Barcaldine School
Rhugarbh School
Lochnell School, Benderloch
Achnacree School - Queens Brae
Ardchattan School, Bonawe
Etive Schools
- Invercharnan school - mentioned in |1871 Scotlandsplaces
School rolls
School teachers
Education
In Ardchattan and Muckairn, Argyll a small school was opened at Inverawe to accommodate the children of quarry workers, and another was re-established in Barcaldine where ‘a valuable new industry’ in the form of a processing factory had been introduced and the Forestry Commission employed ‘a large number of workers’.
While the latter was to remain open, and is still in operation today, the former was shut in 1945 ‘when work ceased or slackened and the parents sought employment elsewhere’.1
school roll 1929 - 2000
Ardchattan 88 - 13
Lochnell 29 - 101
Schools .. The small rural school and community relations in Scotland, 1872-2000: an interdisciplinary history Helen Louise Young University of Stirling PhD History Submitted July 2016
Many other parishes in the sample benefited from philanthropic donations, with nine accounts (15%) overall making mention of this.147 However, in most cases the amounts were fairly small and there were often conditions attached. Provision for the education of the poor was a common aim and although this normally came in the form of fee payment for a set number of scholars at the parochial school, support was sometimes directed at outlying private schools.
This was the case in Mouswald, Dumfries, where a schoolmaster, who had been a native of the parish, left ‘between 30 s., and 40 s. per annum’ to a school ‘in another quarter of the parish’.
In addition to individual bequests, funding and supervision by charitable societies augmented provision in certain areas, with mention being made of SSPCK schools in eight of the rural parishes (14%).149 These parishes were: Kilmartin, South Knapdale, and Ardchattan and Muckairn in Argyll; Kirkmichael in Banff; Lochs on the Isle of Lewis; Glengairn, and Strathdon in Aberdeen; and Laggan in Inverness
While half of these had one such school, three parishes had two, and one, South Knapdale in Argyll, had three. Interestingly, this last parish did not have a parochial school in operation at this time which is surprising given that the population had increased by eighteen percent since 1755 leaving the three society schools struggling to ‘accommodate all the children’.
Why the heritors were neglecting their duty in this regard is unclear, but ‘the want of proper schools’ in the district was a major issue.151 It is also worth noting that industrial subjects were sometimes taught in the SSPCK schools. This was the case in lower Ardchattan where the schoolmaster’s wife was paid ‘for teaching young girls to spin, and knit stockings’, a
practice that was felt to be ‘of great benefit to the parish’.2
Those simply referring to Gaelic being the main language were: Lochs, Isle of Lewis, Ardchattan and Muckairn, Argyll, Golspie, Sutherland, and Duirinish, Isle of Skye.
While the overwhelming majority of parishes (85%) were seen to be well catered for,
provision was considered inadequate in nine parishes (15%) due to the size, position, or
condition of the schools.341 In some places it was just a handful of dwellings that lay more than a few miles from a school. For example, in Inverchaolain, Argyll there were ‘two isolated houses inconveniently distant from any school’, and at the other end of the country in Southdean, Roxburgh, ‘seven dwellings on the hill farm of Hyndlee’ were four miles away.342 Yet, in other parishes, small pockets of population across a larger area were affected. This was the case in Ardchattan, Argyll which had ‘some farmers, foresters and shepherds in the mountainous parts and in the glens far from any schools’,3
in the 1876 survey on schools interested in gaelic instruction, there are 6 schools in Ardchattan expressing active interest.
In Ardchattan and Muckairn, Argyll a small school was opened at Inverawe to accommodate the children of quarry workers, and another was re-established in Barcaldine where ‘a valuable new industry’ in the form of a (Seaweed) processing factory
had been introduced and the Forestry Commission employed ‘a large number of workers’. While the latter was to remain open, and is still in operation today, the former was shut in 1945 ‘when work ceased or slackened and the parents sought employment elsewhere’.4
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