The Town School: A History of the High School of Glasgow

The High School of Glasgow has a long and distinguished history. Its origins in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as the Sang School and Grammar School are obscure, but it considerably predates the University of Glasgow founded in the mid-fifteenth century. As early as 1600 the Glasgow Town Council proclaimed its pride in their burgh school, and its building in Grammar School Wynd was rebuilt. In the centuries which followed, the Grammar School played a central part in the education of Glasgow's most prominent citizens, including two twentieth-century Prime Ministers: Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Andrew Bonar Law. They attended the School post-1834 when the School's curriculum was broadened to cater for the growing commercial nature of the town and its name became The High School of Glasgow. In 1878 the School moved to Elmbank Street into accommodation fit for the leading school in Glasgow, and the City Fathers then founded a parallel institution for girls at Garnethill. As fee-paying, selective schools they dominated the Corporation sector until the dramatic events of the 1970s when The High School of Glasgow was closed and The Glasgow High School for Girls was converted into a local comprehensive. This book charts the history of these schools and the story of how a new co-educational independent High School was opened on the playing fields of Old Anniesland and, within a generation, it has become one of the top schools in Scotland.