The Edinburgh History of Education in Scotland by Anderson Robert;Freeman Mark;Paterson Lindsay;

Author:Anderson, Robert;Freeman, Mark;Paterson, Lindsay;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

School Board Membership

The composition of the boards reflected the local social hierarchy. The majority were middle class, though in some rural areas the board might be chaired by the local laird or his agent. In 1873, Lord Lovat was elected to two boards, Kilmorack and Kiltarlity, on his estate in Inverness-shire, the first of which he chaired for two consecutive terms and the second for five until his death in 1887. Factors to the Earl of Cawdor chaired the Nairn and Ardersier boards. More commonly, the chairman was a minister either of the Established or Free Church, a businessman, professional or farmer.

According to Robert Anderson, in the first elections in 1873 a quarter of the successful candidates were ministers of religion, though these were more influential in the east of the country while businessmen were more to the fore in the west.10 For example, the first Aberdeen school board consisted of six members of the Free Church, five of the Established Church, one Catholic and one Episcopalian. The first Glasgow election returned five businessmen, seven clerics (two Church of Scotland, two Free Church, one Latter Day Saints, two Catholic priests), one Unitarian on a secularist platform and an anti-Catholic missionary. However, all the businessmen were deeply religious philanthropists. For example, Michael Connal, a merchant prominent in the tea and tobacco trade, was a member of the Free Church of Scotland. Active in educational philanthropy long before 1872, he founded a Bible institute in which he taught for nearly four decades, and from 1873 until his death twenty years later served on the Glasgow school board which he chaired for three terms (1876–82). Whereas many members served only one or two terms, a significant number sat on between three and eight boards. A few served even longer: William Mitchell in Glasgow was first elected in 1873, winning a seat on each successive board until he retired in 1905; similarly, Flora Stevenson in Edinburgh also won eleven consecutive elections, serving until her death in 1905.

Since Scotland did not have a government separate from Westminster, local politics played the biggest part in the lives of most people and local newspaper reports of board elections reveal that campaigns were often lively affairs. They also show that smaller boards were sometimes returned without a contest: for example, the Kells board, Kirkcudbright, between 1889 and 1909. Membership across Scotland was remarkably stable in social and political terms though at the turn of the century it broadened to a limited degree with the election of Labour candidates, more so in industrial regions and mostly male but with some women, such as Clarice McNab on the Leith board in 1912. She had taught music and by the turn of the century a few retired teachers were standing for the boards. For example, the Educational News (13 May 1903) reported that an EIS fellow, Miss J. Stuart Airlie, had been elected to the Paisley board after a long career in teaching (ill-health, however, prevented her from serving).

One factor in

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