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The Dick Bequest: The Effect of a Famous Nineteenth - Century Endowment on Parish Schools of North East Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Marjorie Cruickshank
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Extract

From Reformation times it was not uncommon for the successful businessman or merchant at the end of his life to make material provision for the benefit of his birthplace. Perhaps he left money to alleviate the burdens of the aged poor, or he sought to assist those at the start of life by some form of educational endowment. Alas, many such legacies suffered from the hazards of time, from declining money values, and from inefficient trusteeship. The Dick Bequest, applicable to education in the rural parishes of North East Scotland from the early years of the nineteenth century, was one of the most remarkable and rewarding of endowments. Shrewdly administered, it was through the years adapted to changing circumstances to nourish and sustain the best traditions of the past.

Type
Research Article
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , September 1965 , pp. 153 - 165
Copyright
Copyright © 1965, University of Pittsburgh Press 

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References

Notes

1. Details of his life and the terms of his will are given in 3rd Report of the Royal Commissioners on Endowed Schools and Hospitals, Appendix 1, (1875), 113 et seq.Google Scholar

2. There were 124 parishes, 13 of which had an additional or “side” school.Google Scholar

3. Evidence of the Principal of Aberdeen who observed that students who had £50 a year were demoralized by extravagance. 2nd Report of the Royal Commissioners on Endowed Schools and Hospitals with Evidence and Appendix (1874), 160.Google Scholar

4. Laurie, S. S., Report to the Trustees of the Dick Bequest (Edinburgh, 1890), 58–9.Google Scholar

5. Menzies, Allan, Report to the Trustees of the Dick Bequest (Edinburgh, 1836), 25 et seq.Google Scholar

6. Ibid., 97.Google Scholar

7. Laurie, S. S., op. cit., 61 et seq. (Laurie gives a retrospective account).Google Scholar

8. Menzies, Allan, op. cit., 30.Google Scholar

9. 2nd Report of the Royal Commissioners on Endowed Schools and Hospitals with Evidence and Appendix (1874), 215–6.Google Scholar

10. Menzies, Allan, Report to the Trustees of the Dick Bequest (Edinburgh, 1854), 44.Google Scholar

11. 3rd Report of the Royal Commissioners on Endowed Schools and Hospitals (1875), 121 (There were now 156 schools qualifying for grants under the Bequest.)Google Scholar

12. Government inspection of schools in Scotland commenced in 1840 but did not become general till the 1860's.Google Scholar

13. Menzies, Allan, Report to the Trustees of the Dick Bequest (Edinburgh, 1854), 155.Google Scholar

14. Menzies, Allan, Report to the Trustees of the Dick Bequest (Edinburgh, 1846), 227.Google Scholar

15. 2nd Report of the Royal Commissioners on Endowed Schools and Hospitals with Evidence and Appendix (1874), 217. They were sent to observe the “intellectual” method, i.e. getting children to attach meaning to what they read and to re-express their knowledge in their own words.Google Scholar

16. Laurie, S. S., Report to the Trustees of the Dick Bequest (Edinburgh, 1865), 287–8.Google Scholar

17. Ibid., 292.Google Scholar

18. Ibid., 310 et seq.Google Scholar

19. Menzies, Allan, Report to the Trustees of the Dick Bequest (Edinburgh, 1854), 104.Google Scholar

20. Laurie, S. S., Report to the Trustees of the Dick Bequest (Edinburgh, 1865), 314.Google Scholar

21. Narrative of the Proceedings of the Inauguration of Hutcheson's Grammar School (Glasgow, 1876), 47.Google Scholar

22. 2nd Report of the Royal Commissioners on Endowed Schools and Hospitals with Evidence and Appendix (1874), 214. The preceding statistics are taken from this source. (The Milne Bequest added £20 per annum to salaries in Aberdeenshire.)Google Scholar

23. Laurie, S. S., Report to the Trustees of the Dick Bequest (Edinburgh, 1890), 35.Google Scholar

24. Fordyce school in Morayshire, for example, was especially attractive because of the Seafield bursaries which could be held at the school and then transferred to the University.Google Scholar

25. Laurie, S. S., Report to the Trustees of the Dick Bequest (Edinburgh, 1890), 51.Google Scholar

26. Ibid., 82–3.Google Scholar

27. New regulations were described in Laurie, S. S., General Report to the Governors of the Dick Bequest (Edinburgh, 1904), 15 et seq.Google Scholar

28. Ibid., 43.Google Scholar