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Hamilton Academy

Hamilton Academy was a boarding and day school in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland. It was founded in 1588 as a boys' school and was open for nearly four centuries. In the late 19th century, the school began admitting girls.

The school was described as "one of the finest schools in Scotland" in the Cambridge University Press County Biography of 1910, and was featured in a 1950 Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association magazine article series on Famous Scottish Schools.

Having joined the state sector, the school closed in 1972, as a result of the coming of comprehensive schools in Lanarkshire. It was replaced by the new Hamilton Grammar School, which took over its site and most of its pupils and staff.

No longer existing as an independent institution, Hamilton Academy had a history going back to 1588 when it was endowed by The 1st Marquess of Hamilton (c. 1535-1604), an extremely powerful Scottish nobleman.

The school, then known as the Old Grammar School of Hamilton (not to be confused with the present Hamilton Grammar School), stood near the churchyard adjoining Hamilton Palace until, in 1714, Anne, 3rd Duchess of Hamilton, great-granddaughter of the founder, re-located the school to a new building on the newly named Grammar School Square also in the lower part of the town, and presented this to the Town Council of Hamilton. The Statistical Account of Lanarkshire of 1835 notes of this school building that it "is a venerable pile, near the centre of the town, containing a long wainscotted hall, emblazoned with the names of former scholars, cut out in the wood, as at Harrow."

In 1847 this old school building on Grammar School Square was sold for £253 (about £23,000 now) and survived until its demolition in 1932. A plaque commemorating the site of the Old Grammar School of Hamilton (which was renamed Hamilton Academy in 1848) was commissioned by pupils of Hamilton Academy and unveiled by the academy's rector, David Anderson MC, on 21 March 1932 at a public ceremony in the presence of academy pupils and teaching staff; the provost and members of the town council, and members of Hamilton Civic Society.

The town council were sole managers of the school until, in 1848, the school (having been renamed The 'Hamilton Academy') re-located again, to larger premises on the town's Hope Street, with Rector's residence and accommodation for boarders, built by the heritors of the Parish of Hamilton, the town council and subscribers, the school then coming under the management of a Directorate chosen of these three parties. The Report on Schools in Scotland, 1868, notes that Hamilton Academy was unusual in this respect, being "a parochial, burgh and a proprietary school combined." In 1866 the Subscribers passed their interest over to the town council who, along with the heritors, managed the school until in 1872 management was transferred to the newly elected School Board of the Burgh of Hamilton under the terms of the Education (Scotland) Act 1872, under the terms of which Act the school was also confirmed (1876) as being a 'higher-class school.'

By 1900 the school had not only outgrown the Hope Street building, but the building was also subsiding. Robert Gibson MP recalled during a House of Commons debate (November 1939) that during his time at Hamilton Academy (1890s), the junior department had had to be evacuated due to rapid subsidence of that part of the Hope Street building. The school was therefore re-located to temporary accommodation in a building newly erected by the school board as 'Woodside School', until such time as the question of the academy's increasing requirements could be addressed. The school's old site on Hope Street being considered too small, a site for a new Hamilton Academy building was secured on Auchincampbell Road.

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