“I have very happy memories of my time at Scarinish School with the very kind Miss Flora Nisbet. The playground language was English but I think Gaelic was spoken in some of the other school playgrounds. The school had no water so there were Elsans in the huts at the back. Mary Macfadyen known as Mary Cladach, who used to live in one of the houses by the hotel, was the school caretaker and used to lug the Elsans to be emptied in the sea. The school hasd a dreadful stove which smoked very badly and some days we couldn’t go in to school for an hour or more as the smoke was so dense and the classroom was always a bit smoky. School times were flexible and Miss Nisbet was always kind to people who came in very late although she may have spoken to their parents about it. On pleasant days we would spend a lot of time outside practising for the sports and Scarinish won the sports shield on a number of occasions when I was there. Our rivals at that time were Heylipol. We played rounders, skipping and group games like Cockaroustie (a less boisterous British Bulldog) or ones in the shelter on wet days. I don’t think anyone played football and I wonder if anyone owned a football. We used to collect pails of water from the pump which everyone wanted to do. I think there was a toilet and water in the empty school house as the teacher would go in there at lunchtime. Miss Nisbet had very poor health so we had a few relief teachers including my mother, which I found very embarrassing. School dinners were cooked by Margaret Mackinnon, Braeside/Ternfell and brought in at lunchtime.” by the donor of this photograph and others in this collection at 2025.53 Isabel Beaton.
Digitised copy of a Report from Heylipol Public School for the winter months, February 1883. The report was written for the Duke of Argyll by J McFarlane and is divided into observations on ‘attendance’, ‘progress’, ‘general’ and ‘state of the island’ and contains remarks on: attendance for December 1882 to February 1883; the affect of weather on attendance; subjects taught and standards; appointment of compulsory officers; comments on parents and their attitudes to education; and teachers. McFarlane also discusses unrest in the island (the ‘wild & extravagant ideas that originally started in Ireland’ and the ‘circulation of pernicious & revolutionary literature’) and refers to a petition signed by crofters in the west end. He recounts a conversation with a man named Donald, a crofter in Balevullin, and also refers to the consequences of inadequate farming techniques.
Digitised copy of a letter from John G Campbell to the Duke of Argyll, 8 May 1865. Campbell sends a report on the state of Tiree schools; the increasing number of scholars in Kirkapol; the need for a stand for children’s plaids and shawls in wet weather; bringing the school under government inspection; attendance at Balephuil; remarks on the teacher at Balephuil; remarks on Mr McCowan at Balevullin; declining attendance at Free Church schools; presentation of prizes by Mr Geekie; aversion to emigration and comments on the reasons for this.
Attached is a table entitled ‘Schools in the Island of Tiree Examined March 1865’ containing data for Kirkapol, Heylipol, Balevullin, Balephuil, and Cornaig. Contains figures for: the number attending; number present at examination; number on the roll studying reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, geography, Latin, Greek, geometry and mathematics, algebra, book-keeping.
From the archives of the Dukes of Argyll at Inveraray Castle, made available through the Written in the Landscape project.
Digitised copy of a letter from John G Campbell to the Duke of Argyll, dated 17 September 1864. Campbell discusses school prizes offered by the Duke, and the winners of the prizes; details of the examination held at Moss Church, attended by Mr Geekie, Dr Buchanan and Mr John McLean (Cornaig); problems with teachers, including those at Sandaig and Heylipol, and the difficulty in getting new teachers; the need to improve the school house at Heylipol; lack of schooling provision in the west end of the island; closure of the assembly school in Balevullin; difficulties with the Crois teacher (‘a mere boy & a teacher only in name’) and the lack of schooling over the winter in that part of the island; the achievements of John McLean (Cornaig) at College in Glasgow.
From the archives of the Dukes of Argyll at Inveraray Castle, made available through the Written in the Landscape project.
Transcript of a Police Report submitted to Tobermory Procurator Fiscal by John MacDougall (Constable) charging Archibald MacLean and four others with Breach of Peace and Malicious Mischief in December 1877. Archibald MacLean (son of Donald MacLean, Balinoe), George Campbell (son of John Campbell, Balinoe), Colin MacArthur (son of Isabella Campbell or MacArthur, Balinoe), John Campbell (son of Alexander Campbell, Balinoe), Roderick MacKinnon (son of Christina MacDonald, Balemartine) are accused of vandalising the garden and house of the schoolteacher, John MacFarlane, in Heylipol.
Statements are provided by Donald Paterson (son of Alexander Paterson, Balinoe), Niel Campbell (apprentice joiner and nephew of Archibald MacFadyen, Barrapol) and Mary MacFarlane (daughter of John MacFarlane, Heylipol).
Digitised Copy letter from Captain Archibald Campbell, secretary to the Duke of Argyll, to Malcolm McLaurine, chamberlain of Tiree, 8 Apr 1803. Campbell discusses: plans surrounding the division of the island into four mail lands; emigration; selecting ‘quiet and industrious’ tenants for joint occupancy of the mail lands; mills; postponing building of the schoolhouses.
Digitised copy of Letter from Malcolm McLaurine, chamberlain of Tiree, to the Duke of Argyll, 10 Mar 1802. In this letter McLaurine discusses: timber claimed but not proved; sending a sample of wine from a cask lying in a barn; rents due; distilling; barley and coals; Clyde Packet; the island being cut off due to stormy weather; opening a weekly communication with the post office at Tobermory; the ground officer; methods to find a good school master; model of a wind miln [windmill]; poor enclosure on McLaurine’s farm.
