Series 4 > Miscellany of the Scottish History Society

128
MISCELLANY X
tion of a school in the remaining parish, Ecclesmachan, does not occur
until 1698;1 but since the presbytery busied itself in 1693 and 1696 in
licensing schoolmasters as qualified to teach grammar schools and in
expressing the hope that they would soon find employment,2 we must
suspect that Ecclesmachan also supported a Latin master prior to the
1696 act.
To sum up, then, for the Lothians: out of the total of 65 parishes
under review no fewer than 49, and probably 50, had grammar schools;
and 61 (if not indeed 64) maintained parochial schools of some kind.
Fife in 1690 seems to have been divided into 60 parishes. The
sheriff’s list, together with the list of those schoolmasters who com¬
peared before the St Andrews sub-committee, indicates that 37 of
them were supplied with schoolmasters who could teach Latin. To
these we can add grammar schools in ten burgh-parishes which are
not mentioned in the visitation papers: Culross, Dunfermline, Inver-
keithing, Burntisland, Kinghorn, Kirkcaldy, Dysart, Pittenweem and
Anstruther Wester and Easter.3 In addition, graduate masters appear
to have been employed in the 1690s in Saline, Abdie and Flisk, al¬
though only the Saline master was certainly in his appointment before
1696.4 Thus, in all, at least 48 and possibly 50 of the Fife parishes sup¬
ported grammar schools during the period 1690-6. Beale’s researches
also provide evidence for schools of some kind at this time in Carnock,
Ballingry, Monimail, Dairsie and Forgan;5 and the present writer can
add Cameron and Dunino to their number.6 Only for Cults, Kilmany
1 A presbyterial visitation on 25 May 1698 found ‘one [blank] Purdy schoolmaster and
James Purdy his son precentor’.
2 Linlithgow Presb. Mins., 9 November 1693; 16 September 1696; also 14 April 1697.
8 See Beale, op. cit., 156-201 and app. 1.
4 Ibid., app. 1. Mr James Robertson was dismissed from the Saline appointment on
11 December 1695. Mr Patrick Laing who taught in the Abdie school was described
as ‘ane old man’ in 1701 and 1702 and may well have been there for many years
previously. Mr George Davidson was established as the Flisk schoolmaster by 27
December 1699.
5 Ibid., app. 1.
6 Cameron K.S. Mins., 7 July 1695 (appointment of Thomas Ferny). An entry at
28 July 1695 reports that on 11 September 1659 ‘ane William Couch became school¬
master and precenter for quich he got [? 5 lib.] a year. 3 November 1661 Couch
removed from the parish and James Pakston was appointed to use the offices both of
precenter and bethell for quich he got all the kirk dues untill . . . 1690. After Mr
Alexander Wilson’s return to the paroch Thomas Bonally was made precenter and
clerk to the session.’ Dunino K.S. Mins., 28 July 1672; 26 November 1682; 17 June
1683; 30 August 1685; 28 February 1686; 28 August 1687; 14 August 1692. William