Village Hall Week 2024 - Prestonpans Event Cache

Event

When - Wednesday 20th March 2024

Where - Prestonpans Community Centre, Prestonpans

Time - 11:30 - 12:30

In Scotland many towns have a Community Centre instead of a Village Hall.  They serve the same purpose by providing the community somewhere to hold events and gather together.

There are still some Village Halls in East Lothian - Gullane, Aberlady, Whitekirk, Tyninghame and Macmerry.  With a few others.

Although their involvement with Prestonpans began one hundred years apart these two extraordinary benefactors shared remarkable similarities as providers of residential education in Prestonpans, a town with which neither had any recorded previous connection. In 1780 most of the old Preston Estate including Preston House, which had been in Lord Grange’s ownership in the first half of the century, was purchased by Dr. James Schaw. He has no personal recorded history prior to that acquisition nor does he appear in any formal Scottish biographical records other than in abbreviated form relating to his endowment of the Prestonpans School. A family named Schaw living at Saltoun, East Lothian may have been related but there is no other possible East Lothian connection prior to his appearance at Prestonpans that year. And relatively soon afterwards in 1784 Dr. James Schaw died at Preston House bequeathing a legacy which provided handsomely for some of the young males of Prestonpans and the surrounding area. Dr. Schaw bequeathed the majority of the Barony and Lands of Preston, together with the proceeds thereof, to create a trust for old Preston House “to be fitted up for the maintenance and education of boys of poor but respectable parents.” He also left a small legacy to his daughter, Mrs. Sawyer, with the proviso that should she die without issue her inheritance would also revert to his Prestonpans Trust which it duly did. Schaw’s Hospital for Boys There had always been a school of sorts in Prestonpans ever since the high profile establishment set up by John Davidson during the 17th century where Alexander Hume ‘The Grammarian’ taught Greek, Hebrew and Latin. In contrast Schaw’s Hospital as it was to become known had a more fundamental educational purpose. Not unexpectedly Dr Schaw attached many conditions to his legacy. Boys could only be admitted to the school between the ages of four and seven and remain there until they attained the age of fourteen. They were on admission to be absolutely free from the King’s evil and from all contagious distempers. 54 Preference was to be accorded to those with the surnames Schaw, MacNeill, Cunningham and Stewart. There was never any reason given for the preferential treatment accorded to the latter three surnames. Schaw’s Hospital opened as a school in Preston House during February 1789 initially run by a master, a housekeeper and two maid servants. There is no known reason for the five year delay in opening the establishment but initially and for many subsequent years there were only fifteen students enrolled at the school. The students were taught English, writing and arithmetic and also received some instruction in how to knit stockings and mend their clothes and shoes. No fewer than 19 Trustees were appointed to supervise and administer these 15 boys and in keeping with the practice of the time they included the Parish Ministers of both Prestonpans and Tranent. On completion of their education those Trustees were empowered to “bind the boys as apprentices or otherwise let them out to businesses as they judge best.” A Matron was later appointed with responsibility for the fundamental schoolhouse administration. Preston House was eventually extended and adapted to successfully accommodate twenty four pupils. The Trustees, through prudent investments, had greatly enhanced the original bequest and decided to use the funds to create larger accommodation so more pupils could benefit. A new site was chosen just to the north of Preston House and in 1832 a new building designed in the old English Jacobean style by William Burn was completed at a cost of £3 000. The students together with their headmaster Mr. McBride moved to their new home and Preston House was abandoned. Old Registers held within the Scottish Archives in Edinburgh do list names of many pupils who benefited from a Schaw education but those lists are thought to be incomplete. It cannot therefore be absolutely certain how many boys passed through the school. Some boys are known to have benefited greatly from their early education and many emigrated to America and elsewhere. William Jelly became a distinguished doctor of medicine in San Francisco and George Goldie a gymnastics instructor at Princeton University in the USA whilst John Chisholm became an eminent dental surgeon in Edinburgh. The first pupil with the surname Shaw – without the ‘c’ – was not admitted to the school until 1804 and he later became Chief Accountant of the old Eastern Bank.  The school was brought to an end by the Endowed Hospitals Act of 1881. Schaw’s funds were appropriated and the establishment ceased to operate coincidentally in the same year as the high profile opening of Prestonpans Public School by Lady Susan Grant-Suttie. Despite the closure of Schaw’s school a financial legacy remained which provided an annual award well into the 20th century for the best pupil attending secondary school in Prestonpans. ✵✵✵✵ Mary Murray died at the age of 86 at her High Street home in Dysart, Fife on 26 November 1861. She was born in Edinburgh the daughter of wine merchant William Murray and his wife Margaret. Neither Mary or her parents have any traceable connection with Prestonpans. Her exact place of birth and parentage are unclear but her Will made provision for girls that was strikingly similar to that made by James Schaw a century earlier in respect of boys. Her bequest was to found “an hospital for the training of female children of poor but respectable parents as domestic servants”. On her death, the Estate was worth some £20 000 but she, perhaps unusually, expressed a primary condition that the sum should be allowed to accumulate for a period of twenty one years under the care of named Trustees – John Dundas, William Wilson, Samuel Davidson and Alexander Montgomery Bell. By 1882, Mary Murray’s legacy had increased to £36 000. By then unfortunately the original trustees had passed away but alternative trustees – the Keeper of the Signet and his Deputy together with their Commissioners – had assumed administration of the Mary Murray Trust. In 1882 those new trustees proceeded to take a twenty five years lease of the old and empty Schaw’s Hospital building to implement the directions of Miss Murray in setting up her proposed school for girls. Like Schaw a century previously Miss Murray’s Will contained copious conditions, provisos and strict rules to be absolutely observed by her trustees. The Murray Institute for Girls Children with the surname Murray, if their claims in all other respects appeared to her trustees to be equal, were to be given preference of admission to the school. Children were to be accepted between the ages of six and eight and remain there until age fourteen, at which time they were to be found a place in domestic service. Whereas Schaw’s directions had allowed some discretion regarding employment subsequent to the boys’ formal education all pupils of the Mary Murray Institute were invariably to be placed in domestic service. To equip them for such employment the girls were to be instructed in reading, writing, arithmetic, sewing, spinning, knitting ‘and such other plain, useful acquirements as my said Trustees shall think best calculated for them’. However, the most important requirement was that all the pupils were to be taught the principles of religion, honesty and truth. Reading of the Scriptures together with prayers were to be a morning and evening necessity. No male teacher or chaplain was ever to be admitted or employed in the school, the whole establishment to be controlled by a ‘proper mistress’ or matron appointed at the discretion of the trustees. Miss Isabella Meikle, previously of Donaldson’s School in Edinburgh, was appointed Matron and apparently remained in that position throughout her working life as indeed did many of the later teachers. Miss Murray empowered the trustees to determine rules for actual management and general administration of the school. It was decided that the establishment would be run by eight directors all of whom were appointed from the Office of the Signet. They were the Keeper of the Signet, his Deputy and six of his Commissioners. These men formulated specific rules which effectively guaranteed the smooth running of the school. Unlike the delay in setting up Schaw’s school the Mary Murray Institute opened in 1882 with an initial intake of twenty six students including two from Dysart in Fife, where the Magistrates and Town Council had been invited annually to nominate two girls for admission to the institution. This was not a prescribed requirement of the Will so the Dysart invitation must supposedly have been a gesture of good will by the administrators. There was never any breath of scandal associated with the Murray Institute and a report dated 1901 revealed that by that year many girls had completed their education and been placed successfully in domestic service. During 1901 the yearly roll of students had increased to sixty eight and Miss Meikle was confirmed as still in charge. Another teacher, Miss Thomson, had already recorded sixteen years service giving an indication of stability within the teaching and administrative staff.  Miss Murray’s concern for the pupils obviously extended beyond the years of their formal education. If a student had remained with her first employer until the age of twenty then “provided she had at all times conducted herself with decorum (she) would receive a present not exceeding £10 from Miss Murray’s Trust either on the occasion of her marriage or attaining the age of forty”. In practice because of the excellent management of funds by the Trustees every girl who successfully concluded her formal education was given a present of £10 on leaving the Institute. It was further provided that any former pupil attaining the age of sixty, and having no home of her own, could return to live in the Institute where she would be given work in accordance with her age and strength, subject to the woman having throughout her life, conducted herself with “proper propriety”. Extensive changes in the provision of formal education during the first half of the 20th century saw the gradual demise of the Murray Institute. The old Schaw School building survived for many years as a venue for other purposes.

A group photo will be taken at 12:30

Event will take place inside the Community Centre and the cafe will be open