipman, George Borrow's Lavengro, and George M'Crie's 1866 poem, The Old High School.
The most celebrated of all is the ‘Green-Breeks’ episode in Scott’s novel, Waverley, Appendix III (1814). The author, a pupil from 1779 to 1783, reminisces wistfully about the bicker, or traditional mass brawl, humorously likened to a Homeric battle, fought in the streets of Edinburgh between pupils from different social classes.
A school ballad, The Woeful Slaying of Bailie Macmoran, was founded on a school siege of 1595 known as the great barring-out. This turbulent history continues to inspire new work. Gentlemen’s Bairns is a play by C. S. Lincoln which premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2005. It dramatises the fatal shooting during the siege of a chief magistrate, John Macmoran, by a pupil, William Sinclair, a younger son of the Earl of Caithness.
See also
External links
|
| |
|
|
