George Heriot's and the Hospital Schools: A Renaissance Palace Built as a Charity School

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

It is often claimed that Heriot's inspired Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books. J. K. Rowling has not confirmed this, and it is treated here as speculation.

Jinglin' Geordie

established George Heriot was born in Edinburgh in 1563 and became a goldsmith. He was appointed goldsmith to Queen Anne of Denmark in 1597 and to King James VI, lending them large sums of money and supplying jewels. He followed the court to London after the Union of the Crowns in 1603. His wealth earned him the nickname "Jinglin' Geordie", from the sound of coins. Childless when he died in 1624, he left most of his fortune to found a hospital "for the maintenance, relief and bringing up" of poor fatherless boys, sons of Edinburgh burgesses.

The palace

established Building began in 1628 on a site below the castle. The designs, probably drawing on plans by the royal master mason William Wallace and continued by William Aytoun, created a quadrangle with corner towers, carved windows and a chapel, combining Scottish and Renaissance styles. Work was interrupted by the wars of the 1640s and 1650s, and Oliver Cromwell's troops used it as a military hospital in 1650. It opened as a school in 1659 with thirty boys.

The hospital tradition

established "Hospital" meant a charitable institution providing board, lodging and education. Hutchesons' Hospital in Glasgow was founded in 1641, eighteen years before Heriot's opened, so it cannot have copied a working Heriot's school. Once open, Heriot's became the model for others, including the Merchant Maiden Hospital (1694) and the Trades Maiden Hospital in Edinburgh, George Watson's Hospital (1741), Robert Gordon's Hospital in Aberdeen (1750), and later Donaldson's and Daniel Stewart's. Pupils, called "foundationers", wore uniforms and lived under strict discipline.

Reform

shared By the nineteenth century critics argued that the hospital system was expensive, isolating and benefited too few children. Under reforms in the 1870s and the Educational Endowments (Scotland) Act 1882, most hospitals were converted into fee-paying day schools, with some places funded by bursaries. Supporters argued this gave many more children an education; critics argued it diverted charitable endowments meant for the poor to the middle classes.

Endowments as the engine of secondary schooling

established A tradition of giving. The historian R. D. Anderson, in Scottish Education since the Reformation (1997), lists the hospitals founded before 1800: George Heriot's; George Watson's and the Merchant Maiden, run for boys and girls respectively by the Edinburgh Merchant Company; and Robert Gordon's in Aberdeen. The nineteenth century added John Watson's, Donaldson's and Daniel Stewart's in Edinburgh and Morgan's in Dundee. In his view these bequests show the profits of economic growth, the place education held in Scottish life, and a strong spirit of local loyalty.

established Why the hospitals changed. By the 1860s there was a movement to reorganise secondary education. It was driven by the demand for a more standard, examination-based syllabus, by criticism of the hospital model as a wasteful use of money, and by the weaknesses the Argyll Commission found in its report on "burgh and middle class schools". The Education (Scotland) Act 1872 handed the burgh schools to school boards but gave no state money for secondary education, and boards could not spend rates on their leading schools. New resources had to come from reforming old endowments, which became for a time the main instrument of change.

established Three Acts and two commissions. A first Act of 1869 let the Edinburgh Merchant Company turn its hospitals into large day schools, which it did in 1870; two of the new schools were large modern girls' schools. Further Acts in 1878 and 1882 set up temporary commissions to push through reform schemes. The 1882 commission, chaired by Lord Balfour of Burleigh, overhauled the urban endowments and applied the day-school model to most surviving hospitals. Its schemes usually included scholarships from elementary schools. Anderson traces the idea of moving "bright" children to secondary school at about 12 to this moment.

shared The fight over Heriot's. The reforms were accused of diverting money from the poor to the middle classes and leaving only a narrow ladder for the exceptionally able. Anderson singles out Heriot's as the case fought most bitterly, because its clientele had been the working-class elite of Edinburgh. Under an Act of 1836 the Heriot governors had used surplus income to open free "outdoor" schools across the city. Between 1838 and 1885 they ran 13 juvenile and 8 infant schools, with almost 5,000 pupils at their height in the early 1880s. The scheme imposed in 1885 wound up these schools and turned the money into scholarships and bursaries, and the hospital became a fee-paying day school for boys.

established A lasting pattern. These changes in the 1870s and 1880s fixed the shape of secondary schooling in Edinburgh and Glasgow for most of the next century. Most private schools disappeared. Proprietary schools such as Edinburgh Academy and endowed schools like Heriot's shared the market with high schools run by the school boards. Team games on the English model, especially rugby, sharpened the social differences between them.

established After 1918. The Education (Scotland) Act 1918 let local authorities keep some fee-paying schools, and the Scottish Education Department went on paying direct grants to endowed schools. Anderson notes that comprehensive reorganisation from 1965, and the withdrawal of direct grants, forced some leading schools once seen as part of the public system to become independent. Because they were mainly day schools, he argues, they stayed closer to their communities than English public schools.

From hospitals to the independent sector

established Part of a national network. Robert Anderson, in his chapter of Scottish Education (5th edn, 2018), places the reform of the hospitals within the building of Scottish secondary education. The 1872 Act did little for secondary schools, so resources were found instead from endowments, and in the 1870s and 1880s many older endowed schools, including former residential hospitals such as George Heriot's, were modernised. Alongside burgh schools and the "higher grade" schools of the school boards, they formed what Anderson calls an effective national network, preparing pupils both for university and for business.

established Leaving the state system. For much of the 20th century these schools received direct grants from the state. Anderson links their move into the independent sector to the abolition of selection in 1965: the state's direct grants to old-established endowed schools were withdrawn, and the schools passed, with their middle-class pupils, into the independent sector. John Edward, writing on the independent sector in the same volume, dates the end of grant-aided and direct grant status to the 1970s, followed by the end of the Assisted Places Scheme after 1997.

shared Charity and public benefit. The old charitable purpose returned as a political question under the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005, which required schools that were charities to show public benefit to the Scottish Charity Regulator. Edward, who writes from within the sector, reports that independent schools' means-tested and other financial assistance exceeded £40 million by 2016, and records the sharply divided views in the Scottish Parliament on whether such schools are a benefit or a "dis-benefit" to society. These are 2018 figures and judgements; later changes, such as the ending of charitable rates relief for independent schools, are outside the book's range.

Heriot's today

established George Heriot's School became a day school in 1886 and admitted girls from 1979. It still supports fatherless children through its foundation.

• George Heriot was jeweller and banker to James VI.
• His nickname was "Jinglin' Geordie".
• Cromwell's troops used the unfinished building as a military hospital.
• "Hospital" here meant a charity boarding school.
• Heriot's admitted girls from 1979.
• Before 1885 the Heriot Trust ran free day schools across Edinburgh, teaching almost 5,000 children at their peak.
• The practice of moving "bright" children to secondary school at about 12 goes back to the endowment reforms of the 1880s.

• Myth: George Heriot's inspired Hogwarts. This is often claimed, but J. K. Rowling has not confirmed it, and it remains speculation.
• Myth: the "hospital" schools were hospitals in the medical sense. "Hospital" meant a charitable institution providing board, lodging and education. Cromwell's troops did use Heriot's as a military hospital in 1650, but that was a separate matter.
• Disputed: whether converting the hospitals to day schools was right. Supporters argued it gave many more children an education. Critics argued it diverted charitable endowments meant for the poor to the middle classes. At Heriot's the change also closed free schools that taught almost 5,000 children.
• Myth: the hospitals were all reformed by the 1882 Act. The Merchant Company's schools changed in 1870 under an Act of 1869; the 1882 commission dealt with most of the rest.
• Disputed: whether independent schools serve the public good. Under the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 schools that are charities must show public benefit, and views in the Scottish Parliament are sharply divided on whether they are a benefit or a "dis-benefit" to society.