THE FIRST schoolmaster at Rosneath about whom much is known stayed in the job for 50 years.

John Dodds was appointed in 1820 and was still in post when he died in 1870. An account of his service was written by a former pupil called John McEachern.

This continuation of the story of education in Rosneath is thanks to details supplied by local historian and Helensburgh Heritage Trust director Alistair McIntyre.

Born on the island of Mull in 1809, John McEachern and his family moved shortly after his birth to Glen Fruin, as his father was looking for work.

In 1821, they moved to Hill of Camsail, Rosneath, so John and other young family members attended Rosneath School.

He wrote: “Mr Dodds was an excellent teacher of Greek, Latin, French, German, mathematics, navigation, geometry, algebra, bookkeeping, drawing, and indeed all the qualifications necessary for a schoolmaster in any country parish in Scotland.

“He was a young man from the Borders, and taught in the best colleges in Scotland, with the most approved modes of pronunciation, and so on, the parish reaped much improvement by his school.

“He was a man of very civil, attractive manners, who took much pleasure in the improvement of his pupils, and in conjunction with the Rev Robert Story, the Parish minister, whose manse was in sight of the schoolhouse, every kind endeavour was used for the moral and spiritual training of the children.”

In 1830 the McEachern family emigrated to Prince Edward Island, Canada, but John evidently retained very favourable memories of his youthful years at Rosneath. His descendants still live on Prince Edward Island.

A different but equally favourable assessment of John Dodds comes from local historian W.C. Maughan in his 1893 book, “Rosneath Past and Present”.

He wrote: “The late respected Mr John Dodds for fifty years taught the youth of the parish.

“Here assembled not only the sturdy, chubby-faced young children of the farmers and their labourers, but the families of the resident gentry were also glad to enjoy the privilege of the admirable tuition dispensed by Mr Dodds.

“In addition to the ordinary branches of knowledge imparted in the parish schools of Scotland, Mr Dodds taught the higher departments of mathematics, land-surveying and navigation, and gave competent instruction in French.

“Many of his pupils gained distinction in various walks of life, and remembered long, with kindly affection, the thorough grounding in education they acquired at the Rosneath School.

“Mr Dodds filled other posts in connection with the Parish and Church, and for twenty years was kind enough to act as Postmaster, upon inadequate remuneration.

“Dr James Dodds, the esteemed parish minister at Corstorphine, is a son of the worthy old schoolmaster of Rosneath.”

Few, if any, of the pupils would have received instruction in all the subjects he offered.

Relatively few parents would have been able to afford to keep their children at school for more than several years, though for those of special ability, financial support might have come from other quarters.

The Scots have traditionally prided themselves in their view that, while educational opportunity in the old days might have been far from perfect, there was at least a fighting chance that a really able boy – never a girl – of humble birth would be able to proceed to higher education.

Adults could also attend the school. John McEachern records that he returned to spend a winter at Dodds’ school after 1827, when he would have been aged 18 or over.

Indeed, when John lived in Glen Fruin, he mentions that when he first attended Abercrombie’s school there, it was in the company of his uncle, Neil Fletcher, who wished to better his education in arithmetic and book-keeping. Fletcher subsequently moved to Hill of Camsail, where he himself ran a school for a short time before the arrival of John Dodds.

It was in 1835, during the time of John Dodds’ tenure at Rosneath, that a new school was built at the foot of the Clachan. This was the school until the opening of the present building in 1967.

The school of 1835 thereafter served for some years as a community centre, but was then closed, becoming steadily more and more derelict.

Latterly owned by the Co-op, it received a great deal of criticism as an eyesore until its demolition in the last couple of years. It is a pity that a building so long associated with the education of local youth should at the end be regarded as a nuisance.

Another key source of information on the life and times of Rosneath Parish School is the New Statistical Account of Scotland.

As with the Old Statistical Account, this was a parish-by parish account of the whole country, each entry written by the parish minister.

The section dealing with Rosneath Parish was written by the Rev Robert Story, and his report, drawn up in 1839, has much to say about the school.

He wrote: “The different branches of a commercial and classical education are very efficiently taught by the parochial schoolmaster, and every day, the children under his care are instructed in the principles of religion.

“The average attendance may be rated at 70, although in the winter season, upwards of 100 are sometimes at school.

“The school was built a few years ago, a very handsome and commodious structure, superior to any in the county, and reflecting great credit at once upon the liberality and taste of the heritors (landowners).

“The schoolmaster’s house is at a little distance from it, immediately contiguous to the Church, with accommodation much superior to what the statute provides for that class of most deserving men.

“The garden is much less than the legal dimensions, but he enjoys an allowance in lieu of that deficiency.

“The salary he receives is the maximum, with the fees 2/6d for reading, 3/- for writing, and 3/6d for arithmetic, and this may constitute an income of between £70 and £80 per annum.

“The only other school in the parish is at Knockderry. The teacher there has a salary of £35 a year, guaranteed to him by Mr Lorne Campbell, factor to His Grace the Duke of Argyll.

“Although the parents pay at the rate of 5/- per quarter for each child, the fees fall greatly short of the sum guaranteed, from the circumstance of the school commanding pupils from a very limited population, but whose distance from the parish school rendered its erection necessary, the expense of which was solely met by the Duke.

“Although less, it is built upon the same principle as the parochial school-house. Both houses are much more commodious than at present is needful, and it may be considered as anticipating any increase in population for a century to come.

“It may be stated that the people are universally anxious to have their children educated.

“All the natives of the parish, male and female, are taught at least to read and write, and although individuals from time to time are found that can do neither, they are generally natives of Argyll, servants to the different farmers.”

Numbers attending school were higher in winter than in summer. This was the normal state of affairs — in summer, children were expected to assist with labour-intensive work on the farm like hay-making and lifting potatoes.

John Dodds’s successor, William Stewart, also spent a long time in post, serving from 1870 until his retirement in 1905.

By that time, major changes in education were taking place. Just two years after Stewart took up his duties, the landmark Education (Scotland) Act of 1872 was passed.

Also known as Young’s Act, this remains the single most important date in the history of Scottish education, because, for the first time, education became compulsory for those aged between 5 and 13 years.

There were, however, numerous exceptions and provisions for “half-time” attendance.

While education for all now had the force of law behind it, school fees were still chargeable to parents, although at a very moderate level. These were finally abolished in state schools in 1889.

The new legislation brought most schools, including the parish ones, under the state, thus replacing church control. The name changed to Rosneath Public School.

Each school under the new system was now administered by a school board, in this case the School Board of the Parish of Rosneath. But in practice, school administration was not so radically different, at least initially.

Members of school boards had to stand for election, but landowners and ministers, the people most closely involved with school management in the past, often put themselves forward as candidates.

The continuity between old and new was reinforced by William Stewart undertaking the role of clerk to Rosneath Kirk Session, in time-honoured fashion.

Under the system of parish schools, there may have been an element of external supervision, but with the school boards, there were

established formal periodical inspections, a feature continued to this day.

Social changes followed the new regime. Female teachers began to be employed, though normally only as assistant teachers. The only schools where a woman would be in charge would have been either very small, female only, or private.

Female teachers had to be unmarried or perhaps widowed — and any move towards a marital state meant instant dismissal.

Peaton Public School, which came into being in the wake of the 1872 Act and lasted until the early 1920s, was mostly conducted by a lady teacher.

Other changes were sweeping across the country. The coming of the steamboat to the Clyde in 1812, and the later arrival of the railway, had made it much easier than before for people to move around.

At the same time, the rapid urbanisation of the central belt, and the emergence of a new class of well-off business and professional people, led to a growing demand around the Clyde coast for plots of land on which to build villas.

Another potent factor was the realisation by landowners that here was an opportunity to raise much-needed revenue to support their own plans and ambitions.

Feuing of land for house-building at prime coastal locations was the outcome.

It began at Barremman in 1825, at Rhu in 1831, at Garelochhead in 1832, and at Shandon in 1834.

It was probably inevitable that feuing should also begin on the Duke of Argyll’s Rosneath Estate, which occupied the whole Peninsula, apart from the smaller estates of Peaton and Barremman.

It could be argued there was greater incentive here, thanks to the legacy of the profligate lifestyle of George Campbell, Marquis of Lorne, later the sixth Duke of Argyll.

He died in 1839, but his extravagance meant that Rosneath and other family estates remained in a perilous position for many years afterwards. Rosneath Estate was even put on the market in 1870 and 1873, but did not sell.

Feuing at Cove and Kilcreggan began in the 1840s, and before long, a line of fine villas and mansions stretched for miles along the shores of Loch Long, enabling it to become a police burgh in 1865, and boast its own school in the next two years.

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