Helensburgh Heritage
Helensburgh Heritage Trust
GLEN DOUGLAS is best known nowadays as the home of a NATO ammunition depot, but in days gone by it was a thriving community with its own school.
The story of the isolated country school is not unlike a person — a protracted difficult birth followed by challenging early years, with maturity a much more settled period, but then unforeseen developments led to its demise.
ONE of the oldest and longest running schools ever to function in what is now Helensburgh and Lomond was in Glen Fruin . . . and it had a very unusual origin.
In 1755 James Glen, who held charters for the lands of Portincaple and what were known as the Chapel Lands of Glen Fruin, executed a Deed of Mortification, which would today be called a bequest.
DURING its 200 years as a town, Helensburgh has had a number or private schools, particularly for nursery age children. One not so well known was Miss Ottman's School.
Edinburgh man Robert Whitton, who has researched the school, unearthed much of the Ottman family tree.
PENINSULA residents are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the present Rosneath Primary School . . . but its history goes much further back than that.
Staff, parents and pupils — assisted by Cove Park’s Dawn Youll and artist Linda Florence — are busy organising appropriate events under the supervision of head teacher Mrs Emma McDermid.One of Linda’s aims is to produce an artwork which will reflect input from the children, including feedback from a recent question and answer session which included parents.
WHEN compulsory education for primary age children began in 1872, it posed a challenge for hamlets some distance from towns and villages, such as Glenmallan on Loch Longside.
The educational body set up to administer the system, the School Board of the Parish of Row, did however come up with a plan to build a school there as early as 1873.
MUNICIPAL AND CHURCH SCHOOLS IN HELENSBURGH
Notes:
1. Private schools are excluded.
2. Information prior to 1956 comes principally from Helensburgh Directories.
3. Names change slightly over the years.
TRAINING SHIPS were a way of life — and a hard one — in the Gareloch from 1869 for 54 years.
But Helensburgh and Rhu benefitted in various ways from the two former sailing ships moored off Kidston Point and the boys who lived on them.