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'George Heriot's School' is an independent primary and secondary school on Lauriston Place in Edinburgh, Scotland, with around 1600 pupils. It was established in 1628 as 'George Heriot's Hospital', by bequest of the royal goldsmith George Heriot, and opened in 1659.

Contents

Architecture

History

Headmasters

Houses

Magazines

Notable alumni

References

Architecture

The main building of the school is notable for its renaissance architecture, the work of William Wallace,^[2] and the first complete example of the genre in Scotland. It is a turreted building surrounding a large quadrangle, built out of sandstone. The foundation stone is inscribed with the date 1628. The intricate decoration above each window is unique (with one paired exception - those on the ground floor either side of the now redundant central turret on the west side of the building). A statue of the founder can be found in a niche on the north side of the quadrangle.
The main building was also the first large building to be constructed outside the city walls. It sits next to Greyfriars Kirk, built in 1620, in open grounds in a fine position, overlooked by the Castle directly to the north. Parts of the sixteenth-century city wall (the Flodden Wall) are still to be found serving as the walls of the school grounds. The grounds contain a selection of other buildings of varying age; these include a swimming pool and a granite war memorial.

History

On his death in 1624, George Heriot left around 25,000 Pound Scots – equivalent to several tens of millions today – to found a "hospital" (then the name for this kind of charitable school) to care for "puir, fatherless bairns" (Scots: ''poor, fatherless children'') of Edinburgh.
The construction of 'Heriot's Hospital' (as it was first called) was begun in 1628, just outside the city walls of Edinburgh. It was completed just in time to be occupied by Oliver Cromwell's English forces during the invasion of Scotland during the Third English Civil War; the building was used as a barracks, with horses stabled in the chapel.
The hospital finally opened in 1659, with thirty pupils in residence; its finances grew, and it took in other pupils in addition to the orphans for whom it was intended. In the 1880s, it began to charge fees; however, to this day it serves its charitable object, providing free education to a sizable number of fatherless children, referred to as "foundationers". It became co-educational with the arrival of the first girls in 1979 and now has around 1500 pupils.
In 1837 the school founded ten "free schools" in Edinburgh, educating several thousand pupils across the city; these were closed in 1885. One of them, with a copy of several of the features of the original Lauriston Place building, is at the east end of the Cowgate. The school also provided funds for the establishment of an institution which later merged with the Watt Institution (named for James Watt) in the 1870s to form Heriot-Watt College, a technical college that became Heriot-Watt University in 1966.

Headmasters

School Headmasters have included :

★ 1947 - 1970 Bill Dewar,

★ 1970 - 1983 Allan McDonald (Born 1922, Died 2005),

★ 1983 - 1998 Keith Pearson,

★ 1998 - Present Alistair Hector

Houses

Pupils at the school belong to one of four houses:

★ Lauriston (green, after the school's address, Lauriston Place; named after Lauriston Castle)

★ Greyfriars (white, named after the adjacent kirk, Greyfriars Kirk)

★ Raeburn (red, after a famous former pupil, Henry Raeburn)

★ Castle (blue, after Edinburgh Castle to the north)

Magazines

The school magazine is called the ''Herioter'', and the Junior School-specific Magazine is called the ''Junior School Journal'' (shortened to ''JSJ''). There is also an annual school newspaper called ''The Heriot Herald''. In addition, there is a less formal internal online magazine written by the pupils themselves and aimed at their peers called ''The Blazer'', which can be accessed through the school's intranet.

Notable alumni

★ Nick Abbot, Talk Radio presenter

★ J. W. S. Cassels, mathematician

★ Gavin Esler, television journalist and presenter of ''Newsnight''

★ John Borthwick Gilchrist, Indologist

★ Mark Goodier, disc jockey

★ Mike Heron, musician, formerly of the Incredible String Band

★ Andy Irvine, rugby union player

★ Roy Kinnear, actor

★ Lord Mackay of Clashfern, former Lord Chancellor

★ David McLetchie, former leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party

★ Gordon Prentice, MP for Pendle

★ Henry Raeburn, painter

★ Ian Richardson, actor

★ Alastair Sim, actor

★ Ken Stott, actor

★ Nigel Tranter, historical novelist

★ Dougie Walker, sprinter

★ Gordon Ross, rugby union player

★ Bruce Douglas, international rugby player

References

1. http://www.scottishschoolsonline.gov.uk/schools/georgeheriotsschooledinburghcity.asp
2. Colvin, Howard ''A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600-1840'' John Murray, 1978